College essays that add value to the application explain the meaning of the applicant’s life experiences and give insight to the applicant’s personality. Being able to craft that content, while in the middle of the fall semester of Senior year, and fit their 17 years of life into 500 words or less can be a…
Tag: Stress
Embrace, Don’t Shun Worry and Stress; a Normal Part of Living
We spend our lives–first, learning and then, embracing–the idea that stress and worry should be avoided, denied, and minimized, but seldom understood. Art shares his view on worry and stress with a high school junior client and their family, as well as how one can work with stress and worry to become stronger, not weaker…
“College Admissions Speculation”: Let the Comparisons Begin
Every Senior and his/her parents want to know, “Which college is going to accept me and which college is going to deny me?”—for although, the Senior and their parents, say out loud that college is about getting a good job, moving away from home etc, a college acceptance or denial also can feel—internally—like a validation…
College Application Deadlines Making You Want to Scream?
Surviving the college application can test the patience and self-interests and emotional stamina and gumption and understanding and willingness of parents, as much as the Senior. Sometimes, of everyone in the family all at once. As a result, parents may find themselves thinking up choice names for Senior teachers over the past month and into December, as…
Things NOT to Say to (Or Do And Expect From) A High School Senior During the Holiday Break
Many seniors are in the midst of applying to college. What that may mean to an outsider is an opportunity to enter into a conversation, small talk or a polite (i.e. socially acceptable) inquiry; however, “So where are you applying to college?” may unwittingly trigger a frustrated response or terse answer. (Seniors often tell us that they…
College Selection and Financial Aid in the Age of Rising College Tuition: Part Two
We continue our series on college selection and financial aid, by discussing the clash between the demand–and even right to attend college–and the dawning reality that rising tuitions (at a rate greater than inflation), alongside average student debt increasing at an unsustainable rate, are beginning to price some deserving candidates out of the college marketplace.…
Summer and the College Essay
Every summer, several parents of soon-to-be seniors contact Creative Marbles to ask about finishing college application essays before the next school year starts. In parents’ minds, the thinking goes, “Summer’s a totally unstructured time. Less distractions with school work and after-school activities. The college essay is essential to a competitive application, and I want my…
Prudent fiscal planning is essential in today’s economically turbulent world (Part 1)
As you sit down to contemplate your budget, and wonder how you will afford to pay for on-going, future educational related expenses, it might be worth your while to take a wider view of your situation from say 30,000 feet. If you where to get airborne and climb to this elevation, this is what you…