Weekly Update: April 16

Finally, a full week of school for all the Fairfax County parents out there! 👏👏👏

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

HARVARD & CALTECH WILL REQUIRE TEST SCORES 

On Thursday, both Harvard and Caltech announced they will reinstitute standardized testing as a requirement for admission. Test-optional policies were instituted with the intent to help low-income students; however, as we have mentioned before, a new study by Opportunity Insights found that test scores help admissions officers identify highly talented students from low-income groups who would have otherwise gone unnoticed. Harvard and Caltech join a growing number of schools that have reversed their test-optional policies, including Brown, Yale, Darthmouth, MIT, Georgetown, Purdue and University of Texas at Austin. If you ask me, the timeline in which these changes have been announced seems a little unfair. Most of our juniors have had their testing plans in place for 9-12 months already, and it’s a little late for schools to be pivoting like this. At this point, we recommend that all students applying to highly selective schools should operate as if they will need test scores for next year.

PRIVATE EQUITY IS TAKING OVER THE WORLD, COLLEGE ADMISSIONS EDITION

When I first read this article, I thought it was a late April Fool’s joke - but it wasn’t! ACT, Inc., the company behind the ACT, announced last Wednesday that it is shifting from a non-profit to a for-profit company. The new company will be majority-owned by Nexus Capital Management, a Los Angeles-based private equity investment firm. This comes after years of struggling to break even. The non-profit reported a net loss of $12 million and a 44% decrease in assets at the end of the 2022 fiscal year. At the height of the pandemic in 2020, it reported a net loss of $60.5 million. The new for-profit is describing itself as a “public benefit” corporation.” It will not have tax-exempt status, but its board is supposed to take the public good, as well as shareholders’ interests, into account.

What does this mean for families? No one really knows quite yet, but in the meantime, test pricing will NOT change as a result of the new partnership. Currently, ACT costs $93 with the writing portion of the test, and $68 without. This includes the option to send the test score to four colleges, but we recommend that students wait to see all of their scores before making the decision about which scores to send where.

CAITLIN CLARK: “THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER 22”

University of Iowa announced last week that they are retiring Clark’s No. 22, the number she wore in her four years with the Hawkeyes. No women’s basketball player at Iowa will ever wear a jersey with that number; it will always belong to Clark. “There will never be another 22,” the team wrote on social media. I’m not crying, you’re crying!

To add to the excitement, Clark was named the #1 WNBA draft pick yesterday and selected by the Indiana Fever! We’re excited to watch her career play out.

BIDEN AUTHORIZES ANOTHER ROUND OF DEBT FORGIVENESS 

The Biden Administration stated last Friday that it will cancel an additional $7.4 billion in student debt, coming to a total of $153 billion in student loan forgiveness from the administration. Biden’s income-driven repayment plan, known as SAVE (Saving on Valuable Education), will erase student debt after 10 years of payments, compared with the 20-plus years in other existing plans. It will also wipe away the accrued interest for loan balances that are bigger than the amounts that were initially borrowed. Republicans have criticized the program, and assert that Biden is circumventing the Supreme Court, which struck down another version of it last year. They also argue that it is unfair to transfer the cost of repaying these loans to American taxpayers who chose not to go to college or worked to pay for it themselves. With the November elections approaching, this national conversation is just heating up.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

As I mentioned in last week’s update, the cost of college education has risen to $95K at some elite colleges. A Bloomberg piece suggested that students who are not accepted to Ivy League schools are better off considering public flagship universities, rather than enrolling in the next-most prestigious school that accepted them. Public schools can be a much better investment than one of the private, elite “Hidden Ivies.”

Their study of more than 1,500 non-profit colleges found that the return on investment (ROI) at many of these elite, private institutions is 9% less than the ROI at the states’ public flagships. Those who paid less by attending a public school had an advantage when it came to building wealth by saving for a house or retirement. Some experts pointed out, however, that success should not only be considered in terms of dollars and cents.

Looking for insight into your brooding or anxious teenager’s mind?  A new documentary called “The Teen Brain” came out yesterday. It’s a ten minute video, and may be worth watching! Top neuroscientists and a slew of teenagers were consulted for the project, which shares medical reasons that explain why teens feel and experience emotions more deeply compared to adults.  Experts said the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes emotions, becomes sensitive and grows in size during adolescence. This documentary comes at a time that teens in particular are facing a mental health crisis, CDC data shows. Last year, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory warning of an urgent public health issue regarding social media usage and youth mental health.

FAFSA has done it again! Just when we thought that colleges could finally start putting together aid packages for students, schools are reporting major errors in the tax information that was automatically populated in the FAFSA form. The Education Department has at last processed and released FAFSA forms to colleges, but they are fraught with mistakes, leading financial aid offices to distrust the data and to manually correct the information themselves. 

For example, some fields in the forms processed by the Department were blank, had the wrong codes, imported incorrect or partial tax data from the IRS, or incorrectly calculated the students’ eligibility for federal grants. Some of these errors will require the applicants themselves to correct them. Many institutions have pushed back their May 1 enrollment deadline to help students.  Some institutions like University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are being even more flexible, and will allow students to decide once they know their financial situation. My guess is that we will see a lot of waitlist movement this summer as a result of these extended deadlines.

And lastly - I almost didn’t post this, but this New York Times piece entitled The Troubling Trend in Teenage Sex is one of the most disturbing and shocking articles I have ever read (and this is coming from someone who has curated articles relating to adolescents every single week for years!). It was almost unbelievable.

I decided to go ahead and post it because of the seriousness of the issue, and I really do think all parents should make time to discuss it with their high school and college-age children. I sent the link to some girlfriends yesterday, and one of them responded: “each line in this article gets more and more crazy.” That was my exact reaction, too. I was stunned by the percentages quoted, and by the time I got to the brain damage part I was in absolute disbelief. At the end of the day, kids need to be educated about the long-term impact of the choices they are making - and my guess is that most of them simply have no idea.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We are having a blast helping our seniors navigate through their acceptances to make their final college choices - this is the hardest part of the process in many ways, but definitely the most fun!

In the meantime, our juniors have been BUSY! We are in our second week of spring check-in meetings and they are all hard at work on their essays. A few are nearly finished at this point! It’s so amazing to cross that major milestone off the list early - not only does it get the actual work out of the way, it leaves them with a well-deserved feeling of accomplishment and motivates them to continue making headway in the application process.

Have a great week!

Weekly Update: February 27

Happy Tuesday!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

ATHENS COMMUNITY SHAKEN AFTER UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA AND AUGUSTA UNIVERSITY STUDENT DEATHS

Two tragedies occurred over the past week in Athens, Georgia. On Wednesday, a UGA freshman died by suicide in his dorm room. The following day, a former UGA student who had transferred to Augusta University’s College of Nursing (also in Athens) was murdered while out for a morning jog. Fortunately, a suspect is in custody. It’s incredible to think about how this poor girl was attacked while just getting some exercise in broad daylight. Our thoughts and prayers are with these students’ families, friends, and the entire Athens community.

YALE UNIVERSITY REVERSES COURSE TO BEGIN REQUIRING STANDARDIZED TEST SCORES AGAIN

Yale announced the results of an internal study which demonstrated that standardized test scores are the best predictor of undergraduate student success on their campus. More importantly, these results have led Yale to join Dartmouth in requiring SAT or ACT scores during the upcoming application cycle.

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN ADOPTS NEW TEST-OPTIONAL POLICY

Just as Yale decided to pivot back to test scores, University of Michigan formally adopted a test-optional policy that replaces their previous test-flexible policy. If you can’t keep these policies straight, you aren’t alone! The main difference seems to be that the test-flexible policy offered candidates the chance to substitute their AP or IB scores for SAT or ACT scores, if they chose to do so. Now, their AP or IB scores will be evaluated separately from their choice to apply with (or without) SAT or ACT scores. Half of the internet seemed to get this wrong - and understandably so, given how confusing the shift is. Many online posts incorrectly announced that Michigan was not going to consider AP or IB scores at all anymore. This is a good reminder to always confirm policy changes directly with the school!

SYRACUSE INCORPORATES MENTAL HEALTH INITIATIVE INTO BUSINESS CURRICULUM

Kudos to Syracuse for recognizing the importance of teaching future business professionals about the importance of mental health and wellness. As part of the Nass Mental Health Initiative, undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the Whitman School of Management will now be better equipped to handle the challenges associated with their future careers. Through coursework, guest speakers, special seminars and more, students will learn to use tools to help manage stressors and also learn when to seek help.

