In response to a reported case of COVID-19, K-12 school administrators and teachers in one California district must navigate the myriad, interlocking actions as outlined below: While everything works in theory, when created in a vacuum, the theory may be less useful in practice. One teacher shared that their school nurses, working in conjunction with…
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is the latest university admissions office to extend their application deadlines for Fall 2021 admissions. Other colleges, including the 23 California State Universities (CSU), the nine University of California (UC) campuses, as well as the University of Texas Austin and Texas A & M have all already extended their application…
Admissions officers at three different University of California campuses—Santa Cruz, Merced and Riverside—will continue to accept first year and transfer applications for Fall 2021 admissions through December 15, 2021 at 11:59 pm PST. For more information about how Creative Marbles Consultancy can help students and parents navigate through the complex college application and essay drafting…
Ellie, a high school senior, wrote the following reflection for one of her college essays: In life, I have just been going through the motions, never stopping to pause and contemplate or observe anything. I chased happiness, but once I finally held contentment in my grasp, it quickly slipped through my fingers and the chase…
Updated: November 29, 2020 at 10:53 pm The University of California has extended the application deadline to December 4, 2020 at 11:59 pm PST in response to the slowed servers earlier on November 29, 2020. Currently, University of California (UC) applicants see the message “System Offline” when trying to access their applications online. In conversation…
Typically, in the few days before a college application deadline, both applicants and their parents are wondering: Adding to their stress, students wildly speculate that their efforts to complete their applications will merit them the following response: Anticipating the worst case scenario of a denied admissions, in the midst of crafting their quintessential life’s story,…
The sentiments of a current second-year college student attending a public flagship university in California when reflecting on the perils of the academic meritocracy: Rewarding/punishing requires less effort [by faculty and students] though, making it the easier default [system for measuring academic performance]. Assigning expectations, whether positive or negative, is a low-effort path that leads…
Why copy editing matters… Also, when a comma can make the difference between family time and doin’ time… Let’s eat Mom! And, why Mom told me not to submit my assignments at the last minute: And when there is no delete key and white out won’t help: And, for once, your mom won’t kill you…
So, said Warren Buffet, net worth $86 billion. Tuition can be a measurement of value, as in, “What’s the value of the education for the number of dollars exchanged?” When families question the “affordability” of a particular college, as in, “Do I have enough money to pay for X College?”, they’re in essence determining the value…
For those students who worry about distinguishing themselves in their college applications, especially as they draft their essays, need to watch the following clip with Yakko, Wakko, and Dot: No need to ask Google for a list of “good” college essays. Those are other people’s stories, and while their autobiography may rhyme, “There’s only one…
March 13, 2020 is Gen Z’s “Day of Infamy”, when K-12 school campuses closed due to COVID-related health risks, sequestering an entire generation of youth in the midst of their coming of age. Amidst the sudden, and now ever-extending health emergency, precipitating continued distance learning and canceled extracurricular activities, the emotional toll on teens only…
Increasing emergency unemployment claims seems to indicate more people have lost their jobs, yet decreasing continuing jobless claims could mean those unemployed are now employed or failed to get a job, thus are or at risk of being permanently unemployed (or those no longer looking for work.) Translation: we either have at best a bifurcated…
Adults often minimize the mental health of teenagers as “They’re young, they’ll get over it.” Yet, not every youth (or adult) can cope with life’s inevitable difficulties to the same degree. Even pre-COVID, the young, age 10-24 years old, were committing suicide at greater rates in nearly every state in the US. Since teenagers’ mental…
For Fall 2021, 1575 colleges, nearly two-thirds of all U.S. universities are test optional (no SAT or ACT scores are required for admissions, but students can choose to submit scores) or test blind (no SAT or ACT scores will be considered, nor requested as part of the admissions evaluation), according to FairTest. Since nearly two-thirds…
According to Bloomberg News: The Conference Board index, monitored by analysts as a signal of future consumer spending, dropped in October to 125.9 for a third-straight decline. Bloomberg, October 27, 2020 Furthermore, waning consumer confidence can also indicate a lack of confidence in the labor market, in other words, consumers may be spending less in…