In Spring, Seniors can experience “Senioritis”, needing more effort to complete everyday homework, while coping with anxiety of waiting for college responses. In some cases, such a lack of motivation can lead to strategic missteps, from which the consequences can be destructive, especially for college admissions. All college acceptances are conditional or provisional. Often, one…
Updated March 11, 2023 As of March 1, 2023, Columbia University admissions officers declared a permanent test-optional admissions policy for all first year applicants, starting with the Fall 2024 cycle. We have designed our application to afford the greatest possible opportunity and flexibility for students to represent themselves fully and showcase their academic talents, interests…
Students generally need to study two years of the same Language Other Than English (LOTE) in order to meet minimum college admissions eligibility standards. (The caveat is some colleges, like MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, do not require LOTE courses for admissions eligibility.) So, families should check eligibility requirements for first year admissions at a…
Students often ask, “How many AP’s (Advanced Placement), IB’s (International Baccalaureate), Honors, and Dual Enrollment (taking community college courses while in high school) courses should I take?” with the “…so I can be accepted into a college of my choice” left unstated. In asking, families mistakenly prioritize competitiveness for college admissions over the interests and…
With self-reflection in conjunction with thorough research of each college, families can conscientiously select a campus where a student is most likely to discover even more about their aptitude as well as fits the budget of the family, reducing the risk of malinvestment. First, students should reflect on their ideal college experience, both socially and academically,…
In the seeming neverending quest for college admissions, Juniors (and parents) fret over taking or not taking the SAT or ACT, wondering if the test score (or absence of) will be a strategic blunder, as in the reason for being denied admissions. However, with guidance, students and their families can reason a choice without reducing…
Parents and students are often confused about how to choose a summer program, especially when a simple Google search merits hundreds of choices. Yet, with reflection, focused on the student’s needs, families can choose more effectively. First, students can develop their own projects, recruiting mentors to explore their interests, all from home, saving money, while…
In the next few weeks, students who applied early admissions, both Early Action and Early Decision, will be: Admitted, Denied, or Deferred to the Regular Decision pool. Yet, in Teenager the three admissions responses (respectively) translate to: Validated (or Vindicated), Rejected and In-Between rejected but not a rejection. For students (and sometimes parents), the admissions…
The short answer is, “Yes, one can always clarify their sentences to more accurately reflect the meaning intended, all in the quest to be understood by the admissions officer.” Students can use the definition of “to edit” as a guide when considering any changes: Yet, to “prepare (an autobiographical college essay) for [re]publication”, students must…
To borrow the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate…” any student’s choice to share their personal COVID-colored experiences. In an informal query of admissions officers around the United States from highly selective to not-so-selective universities, the consensus is be judicious, if choosing to share a COVID-related experience. Most admissions officers advise students…
For those of you applying to the University of California (UC), completing the Activities & Awards section can require several hours of brainstorming, drafting and editing, over multiple drafts. Thus, many teens will postpone drafting the detailed descriptions or conversely they may focus on drafting the descriptions, postponing their essay writing. To balance the work…
Serving others, suppressing our innate self-centered human tendency, can be a valuable lesson in generosity, the equanimity of humanity, and even in reverse, a confidence in oneself as a valuable member of society. In the race for the most elite college admissions, often many students have added (or been compelled by assignment and the chase…
Teenagers must write their autobiography as a requirement for college applications, which is a complicated task. Writing one’s life story requires reflecting on intricate, existential questions, like “Who am I?” and “What’s my purpose in life?” And, most teens quickly recognize they have little self-awareness, just the first in a series of writer’s blocks. However,…
Twas days before the first Early Admissions deadline Students are furiously typing, their parents fretting Online applications half completed Teenagers rationalizing the form “won’t take that long to complete” Yet, their parents hover, murmuring about “crashed servers”, Admonishing not to submit at the “last minute”, literally 11:59 pm On the deadline day Still visions of…
Teenagers are often inexperienced in self-reflection, thus lacking awareness about the meaning of their young lives, as well as confidence to assert what they do know about themselves. Thus, in college essays, many obscure awareness in metaphor, which not only exposes their lack of confidence, but also forces the admissions evaluator to infer (at best),…