“COURT STORMING” THRUST IN THE SPOTLIGHT AFTER DUKE PLAYER INJURED

Immediately after Duke’s surprising loss to Wake Forest this past weekend, player Kyle Filipowski was injured by enthusiastic Demon Deacon fans storming the court. As everyone watching the game on television saw, Duke coach Jon Scheyer was absolutely furious and has since called for the ACC to ban the practice. Wake coach Steve Forbes agrees, and has shared his own concerns about player safety.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

So you know that NIL stands for “name, image, and likeness.” But what exactly does that mean in real-world terms? What’s the relevance? Why does everybody care so much? Whether you’re NIL-savvy or have never even heard the acronym before, check out this Washington Post article for a deep dive into all things NIL. As a word of caution, you might end up just as confused by the end of the piece as you were at the start - but maybe that’s the point?

Back in November, we wrote about the extent of the financial mismanagement at the University of Arizona. The New York Times has now explored the full impact of the situation, as well as the potential effects on various stakeholders. The article also delves into the long-term impacts felt by the greater community in the city of Tucson.

Lawmakers in the state of Massachusetts are pushing for a potential change to higher ed taxation that is both very significant and could set precedent for the rest of the country. In “Ending The Ivy League’s Tax Dodge,” The Lever provides background into a situation that has mostly flown under the radar of mainstream media so far. As the piece details, private colleges and universities don’t have to pay state or federal income taxes right now. This allows their endowments to build at a rapid rate, which in turn allows them to “give back” by providing generous financial aid packages, and in some cases, by conducting research.

But is this fair, when many of these schools have acceptance rates so low that the general population does not resasonably have any chance of benefiting from the financial aid packages? Or would the general population benefit more from simply taxing these schools on the value of their endowments? That’s what the state’s House Committee on Revenue will need to decide by April 30. A proposed bill hopes to levy a 2.5% annual tax on university endowments larger than $1 billion (on the full amount of the endowment, not just the income it generates).

The tax would then be allocated towards a fund called the Educational Opportunity for All Trust Fund, which would be used “exclusively for the purposes of subsidizing the cost of higher education, early education and child care for lower-income and middle-class residents of the commonwealth.” I can see both sides, but one thing is for sure: the outcome has the potential to have major long-term implications for financial aid at private colleges and universities nationwide.

Speaking of policy shift implications, The Dartmouth provided its readers with an inside look at some of the aftermath of the recent campus-level policy shift that reinstated the standardized testing requirement. Campus safety officers were present at a “tense” meeting between 50-70 students and President Sian Beilock, during which the students discussed their (negative) reactions to the recent decision. However, it is important to note that this group of students does not necessarily represent the entire 4,500 student body.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Where oh where are the Common Application ® essay prompts? We have now passed last year’s record-breaking late essay release date and our juniors are ready to get started! Some communication from the Common Application ® organization as to what to expect moving forward would be appreciated 😊

In other news, I’m continuing our first round of winter check-in meetings with juniors and helping them finalize some of their upcoming college visits. Virginia public school students have an upcoming day off on March 5 as a result of the presidential primary, and this is a great time for a college visit. After all, there are relatively few opportunities to see colleges in session without having to miss school!

One of the other topics we discuss at these check-in meetings is standardized testing progress, and we got some frustrating news last week - one of the high schools that a lot of our students attend has a prom date conflict with the April ACT. I absolutely hate when this happens (we see it more often with the May SAT), and it’s a great reminder for all students to look up the dates of any special end-of-year events in advance to check for standardized testing conflicts. Remember that there’s the April ACT, May SAT, May AP exams, the June SAT, and the June ACT!

Have a great week - fingers crossed that we have essay prompts on which to report in our next blog entry!

Weekly Update: October 28

Happy Halloween!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

HALF OF STAFFORD HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS OUT SICK

1,000 students at Stafford High School in Fredericksburg, nearly half of the student body, were out sick today with “flu-like and gastrointestinal symptoms.” The school is investigating the cause of the illness, and currently plans to be open on Monday. 

ELI LILLY CREATES NEW PURDUE SCHOLARSHIP

Eli Lilly has committed a $92.5 million gift to Purdue University, nearly half of which will fund a new pharmaceutical manufacturing scholarship program. The 75-100 students who receive the scholarship each year will receive full tuition, in addition to guaranteed internships or co-ops with Eli Lilly. The school expects to award the first of these scholarships next fall.

The remaining $50 million will go towards extending the established research partnership between Eli Lilly and Purdue. 

UMD MAKES NEW “TERRAPIN COMMITMENT”

UMD pledged this week to invest $20 million in need-based aid. The program will help fill in the gaps for low-income students who receive federal Pell Grants, to make tuition and fees more affordable for these students and families. The “Terrapin Commitment” joins programs such as UNC’s “Carolina Covenant” and Michigan’s “Go Blue Guarantee” in making it easier for low-income students to attend public universities. 

NC STATE COPES WITH STUDENT DEATH BY SUICIDE

This week, NC State suffered the third reported death by suicide of a student in the last two months. With 1,100 deaths on college campuses per year, suicide is the second leading cause of death for college students, and this is another harsh reminder of the mental health crisis that all schools continue to face. 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

This article from The Atlantic explores the income gap at colleges and universities, in light of the affirmative action case coming before the Supreme Court. The author, Richard D. Kahlenberg, is serving as an expert witness for Students for Fair Admissions, the plaintiff in the case. He argues that striking down affirmative action is a progressive move, because it will require universities to give an “admissions boost” to economically disadvantaged applicants, rather than doing so along racial lines. Kahlenberg notes that while Harvard’s classes reflect America in racial diversity, the school has 15 times as many students from the top quintile of wealth distribution as from the bottom quintile. Likewise, UNC has 16 times as many students from the top fifth as the bottom fifth. He argues that a more authentic way to achieve racial diversity, after affirmative action is struck down, will be by admitting more economically disadvantaged students, noting that this is the case at schools like UC Berkeley and UCLA, which do not use race in admissions. 

Penn’s doctoral program in higher education management - a class for aspiring professionals hoping to become top-level administrators and university presidents - dedicated an entire weekend to discussing college sports and the NCAA. The importance of this subject matter is a clear sign of the impact that athletics have at the top levels of college administration. Students were asked questions about various aspects of athletic policy and budgeting - for example, if they were presidents of Big Ten schools, what would they do with the income from the conference’s new media rights deal? These types of questions are becoming increasingly more important for college presidents to answer as college sports continue to grow in popularity and revenue.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Those November 1 deadlines are right around the corner - good luck to those submitting this weekend and CONGRATULATIONS to all of our seniors who have submitted their early applications! We are so proud of all of you. Enjoy the Halloween weekend!

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Weekly Update: October 21

Hope everyone is staying calm this week - those early deadlines are coming up fast!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

CLEMSON’S NEW 10/15 DEADLINE CAUSES PANIC NATIONWIDE FOR HS SENIORS (EXCEPT OUR CLIENTS)

Back in May, when Clemson announced that they were moving to a 10/15 EA deadline by which student files had to be complete, I posted online that I knew it was going to be a disaster and I was right! A complete file means that all materials must be received and processed by the deadline, which is highly unusual - almost every school in the country has a materials deadline a week after the actual deadline.

That new policy, in combination with the 10/15 deadline (which only a handful of other colleges share - the rest are 11/1 or later) and the fact that students had to log in post-submission and submit a Self-Reported Academic Record before 10/15 was a recipe for disaster. We were ON IT and basically spent last Friday and Saturday hunting down every last one of our Clemson applicants to make sure every SRAR and file was complete by 10/15. And they all were!

Meanwhile, all hell broke loose a few days after the 15th! Tons and tons of applicants (my best guess is thousands) across the country were notified by Clemson that they were no longer under consideration because they missed the deadline and OMG they were furious. After a lot of social media bashing, Clemson ultimately buckled and responded by giving them another week, but wow - lots of needless stress. Moral of the story, read the directions or work with counselors who will read them on your behalf! 😀

LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS DO NOTHING

No, seriously. In an effort to improve student mental health on campus, the university created a “Do Nothing” course, where students learn about mind-body techniques including sleep hygiene and Tai Chi. The course has the highest enrollment out of any non-required course at the university. 

BODY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY STUDENT FOUND

Misrach Ewunetie, a Princeton student, had been missing for six days when her body was found on the campus’s facilities grounds yesterday. Police note that the tragedy does not appear to have been a result of suspicious or criminal activity, and both the university and Misrach’s high school have issued statements of mourning and support for her family.

TJHSST REGISTRATION OPENS SOON

Middle school students interested in applying for admission to TJ should note that registration opens next week, and will close in mid-November. Students can review the eligibility requirements and apply on the FCPS website. 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

In this week’s Next newsletter, Jeff Selingo considers the “content” and “distribution” model as it applies to colleges. Many technology companies that he uses as examples started out as distribution channels only - think Netflix - and then went on to become content creators, while others (he mentions Disney) went the other way around, moving from creating content to controlling distribution (hello, Disney+). Selingo asks what the content is that universities uniquely create - their professors, curriculum, residential experience, etc. - and how it is distributed. As colleges move more and more content online, these questions will continue to resonate.

This is an idea that comes up nearly every year, but one that is worth considering for students and families - the way that niche sports can provide the typically white, wealthy students that excel in them with a path to admission at selective colleges. We’ve heard about the private squash and tennis courts at Connecticut homes, and this article dives into the world of fencing. But this path to admissions may be short-lived - if affirmative action is struck down by the Supreme Court, expect colleges to overhaul their admissions processes. 

If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you may remember MIT’s controversial reasoning behind reinstating test scores as part of the admissions process - that this metric, long considered a source of bias in the process, actually made it more equitable. A study from a Vanderbilt professor shows that MIT may have been onto something. Admissions officers find it much more difficult to evaluate students fairly when test scores are optional, and overall it has made the admissions process much more subjective than when scores were more widely used. 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Some local news - Fairfax County health and medical science students are gaining valuable immersive experience through a partnership with GW, which provides access to the university’s Mobile Learning Center. The learning center includes AI aspects, virtual demonstration, and simulation activities. 

I was quoted in U.S. News and World Report this week in an article about how to know that you’re truly ready for college and all it entails! Check that out here.

We are excited to be wrapping up applications with most of our seniors! We know that the waiting is often the hardest part of the process, but hope that everyone submitting for the 11/1 deadline gets a chance to relax and celebrate a job well done. 

P.S. If you are interested in working with us for those regular decision deadlines (they are coming up faster than you think!), we have space! Please book a Meet & Greet!

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Weekly Update: September 30

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

TRACKING HURRICANE IAN

Our thoughts are with everyone who has been affected by Hurricane Ian this week. Several schools, including the University of Florida, have been closed for several days and are expected to resume normal operations next week. The storm is making its way up the East Coast this weekend, so stay safe!

THE FAFSA OPENS TOMORROW

The FAFSA will open on October 1, and if you intend to complete the form, we encourage you to do it as soon as possible. If you are unsure whether or not you should complete the FAFSA, you can check out our earlier posts here and here to help make the best decision for you and your family. There are a lot of myths about the FAFSA that circle around every year, so if any of our current clients have questions about the process, make sure to reach out to us so we can help you make this decision.

NEW EXCELENCIA SEALS AWARDED

Since 2019, Excelencia in Education has given the Seal of Excelencia to schools that serve Latino students. The organization is dedicated to Latino college completion, and this year honored six institutions including UC Santa Cruz and UT Arlington. Nine schools were also recertified this year, including Arizona State, the University of Arizona, and Florida International University. 

COLLEGE FOOTBALL WEEK FIVE

Lots of college football news this week, including a potential breakthrough for NC State and the challenges that UGA will face in the SEC. Are you following the college football season? Let us know your team in the comments!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

This article explores the (somewhat bleak) reality of declining in-state students at flagship state universities. According to a report from the Brookings Institute, Alabama now has 34% in-state students to 66% out of state - a big flip from its 2002 ratio of 75-25. Clemson (though not the flagship) has about 50% out of state students. These numbers stand in contrast to some other states, like North Carolina, which limit the percentage of out-of-state students to 18% at all public colleges and universities. But for many of these schools, taking more (high-paying) students from out of state is a financial necessity - Alabama, for instance, receives only 10% of its funding from the state, and needs to make up a shortfall with out of state tuition dollars. 

If you are looking for statistics on price, admission, or really anything else to help you get a sense of the college landscape, our clients know that your best bet is generally a school’s Common Data Set. These can often be buried on a school’s website, but you can usually find them by Googling the school’s name and “Common Data Set.” For more about the type of data you’ll be able to find on the CDS, check out this New York Times article. 

This is not an article per se, but I have been REALLY enjoying the Gatecrashers podcast and would highly recommend it. It’s about the history of anti-semitism at Ivy League schools (I’m still on Episode #1 about Columbia) and it’s just amazing how much I’m learning.

I had no clue that routine aspects of the process as we know it today are actually a result of anti-semitic practices from long ago- for example, questions about parent occupations on college applications were originally included to try to identify Jewish students and keep them out. Anyway, this is definitely worth a listen!

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

It has been a flurry of submissions for us this week, especially for students applying to UGA, U of SC, Clemson, UNC, and other schools with 10/15 deadlines! A huge congratulations to those students who finished up their submissions this week. 

This is also the time of year when we hear from our students how happy they are that they finished up most, if not all, of their essay work over the summer. Every July, students and parents wonder why they need so much time for essay work, and every September they are thrilled to be done and able to focus on schoolwork and enjoying senior year! If you’re a junior and want to be the first one of your friends to finish up applications next fall, don’t forget to book a Meet & Greet - now is the perfect time to start working on your applications.

Stay safe and dry this weekend! My daughter is supposed to cheer at the Madison homecoming game tonight with her VYI team and we are all crossing our fingers it doesn’t get rained out!

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Weekly Update: September 23

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

FLORIDA A&M STUDENTS SUE THE STATE OF FLORIDA

Six students from Florida A&M, an HBCU in Tallahassee, FL, are suing the state of Florida for what they say is unequal funding and resources. As a public institution, Florida A&M receives state funding, but the students allege that FAMU does not receive fair funding compared to other state schools, like Florida State. The lawsuit is another example of how the issue of underfunding at HBCUs is becoming more and more salient across the country.

BOMB THREAT AT NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY

Students at Northeastern were instructed to shelter in place last night while police addressed a bomb threat at the Curry Student Center. And Northeastern wasn’t the only school facing threats this week - a University of Utah student was arrested on Wednesday after she threatened to detonate the nuclear reactor located on campus if Utah’s football team lost to San Diego State last Saturday. If you were wondering, Utah won the game 35-7. 

YESHIVA UNIVERSITY LGBTQ CLUB FINDS A COMPROMISE

We shared a couple of weeks ago about Yeshiva University’s attempt to bring a case to the Supreme Court against a Pride club on campus, arguing that recognizing the club would be against the university’s religious affiliation. The Supreme Court did not block the lower court’s order, meaning Yeshiva is still required to recognize the club. In response, Yeshiva put all undergraduate club activities on hold.

On Wednesday, the YU Pride Alliance agreed to a stay of the original court order in order to allow other student clubs to resume activities on campus.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Many families don’t realize when they initially start working with us that helping students ask for and receive excellent letters of recommendation is a core part of our process! We help all of our ongoing clients with everything from which teachers to the best way to phrase the question to preparing information for an awesome recommendation. Even if you’re not an ongoing client, though, you can pick up some tips from Colleen in this U.S. News article!  

With all the news about college football picking up this week (another sign of fall!), we found this WSJ article about college football eligibility an interesting read. 

A study published in Nature, the premier scientific journal, found that 20% of U.S. colleges and universities produce 80% of tenured college professors. In fact, one in eight professors got their degrees from Berkeley, Harvard, Michigan, Stanford, or Wisconsin. The study demonstrates that there is unequal access to faculty jobs and a lack of intellectual diversity among college professors. It also proves that as with many graduate degrees, including law and business, where you get your Ph.D. matters!

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We highly recommend that students register for the College Fair on Sunday, October 16 at GMU’s EagleBank Arena. This is a great way to demonstrate interest and chat with representatives from more than 250 colleges and universities, including service academies. Check it out if you can!

We hope you have a fantastic weekend!

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Weekly Update: July 21

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

UW WILL ACCEPT THE COMMON APP

So new we don’t even have a link - but the Washington State flagship UW-Seattle, one of the last Common App holdouts, will now accept the Common Application for the upcoming admissions cycle. Yay! Come on, Rutgers - time to get on the bandwagon!

STUDENTS WANT COLLEGES TO PROVIDE THE ABORTION PILL

While college health centers have long provided a variety of reproductive care for students, including birth control and STD screenings, they do not typically provide abortion care. Some colleges are responding to student demands to provide the abortion pill - UMass Amherst will begin to provide it in the fall, and California law requires all UC schools to provide medication abortion by January 2023 (some, like Berkeley, already do). 

But many public and private universities, especially those with strict or changing abortion laws, may not be able to legally provide this to students. Colleges also cite security and privacy concerns around providing these services on campus. 

COLLEGE TAKEOVERS INCREASE

The pandemic has seen a number of colleges go out of business, and several of these struggling schools have merged with larger universities. Northeastern, which put together a special M&A team to handle acquisitions, has absorbed Mills College, a Silicon Valley women’s college that went under during COVID-19. Northeastern hopes the opportunity to study in Silicon Valley will better prepare its students for future careers in the tech industry. This is just the latest of 95 college mergers in the last four years - more than in the previous 18 years combined. 

STUDENTS WORK TOWARD HERBICIDE-FREE CAMPUSES

In response to growing climate anxiety and powerlessness on college campuses, some students have turned to areas where they can make a difference - like stopping the use of toxic pesticides on school grounds. Toxic chemicals are often used at universities to keep up the picturesque green quad and vibrant landscaping, but the organization Herbicide-Free Campus is working to end that practice. 

The organization now has chapters at Brandeis, Emory, Indiana, and Berkeley, among others. Students who belong to HFC spend time working on their campus grounds, pulling weeds alongside the campus grounds team. 

Some schools, like Harvard, have already transitioned to fully organic lawn care - a practice that HFC says has reduced irrigation needs by 30%. HFC hopes to see every campus go organic by 2030.

WANT TO STUDY HARRY STYLES?

Starting in Spring 2023, Honors College students at Texas State will be able to do just that, in a course titled “Harry Styles and the Cult of Celebrity.” Students will study both Styles’ solo albums and the albums of One Direction in a contemporary history class that explores gender, sexuality, fandom, the internet, and consumerism, among other themes. 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

If you watch movies or read the newspaper, it may seem like an athletic scholarship is the key to a full ride to college. Pop culture is rife with examples of students beating the odds and heading happily off to their dream school, which their parents could never afford without the coveted football scholarship. But only one in 100 top high school athletes actually receive a full ride, and the process of competing for one can often be nearly as expensive as in-state tuition! If you’re considering spending money on camps, equipment, or recruiting services, check out this article first - you may be tempted to put the money into a 529 account instead. 

In expectation that the current Supreme Court is likely to end affirmative action in college admissions, check out this opinion piece to learn why this might actually be a good thing. The writer argues that instead of focusing our efforts on admitting students to colleges when they may not be academically prepared, we should instead help students at younger ages receive the support they need to be successful at elite universities later on. 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We have so many swim coaches working with us this year and the NVSL season is coming to an end this weekend - good luck, everybody!

A few cool things to share this week:

• If you’re a class of 2022 student gearing up for your freshman year, check out this free webinar - illustrating how to build the habits that will help you transition into college life. The event - Tiny Habits for College Success - takes place next Wednesday 7/27 at 2:00 pm ET. The event is also open to parents with current or future college students in their lives :) 

• If you’re younger and/or will be in DC next year, have you heard of the Kennedy Center’s MyTix program? I just learned about it this year. Students from kindergarten through I believe graduate school are able to purchase two deeply discounted tickets to lots of performances- one for the student and one for a companion of their choice (parent, etc). They sent out an email this morning about the “MyTix Mix” subscription package for next year- it’s such a great deal if you enjoy the arts, and some of the seats are surprisingly decent! Tickets range from $15-$35 per show. If you don’t want to commit, sign up for MyTix emails anyway and you’ll get new offers every Monday morning for individual shows.

Have a great weekend! I’m out of the office next week, but Shannon will be back and holding down the fort.

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Weekly Update: July 15

We’ve got plenty of news for you from the past two weeks after taking the holiday week break!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK(S)

PENN’S EARLY EXPLORATION PROGRAM

Penn has announced two great programs for high school seniors, serving students from historically underrepresented backgrounds in order to underscore their commitment to a diverse class. The Early Exploration Program is a month-long program will allow students to meet with current students and admissions staff to learn more about Penn and participate in workshops on writing essays and preparing for interviews. If you are a low income and/or first generation student, you should definitely take advantage of this opportunity!

BOSTON COLLEGE ENDOWS HEAD SKIING COACH POSITION

BC received a gift of $1.25 million this week from an alumnus, in order to endow a head coaching position for BC’s skiing program. BC’s ski team sent its first student to the NCAA Championships in 2018, and has sent seven other skiers to national championships in the years since. 

CAMBRIDGE OPENS INQUIRY INTO STUDENT DEATHS

Five students at Cambridge University have died in the last five months, and the school is now opening an investigation into these tragedies, one of which has been confirmed as a suicide. While the university is not releasing information in order to protect the students’ privacy, a spokesperson said that they do not believe there is any connection between these incidents. 

NEW CHANGES TO B-SCHOOL ADMISSIONS

Dartmouth, Duke, and Michigan have all made announcements about changes to their MBA application process for the MBA class of 2025. Duke has announced a new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion concentration to the program, for a total of 17 concentration options that students have during the application process. The university also created the new Fuqua Impact Scholars Program, which will award merit scholarships to incoming Fuqua School students. 

Michigan’s Ross School added an additional short essay to its application, and will offer students the option of submitting a standardized test waiver in lieu of a test score. And the Tuck School at Dartmouth will now offer virtual interviews to all students who apply in Rounds 1 and 2!

MORE CHANGES IN STORE FOR NCAA CONFERENCES

After the announcement two weeks ago about USC and UCLA’s move to the Big Ten conference, there is a lot of speculation about the creation of “Super Conferences,” in which the Big Ten, SEC, and possibly Big 12 conferences jump out ahead of other teams, creating a new tier of college football that will leave behind the ACC and the Pac-12 with teams that didn’t make the cut for these new super conferences. 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK(S)

We like this short list as an easy guide for rising seniors as they work on their college applications this summer. Many juniors who start with us in the fall have already done most of these things by now, but if you’re just getting started, it’s not too late to get a jump on the college process before school is back in session (P.S. our Late-Start Waitlist opened last week for rising seniors who want some help tackling this list - you can join here). 

Larry Arnn - president of Hillsdale College - created controversy this past weekend when he remarked at a conference that teachers are “trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country,” calling the Education Department the “dumbest part” of any college. Ouch. Hillsdale has helped to open a network of charter schools around the country, and argues that students will receive a better education from teachers at these schools than those at public institutions. 

If you are going on college tours this summer, you may be surprised to learn that campus tours “keep college presidents up at night.” But the college tour, often led by a current student, is one part of the admissions process over which the college administration has the least control. Often, students’ experiences on a tour are shaped by their particular tour guide, who is hanging around campus that day, even the weather! If you are a student touring colleges this summer, this article is a really good reminder that the tour shouldn’t be the be-all, end-all of your college search - because so much depends on luck, this isn’t necessarily the most representative piece of your college research!

I really enjoyed this piece from the Washington Post about self-deprecation in the college essay! I definitely agree with the author - do NOT overdo it. But if you can do this in a way that still shares positive characteristics and/or personal growth with the reader, go for it!

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Many of our students are moving onto their school-specific essays, and we love reading more about them! Students who stick to our timeline will usually knock out about half of their supplemental essays before August 1, which makes the work in August a bit more manageable and sets them up to finish their applications by September. If you are looking to get a head start on your essays as well, don’t forget to check out our essay prompt database, which we update weekly with new prompts for the class of 2023 as they are released. 

Speaking of essays - we just had two cancellations come through for appointments with Staci if anyone wants to snap them up! One is for Monday, July 25 at 4:00pm and one is for Tuesday, July 19 at 11:00am., and you can go ahead and book here.

Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Update: July 1

Lots of college news to share before the holiday weekend!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

JOHNS HOPKINS SUMMER PROGRAMS CANCELED

The three-week academic summer programs run by Johns Hopkins’ Center for Talented Youth were canceled at the last possible minute last week - while some students were already enroute to the campus. Hopkins made the announcement on Friday at 3:30 pm, with the programs scheduled to start on Monday morning. 

Hopkins said that lack of staffing was the reason for the cancellation, which affected 870 students prepared to attend the prestigious summer program. Today, the director of the program’s employment was terminated. Hopkins’ CTY has hosted celebrities like Mark Zuckerberg and Lady Gaga, and is open to students from grade 2 to grade 12. 

OUR USC DREAMS ARE (SORT OF) COMING TRUE

For years it has been a rude awakening for students who love USC to realize that the school does not accept Early Decision or Early Action applications - and will review every student, even the most interested in the school, as part of the Regular Decision pool. While we’re still holding out for an ED option, we’re excited that USC will now offer an Early Action option to students applying to programs that do not require portfolio submissions. 

It seems like USC will follow Georgetown’s lead in deferring ALL EA students to the Regular Decision pool if they are not accepted, without sending any rejections during the EA round. EA students will receive either an admit or defer decision in mid- to late January. 

USC AND UCLA LEAVE THE PAC-12

Speaking of USC, in 2024, USC and UCLA will move from the Pac-12 conference to the Big Ten. The schools received notice that their applications to join the Big Ten were accepted on Tuesday night. The Big Ten says that the conference unanimously voted to allow the Los Angeles schools to join. The Pac-12 says that they are disappointed with the loss of these two schools, the biggest brand names in the conference.

UGA STUDENT RECEIVES CARNEGIE MEDAL

Last summer, Tucker Shields, a UGA student, was completing an internship at a DC law firm. While waiting for an Uber near Nationals Park, Shields saw a young couple being harassed by an armed assailant. Shields tackled the man, dodging a gunshot that left him deaf in one ear for a month. Now, the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission has honored him with the Carnegie Medal for his actions. 

COLUMBIA STOPS PARTICIPATION IN U.S. NEWS RANKINGS

Dedicated blog readers may remember several months ago when a professor at Columbia cast doubt on the data that the school provides to U.S. News & World Report - data which has led to Columbia capturing the number two spot in the prestigious rankings. Today is the deadline for schools to submit data this year, and Columbia has announced that it needs more time to review the allegations about its data and will not be submitting.

In addition to Columbia, the School of Education at USC will also be absent from the rankings, having pulled its data due to years of inaccuracies. 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Curious about the new digital SAT, which will be available to US students in spring 2024? We recommend this blog post, which covers all of the recently announced specifications and sample questions provided by College Board. 

The outgoing superintendent of FCPS, Scott Braband, was interviewed about all of the major moments during his tenure - including the COVID-19 pandemic, hiring challenges, the changes in admissions at TJ, and diversity initiatives. Braband’s last day was yesterday, and Michelle Reid has taken over as the superintendent of the largest public school system in the state. This interview is an interesting retrospective of the upheaval over the last few years.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

I (Colleen) was interviewed by U.S. News this week about the biggest mistakes that a new college student can make - check it out here to find out why you shouldn’t join too many clubs, why you should get a random roommate, and the real reason not to skip class! 

We will be closed on Monday for the July 4 holiday - enjoy the long weekend!

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Weekly Update: June 3

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

BIDEN ADMIN CANCELS STUDENT LOANS FOR CORINTHIAN COLLEGE STUDENTS

The Biden administration announced this week that it will forgive student loans for over half a million students from Corinthian Colleges, one of the nation's largest for-profit colleges. Corinthian Colleges has faced numerous lawsuits for its predatory practices. This is the largest student loan forgiveness action that the government has taken to date, and will cost close to 6 billion dollars.

PANDEMIC RELIEF IMPACTS FINANCIAL AID

Students who received unemployment benefits in 2020 may be facing issues getting the financial aid they need through the FAFSA. This is an ongoing issue that began after many families faced drastic changes in income during the pandemic. So make sure that your FAFSA is as accurate as possible, and don’t be afraid to reach out to schools if you think your aid should be reevaluated!

TITLE IX TURNS 50

For the 50th anniversary of Title IX, USA Today investigated how colleges are doing in the march toward equity for women. The results aren’t inspiring - the expose uncovers how women are still underrepresented in college sports, and reveals the colleges that have padded the numbers and inflated women’s rosters rather than abiding by the spirit of the law.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

The New Yorker explored how the pandemic has affected the SAT as we know it. In addition to the number of test optional schools making the SAT less important in the admissions process, the pandemic has also prompted the creation of the new digital test. The article explores the history of the SAT and how it has endured through multiple scandals and shifts, with the pandemic only the latest (and perhaps most drastic) change that College Board and its flagship test have had to face. 

This article about the top ten highest-earning degrees from public universities is worth checking out for a few reasons. Most of these schools are not considered “brand names,” and I doubt that many of the students in our area have even heard of some of them! This just goes to show that a “big name” doesn’t necessarily map onto a higher salary after school. And we were excited to see that UVA made the list - students with computer engineering majors make a median salary of just under $102,000 three years after graduation.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Our juniors are starting to finalize their lists, are finishing their Common App essays, and several have even moved onto early supplemental essay work! While we know that summer is busy for these students, we also know that they will be excited come senior year to have all of this essay writing behind them. 

I don’t think we have written about this much on the blog, but we’ve talked a lot internally about how different this essay season has been from any other year. This group was in the middle of their freshman year when the world turned upside down… and they just haven’t really done very much.

It’s not even about activities, as most of them have taken our advice and maintained extracurricular involvement as much as they could, even virtually. But we don’t advise parroting off a list of activities in the college essay. Whether activities are involved in the story or not, the essay really needs to be a venue to show personal growth and share insight about the student that can’t be found anywhere else in their application. It’s really tough to do that when you haven’t had a typical teenage experience.

But we are lucky because Staci is basically the most patient woman on the planet! She has been working so hard with these students to help them craft amazing essays regardless of what they have been able to come to the table with! Shannon and I have been helping out with lots of extra editing behind the scenes and of course Alan is a godsend! He does the last round of edits from a fresh perspective, having never seen the pieces before. It is amazing to me how much value his perspective adds to the final versions.

Anyway, over the last week we have finished a whole lot of these essays and it’s amazing to me how all the extra work has paid off. The final versions are AWESOME, which is not necessarily something I thought I was going to be able to say a couple of months ago. I actually think they have turned out even better than final versions usually do. For example, I don’t know that we have ever had a year with such little feedback about potential changes. Sometimes parents and students aren’t on the same page about certain aspects and we have to play mediator, but not this year. All constituents involved have just been very happy with few or zero suggestions, and I really hope that ends up to be a theme this season (knocking on wood right now)!

On an entirely different note - we want to congratulate our graduating seniors and wish them well on this next adventure! This is always a bittersweet time because we’re really excited about how we’re getting to know the juniors more, but it’s sad to be done with the seniors and their families. We become so close with these students and we really do miss them! We’re excited to see where they go next - and to see a few of them back for College Experience Coaching.

Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Update: January 14

Happy Friday! A note that our office will be closed on Monday for MLK, Jr. Day. Have a great long weekend!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

TOP COLLEGES SUED FOR ANTITRUST VIOLATIONS

Sixteen top universities, including Yale, Georgetown, Penn, MIT, Brown, and Northwestern, are being sued for antitrust violations in response to the way that they work together when determining financial aid awards for students. The lawsuit was filed in Illinois this past weekend, and claims that over 170,000 students were overcharged in a financial aid system that amounts to price-fixing by the colleges. 

Though the schools do coordinate their financial aid processes, this system has been exempt from antitrust laws because all of the schools named in the lawsuit are need-blind, so financial need is not considered a factor in their admissions processes. But the lawsuit casts doubt on whether these universities truly do not consider need as an admissions factor. 

This is why we never recommend “applying just to apply” if you already know you won’t qualify for need-based financial aid! For more about this, check out our blog post on the FAFSA.

GO DAWGS!

On Monday night, the University of Georgia beat Alabama in the national football championship. This is the first title for Georgia since 1980. UGA’s campus as well as the city of Atlanta and other areas around Georgia have been celebrating the historic win!

ENROLLMENT CONTINUES TO DROP

This feels like a groundhog-day story at this point, but college enrollment nationwide continued to drop this fall, despite vaccine availability. The decline equals over a million students in the workforce rather than in the classroom, which we can expect to have an impact on the US economy moving forward, especially if this trend continues beyond the pandemic years.

UVA PROVOST BECOMES PENN’S NEXT PRESIDENT

Liz Magill, the Provost at UVA, has been selected as the next president of the University of Pennsylvania. In 2019, Magill became the first female provost at UVA. Magill will begin her new role at Penn on July 1. Ian Baucom, the current Dean of Arts & Sciences, will become UVA’s new provost. 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

This week’s biggest story is that of Mackenzie Fierceton, a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. Fierceton was admitted to Penn as an undergraduate, first-generation student - she wrote her senior thesis based on her time in foster care. After Fierceton was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, however, her story began to fall apart. 

An anonymous informant emailed Penn’s administration to reveal that Mackenzie grew up in an affluent suburb, with her mother, who was a college graduate. The email, sent to both Penn and the Rhodes Trust, included images of Mackenzie from her high school yearbook - skydiving, horseback riding, and whitewater rafting. Both organizations began extensive investigations into her story. Ultimately, Fierceton withdrew from the Rhodes scholarship. Penn is also withholding her diploma until their investigation is complete. 

In December, Mackenzie Fierceton filed a lawsuit against Penn for their handling of her case, and particularly the “unjust” withholding of her degree. The case also raises issues of how victims of child abuse are treated, and whether her essays and descriptions of her childhood are reflective of what she experienced. 

At the center of the controversy was Fierceton’s undergraduate admissions essay, detailing the severe child abuse that landed her in the foster care system. These events have brought to the surface the pressure that some students feel to write about trauma as the topic for an engaging college essay. But as we tell our students every year, you don’t need to have experienced hardship to write an engaging essay - and pretending you did can clearly backfire! Our Wow Writing Workshop process helps students tell THEIR stories in a clear, interesting, and exciting way.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

In our midweek blog this week, we covered your questions about summer opportunities. And yes, you should begin thinking about summer opportunities now! A couple that stood out to us this week were Vanderbilt’s Programs for Talented Youth, which serve students in grades 1-12. Applications are open now for the university’s in-person residential Summer Academy for 7-12th graders, as well as the Virtual Research Experience. 

If you don’t have the money to spend this summer on an impressive-sounding college program, don’t worry! There are plenty of free or even paid opportunities to specialize and develop your niche as an applicant. We’re excited about the course options available through FCPS’s High School Academies, which give the opportunity to specialize in a variety of areas for all FCPS students!

That’s it for today - enjoy the long weekend!

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Weekly Update: January 7

We hope you all had a fun and restful break, and we’re excited to be back with our first weekly update of 2022!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

FCPS CANCELLED DUE TO SNOW

An FCPS snow day turned into a snow week as students in Fairfax County, Arlington County, and other local districts had an entire extra week of break due to the weather. We hope that our students enjoyed the extra week off and were able to catch up on some rest before heading back to the classroom next week!

CHICAGO SCHOOLS CLOSE  

In Chicago, it isn’t snow that is keeping the schools closed. Schools have now been closed for three days due to the standoff between the teachers’ union and city officials. Officials want the school year to proceed in person, while the teachers’ union is calling for more COVID-19 precautions and more widely available testing. As of this posting, there is no sign of a resolution to the difficulties, and we expect to see schools continue to be closed next week, leaving some families scrambling to find childcare. 

HBCU CAMPUSES TARGETED WITH BOMB THREATS

Howard and Spelman were two of the eight HBCUs that received bomb threats on Tuesday. The FBI and local police investigated the threats and found no bombs, but the targeted threats caused some anxiety for students and staff on campus. Howard students and staff reported that as one of two HBCUs in DC, they feel particularly vulnerable to these types of threats. 

NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

Monday night’s championship game between the University of Alabama and the University of Georgia will be the first game in what George Will calls the “name-image-likeness era.” The players in this game will be the first to benefit from the NCAA’s new NIL regulations that allow student-athletes to profit off of the use of their name, image, or likeness - a reversal of the NCAA’s strong commitment to not paying amateur players.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Jeff Selingo’s latest newsletter offers some ideas on how to make a big campus feel small. What they all have in common is building community. Having a “cohort” on campus is important, whether something formal like a sports team or club or just a group of peers. But building relationships with faculty mentors is also essential, and forced “mentorship” does not have nearly the same positive effect as genuine relationship-building. This was especially interesting to read during the pandemic, as online learning has made these types of connections more difficult to create for college students. 

A couple articles from The Atlantic this week underline this sentiment: that perhaps school closures cause more harm than good, at both the college and K-12 levels. Between struggles with mental health and the learning loss that comes from remote learning, both articles outline the risks that continued school closures pose to students.  

This was an interesting article about the benefits and drawbacks of taking dual enrollment classes during high school. If you are considering a dual enrollment class, we’d encourage you to think about it in the context of what is available at your high school. If you have maxed out your high school’s offerings, particularly in core subjects like math and foreign language, dual enrollment courses could be great options. However, as the article says, they aren’t necessarily a foolproof way to obtain college credits. Just note that most of this information applies to dual enrollment college courses that are taught at community colleges, rather than “college-level” coursework in high school such as AP and IB. 

Wondering what’s going on in your high school teacher’s brain during a typical school day? A high school English teacher sums it up for the Washington Post.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

As we check in with our 10th and 11th grade students in the next few weeks, a big part of our conversations is selecting summer plans. It seems early, but many summer program applications are open right now! If you are looking for enrichment opportunities this summer or even this spring, take a look at our summer opportunities database, updated today. One new opportunity we’re sharing is paid work as a referee for the Great Falls Reston Soccer Club - a way to earn some extra money and round out an activities list for an athlete who is an aspiring education, kinesiology, or sports psychology major! 

We have had a lot to catch up on after the break, and decisions keep coming in for our Class of 2022 students. We are so proud!! We are also working on initial research and application materials with the Class of 2023. To learn more about how we can help your student navigate this coming admissions cycle, book a Meet & Greet.

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Weekly Update: December 31

Happy New Year’s Eve! Our office is closed today for the holiday, but we’ll be back on Monday and look forward to starting the new year with you!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

COLLEGE FOOTBALL BOWL GAMES CANCELLED

At the time of this writing, five college bowl games have already been cancelled, and two others have been rescheduled or rearranged due to COVID-19. As the coronavirus spreads among college football teams (in addition to impacting the wider campuses and holiday travel), we anticipate seeing even more cancellations and changes arise. 

COMMUNITY COLLEGE ENROLLMENT DROP CONTINUES

We all know that community colleges were hit hardest by COVID-related enrollment declines, and those in Northern Virginia are no exception. Enrollment has continued to decline this year at local community colleges, with Northern Virginia Community College enrollment down 5%, Prince George’s Community College down 10%, and Montgomery College down 19%! Statewide, enrollment is down 9% in Virginia and 14% in Maryland.

A strong market for job seekers could contribute to the continuing decline, but it may also be a result of students with limited internet access or caring responsibilities at home who are unable to attend classes remotely. Many schools are now working to up their recruitment and retention efforts.

COLLEGES DELAY SPRING SEMESTER STARTS

Howard and Vanderbilt are some of the latest schools to join Yale, Syracuse, and others in pushing back the start of the semester due to the coronavirus surge. The school is also requiring staff and students to receive booster shots by the end of January.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

I really enjoyed this Buzzfeed piece on secrets from admissions officers. Not only is it funny, some of the advice is EXCELLENT! I particularly liked #s 4, 8, 17 and absolutely, absolutely #19). But read it with a grain of salt if you’re applying to competitive or highly competitive schools - there’s some information that only applies to less competitive schools and could be misleading without that context (#s 3, 7, 21 in particular).

WHAT the heck is happening in Arlington County? I would have expected to read about their new proposed grading systems in the Onion, not the Washington Post! Some of the proposed plans “would, among other things, remove penalties for missing homework deadlines and prohibit grading of what is called formative work — daily assignments.” Another proposal involves unlimited redoes and retakes, according to WJLA. Trust me - this is not going to do anyone any favors from a college admissions standpoint.. it will totally destroy the district’s (quite strong) reputation.

While we’ve written extensively about the detrimental effects the pandemic has had on many two- and four-year colleges, there is one population that has seen a benefit: for-profit institutions. Many already had flexible schedules and online classes, and were able to advertise their business model as one that could meet the moment. After receiving years of bad press for unethical sales methods and disreputable courses, this was an opportunity for for-profit colleges to make a comeback. 

Miss some posts in 2021? Check out this Washington Post article for a recap of the best and worst education news of the year.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We are closed today for the New Year’s Eve holiday, and looking forward to getting back to meeting with students next week. Enjoy the holiday, and happy New Year!!

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Weekly Update: December 3

December already! We are excited to have heard some good news from our early applicants and are busy wrapping things up with the last of our late-late-start seniors.

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

NC STATE ENGINEERING INCREASES ENROLLMENT

Good news for engineering applicants! NC State is planning to add 2,000 more undergraduate students to its engineering program over the next five years. The College of Engineering at NC State offers sixteen majors, including computer science. Thanks to a state initiative called “Engineering North Carolina’s future,” the school will receive $20 million to hire new faculty and $30 million to upgrade facilities. 

UGA RELEASES EARLY APPLICATION DATA

Congrats to our students who received early acceptances from UGA last week! It was a competitive cycle, with applications up 3% over last year despite the fact that the Georgia system was one of only a handful in the country that required test scores this cycle. 8,900 students were accepted, 9,300 were deferred, and 2,000 were denied. If you received a defer decision from UGA, let us know ASAP so we can help you strategize for next steps. The admissions office notes that “We want to be able to have a more in-depth review of you, including short essays, activities, recommendations, etc.” - so send those requested materials!

CORNELL PRECOLLEGE WINTER COURSES

If you are looking to add to your activities list and take an enrichment course but don’t have the time to spend on it during the summer, Cornell’s Precollege Program has you covered! This is a really great program that we recommend to our clients, and applications are open now for winter courses that run January 3-21. Students can apply here by December 6 (or book an appointment to work on this or any other enrichment opportunity applications!). If you’re not already a current client, use this link instead.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

We all know that students have been through a lot this year. And while most students are now back in school, they may still struggle to adjust to in-person learning after so much time away. This article provides some helpful guidance for parents who want to help their students make the adjustment back to in-person school. In addition to learning loss, students are struggling to develop age-appropriate social skills after being out of school for so long (just think - the last time seventh grade students had a completely normal school year was fourth grade!). 

But the article encourages parents to focus on support, rather than solutions. I know this is tough - after all, as parents, we want to be able to solve problems for our kids! But it is even more important for them to know that we are in their corner and supporting them during a difficult time. 

If you are one of the students who has already received an ED acceptance and knows where you are headed next year, you might be excited to share your plans with family over the holidays! But for most students, hearing “What are your plans for next year?” at every holiday gathering can cause a lot of stress. If that’s you, check out this article for tips on how to deal with this stress-inducing question. 

We’ve written before on the blog about some of the graduate degrees that don’t offer a return on investment - remember those masters students in film at Columbia? Even so, it is still generally accepted that professional degrees, like JDs and MDs, will offer students the opportunity to earn significantly higher salaries.

Surprisingly, the Wall Street Journal found that this is not always the case anymore - even professional degrees in essential fields like dentistry and veterinary medicine are leaving students with high debt that is not relieved by high salaries. The debt is bad news, particularly for medical fields like chiropractic medicine and optometry where practitioners are carrying a lot of debt. 

Everyone in higher ed right now is wondering about the impact of the omicron variant on campuses this spring. While things will certainly change, this Slate piece on the ways that various top schools handled Covid this fall is worth a read. Keep in mind, though - this is written by a student at Yale, and that perspective shines through. I got a laugh at the idea that by limiting the size of on-campus parties, Wash U “forced drunk college students” to go to bars with unvaccinated people from Missouri and therefore “exposed [the students] to higher chances of getting COVID.” I guess that’s one way to think about it… 🤷‍♀️

Finally, an interesting article in New York Magazine this week explored the possibility of “socializing” college sports. We’re not sure we agree with the idea, but it is interesting to explore, particularly the author’s assertion that colleges put caps on coaching salaries, arguing:

“A system like that would mean college football and basketball would no longer be able to compete for coaching talent with the pros. It would instead have to draw from coaches who just want to mentor college students. Would that be worse?”

This is worth considering particularly in light of the news about Lincoln Riley and Brian Kelly, who reportedly received compensation packages in the range of $100 million to coach football at USC and LSU, respectively. 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

November 30 was the deadline for the UC and CSU system applications - and yes, the application sites crashed. Luckily for applicants, the systems extended the deadline until midnight yesterday - but they had been glitching for quite a while in advance, so even with the deadline, students lost valuable time to work on their applications.

This goes to show that YES, crashes happen! In fact, this kind of issue happens on application websites all the time - just one reason why we encourage all of our students to submit their applications as early as possible (at least two weeks before the deadline!). In case you are wondering, none of our students were impacted - because they all submitted their apps early!

Not surprisingly, Common App is experiencing a similar issue this week - the image below was posted online just before the 12/1 midnight deadline.

Hard to believe it is already December, but we’ve been working this week on holiday cards for all of our amazing clients - we are so grateful for you!!

Plus, some surprises in the works for our very hard-working colleagues in local school counseling offices ;) We love partnering with you to help students achieve their dreams!

Enjoy the weekend!

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Weekly Update: November 5

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

ELECTION DAY IMPACTS

The results of this week's elections will definitely have an impact on the local educational landscape. First, the 2021 School Bond Referendum was passed, providing Fairfax County Public Schools with an additional 360 million dollars to fund a number of projects. One of the most controversial of these projects is the acquisition of land for the new "Western High School" that may impact the boundary lines for Langley HS. The good news for the Langley-zoned families reading this blog is that your children will likely not be impacted, even if the Langley boundaries change - we're looking at a solid decade before the high school would open.

On the other hand, we'll likely see the impacts of the gubernatorial election very soon, as Youngkin's commitment to education reform played a major role in his win. NBC4 put together an easy reference list of the changes we can expect to see.

NEW COLLEGE COMPARISON TOOL

The Gates Foundation released a new tool, called the Equitable Value Explorer, which will allow users to compare colleges on factors such as the percentage of students who receive Pell Grants, cumulative net price, completion rate, and even percentage of STEM majors. While the tool still has some gaps, the foundation hopes that it will enable students to make better choices about where to attend colleges - and help college leaders and administrators strive for more equity at their institutions. 

JMU LEAVES THE COLONIAL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION

JMU is moving up to the Sun Belt, leaving the CAA conference. JMU is one of the league’s founding members, and is the latest school to leave for a higher-level conference. Unfortunately, the CAA has ruled that JMU’s athletes will not be able to compete in conference championships this year as a result of the change. This article explores the impact that decision will have on student-athletes who have been working hard to compete. 

UNEMPLOYMENT DOWN, WAGES UP FOR NEW GRADS

The Fed released new data today on the labor market for recent college graduates. The unemployment rate for new grads fell to 5.4% in September and wages are up too. This is great news in our office, because it means less competition with grad school applications!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

We wrote in a recent blog about registering for college courses (and how college experience coaching can help!), but what about law school? This article contains some advice from law school professors at the University of Virginia on which courses students should take - a great read for any future lawyers out there!

Not a ton of great articles this week (maybe everyone was focused on Election Day!)… stay tuned for more next Friday!

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

November 1 deadlines may have passed, but things are still busy over here! We are focusing on wrapping up applications for our late-start seniors, as well as law school and MBA applications. We’re also getting started on military academy applications (remember to start these early!) and brainstorming college lists with our class of 2023 juniors.

Finally, we are continuing to finalize course selection and scholarship applications with our college experience coaching students. UVa freshmen enrolled in spring courses today and it was like the Hunger Games of course registration... even the fourth and fifth backup choices were full for some students! If ever log into SIS again, it will be too soon! But everyone has a solid spring semester planned now - phew! One of these days we will take a vacation ;)

Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Update: October 1

Happy October!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

THE FAFSA IS OPEN

Finally, the moment some of you have been waiting for… the FAFSA opens today! If you intend to complete the form, I encourage you to do it as soon as possible. If you are unsure whether or not you should complete the FAFSA, you can check out my earlier posts here and here to help make the best decision for you and your family. There are a lot of myths about the FAFSA that circle around every year, so if any of our current clients have questions about the process, make sure to reach out to us so we can help you make this decision.

WILL STUDENT-ATHLETES BECOME EMPLOYEES?

At the very least, they are a lot closer this week than ever before! On Wednesday, the National Labor Relations Board released a memo classifying some college athletes as employees and allowing them to petition to unionize. Some experts think that students will make the push to unionize this year, which will definitely complicate the relationship between the school and its students (now employees).

NORTHWESTERN STUDENTS PROTEST GREEK LIFE

In the wake of reports that students were drugged without their consent at fraternity parties, protestors at Northwestern are asking the school to abolish Greek life on campus. In response to the allegations, the university has suspended social events and recruitment activities at its fraternities for at least the next two weeks. 

FORENSIC SCIENCE STUDENTS AT GMU WILL USE REAL HUMAN BONES

GMU is launching a new, five-acre research center where forensic science students will learn how to find and recover human remains, using real human bones from donors to recreate actual crime scenes. Students will begin being able to use the center next semester. 

SCHULER EDUCATION FOUNDATION DONATION TO THE LIBERAL ARTS

In an effort to promote equity in the liberal arts, the Schuler Education Foundation plans to donate $500 million to 25 liberal arts colleges, including Bates, Tufts, and Union. The donations are intended to expand access for underserved students to these institutions, which the foundation selected because of their historic support for underrepresented students.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Now that it is already October, it seems that students have had to transition rapidly back to going full steam ahead at school. But after so many months off, this transition can be tough!

This New York Times article explores the effects of the pandemic on students who are now returning to the classroom, many of whom need to catch up on academics (and the college planning process!). It is sobering to read the statements from these students. And if your student is one of those seniors wondering how to move forward with college planning or how to ask teachers they barely know for recommendations, book a Meet & Greet with us and we can talk with you more about getting back on track. 

In college admissions, one of the most unpredictable movements of the year is “melt” - students who have made a deposit to the college over the summer, but for one reason or another, do not ultimately matriculate in the fall. This is the reason why some colleges will pull from waitlists as late as the first week of classes! This podcast from NPR explains more about melt and why it has been so much more difficult for colleges to calculate during the pandemic. 

U.S. News put together this helpful guide for planning college visits in the DC area. We are so lucky to live in an area with so many different (and excellent!) colleges and universities. A good strategy for current sophomores and juniors is to take day trips to nearby schools on weekends to start to figure out their preferences before they start traveling around the country. If you know the difference between the way GW and Georgetown feel, for instance, you also have a pretty good understanding of how it might feel at Boston University versus Boston College, or NYU versus Columbia, and will be able to prioritize your list for out-of-state visits. 

This expose on sexual assault at Moody Bible Institute is a difficult, but important, read. Moody is the most prestigious evangelical bible college in the country, and eleven alumnae who were assaulted at Moody have recently decided to speak up about their experiences. The pressure on women to stay “pure” in the evangelical tradition often translates to school administrators placing blame on the women who were assaulted rather than the perpetrators. 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We’re so excited that local events are (slowly) coming back for our students to attend! On Monday, the deans of admission from the University of Chicago, Vanderbilt University, and Brown University will be holding an information session on the admissions process at highly selective institutions. Interested students can register here. 

Shannon really enjoyed presenting as part of Illuminos Academic Coaching & Tutoring’s “Less Stress Parenting” webinar series this week - if anyone knows the stress that the college application process can bring for parents and families, it’s us! Shannon is currently booking presentations for school and community groups for the rest of the school year and can speak on a variety of topics, including:

• Finding the Best College Fit for Your Child

• Top Tips to Avoid Parenting Stress during the Admissions Process

• Academic Planning for Middle School Students

• Demystifying College Admissions

• College Selection

Shannon can also tailor a presentation specifically for your school or organization. If you are interested in getting on our calendar for this school year, reach out to her directly at shannon@dccollegecounseling.com. These presentations are completely free to organizers as a service to the community, and your organization can either charge a modest fee for attendance and use the profits as you see fit, or offer an event to participants at no charge.

And after some heavy news and articles this week, if you need a laugh, check out this Daily Princetonian article!

Have a great weekend - I hope everyone has a chance to get outside and enjoy the weather!

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Weekly Update: September 24

The official start of fall is here - hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful weather!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

LIVESTREAM LEARNING BEGINS FOR FCPS STUDENTS

Students in Fairfax County Public Schools will be able to stay on top of their coursework even when they are quarantined or exposed to COVID-19. Students who can’t make it to class will be offered livestream instruction (via Zoom or Google Meet) and interactive check-ins with teachers during the period in which they are out of the classroom. 

COLLEGE RANKINGS FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

As we always say, it is good to take college rankings with a grain of salt - and one way to do that is to look at a variety of different rankings systems (there are many out there beyond U.S. News!). We’ve already shared on the blog the rankings from Forbes and our personal favorite, the Princeton Review rankings. 

Different ranking systems use different criteria, and the most important factor for the WSJ is one we think is super important too- career outcomes and ROI! This ranking measures where they work, how much they earn, and how much debt they have. So it's not shocking to learn which schools topped the list: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, and Duke. Keep scrolling down, though - there are some surprises. For example, Carleton College is #35 while UVA is #55.

COLLEGES ADD NEW PROGRAMS IN RESPONSE TO COVID-19

As the workplace shifts, so do college programs, and many schools have added new programs in response to the major changes brought by the pandemic. New offerings include options in health communications and health law, for obvious reasons, and those in e-sports and cybersecurity respond to our increased time in the virtual space. NYU has also added a masters’ program in health law & strategy. 

PENN CHANGES RECOMMENDATION LETTER REQUIREMENTS

The University of Pennsylvania announced this week that they will be changing their requirements when it comes to letters of recommendation - starting this cycle! In the past, Penn has required a counselor letter and two teacher letters of recommendation. Now, they will continue to require letters from counselors and one teacher, but the third letter can be from any adult you choose: it might be a teacher, but may also be a coach, employer, mentor, or even just an adult who knows you well. If you are a student who has already applied to Penn, don’t panic! Two teacher letters are still perfectly acceptable, and in fact that is still our strong recommendation.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

The Wall Street Journal published a great article this week about how Rick Singer’s “side door” worked - examining the Varsity Blues scandal in depth as trials continue this week. USC’s assistant dean of undergraduate admissions testified that the eleven students who were admitted after using Rick Singer’s services would not have been accepted without their (fabricated!) athletic experience. At USC, the admissions rate for recruited athletes is 85-90% - compare that to just 15% for all applicants! In the wake of Varsity Blues, USC plans to audit team rosters and to implement increased scrutiny in reviews of academic credentials. 

Our colleagues at College Kickstart released some of their latest admissions data in a private session for members that Shannon attended yesterday. To recap, some of the major trends we noticed last cycle were:

• An 11% increase in applications across the board (Virginia Tech, for example, saw a 39% increase! 😬)

• Schools relying more on early decision to fill their classes

• Smaller schools (like Williams and Dartmouth) having the inability to absorb gap year deferrals and admitting smaller classes as a result.

These factors combined to make for a very competitive admissions cycle, particularly for regular decision applicants!

This cycle, we are probably going to continue to see these elevated application volumes, as well as a widening gap between ED and RD acceptance rates. That means that schools like Colgate and BC, which would have been targets for many of our students a few years ago, are now reaches; same goes for flagship public schools like UGA and UC system schools, which are becoming more competitive. We always encourage our students to take advantage of early decision options where possible, and that just became easier thanks to the new ED II plans available at Carnegie Mellon, Emerson, and Loyola Marymount. 

Finally, we are still encouraging our students to take a standardized test if it is available to them - but talk to us before sending the scores, because we can’t emphasize enough that this is a very individual decision. Some schools, like Georgetown and all of the Georgia public universities, are back to requiring tests this cycle, but even for those that don’t, testing still seems to make a positive difference for most (not all!!) applicants. At very selective schools, applicants were nearly two times more likely to be admitted with test scores than without! At Emory, for example, students who submitted test scores were 2.3 times more likely to be admitted. Colgate and Boston University showed similar results. Meanwhile at other schools, like Boston College, Vanderbilt, and Harvey Mudd, there were very slight difference in admissions rates between those with test scores and those without. 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Shannon will be presenting at a free event next Wednesday at 12:00 pm as part of the Less Stress Parenting webinar series. Great concept, right? We are all about less stress parenting here! If you feel overwhelmed by the college admissions process, you can register here to check out the event!

I was so surprised and excited to be featured in the Tysons Reporter this week by the amazing Realtor Laura Schwartz (alongside Emily of Tangible Designs - she did all of our branding and logos a few years ago and was so great to work with)!

And yes - I’m transitioning back to my maiden name! (From one hard-to-spell name to another, but at least this one is mine 😀)

Lastly, our earlier blog covered a variety of virtual info session options this fall, but we are so excited that there are also some in-person events coming to our area! Notre Dame will be coming to the Tysons Corner Marriott on Wednesday, October 6 - this is an excellent way to learn more about the school and to demonstrate interest. Students can register here to attend!

Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Update: September 17

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

OPERATION VARSITY BLUES TRIALS BEGIN

The first trial for parents implicated in the college admissions scandal began on Monday. In opening statements, their lawyers blamed not only Rick Singer for duping the parents, but also the college admissions process as a whole for being susceptible to this type of manipulation. 

In other Varsity Blues updates, Georgetown’s former tennis coach was the latest to plead guilty on Wednesday, in advance of his scheduled trial in November. 

WANT TO START A 529? GO TO SCHOOL IN NYC

Starting this fall, every public school kindergartner in New York City will receive $100 in a 529 account. The new initiative is aimed at closing the wealth gap in NYC. In addition to the initial deposit, students will have the opportunity to earn up to $200 in rewards. With the initial deposit as well as rewards and donations, the program is expected to yield $3,500 per student on average by the time the children reach 12th grade. 

While New York is the largest public school system, it isn’t the first to start this type of initiative - in 2011, San Francisco began opening accounts with $50 for every student entering the public school system. 

Though these amounts may not seem like much, studies show that students with at least $500 in a savings account are three times more likely to enroll in college and four times more likely to graduate than students with no savings

WHAT IS THE BEST COLLEGE TOWN IN AMERICA?

ESPN’s new bracket hopes to determine America’s best college football town! Vote every Wednesday for your favorite team, current college, or (hopefully!) future college town as they work to determine the winner this fall.

And if you’re attending a game in a college town, you might want to avoid staying at an Airbnb! This Wall Street Journal article shared information from a study showing that Airbnb hosts “jack up their prices” for their biggest rival teams because of “affiliation bias”—in other words, the hosts just can’t stand the visiting team’s fans.” And many of the units end up going unrented, which ultimately hurts the owners because they lose money - but at least they know they were loyal!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

I loved this article from the New York Times about raising resilient children. If the past year and a half has taught us anything, it is that resilience is key! As we know firsthand, resilient kids are more likely to bounce back and even to thrive when they are faced with disappointment (like a waitlist decision from their dream school!), and this article lays out some actionable steps that parents can take to increase their children’s resistance. I know that I’ll take advantage of these tips, and I encourage every parent to think about how they can model resilience for their kids.

The Wall St. Journal article we covered last week about the widening gender gap in higher education has received a lot of attention in the past few weeks, spawning several response articles. This one from The Atlantic explores the history of this gap, and the role of ideas about masculinity in discouraging boys from seriously pursuing higher education. Not only do boys enroll in college at lower rates than girls, but in middle and high school, girls tend to spend more time studying, get in trouble less often, and get better grades across all subjects. The article suggests that the answer to this issue doesn’t happen in college admissions - instead, we need to address the gap that appears in early adolescence to control the ripple effect for higher education.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Shannon attended a networking event this week with so many amazing professionals from the DC area! We love being able to make connections and refer our students to people that we trust for tutoring, testing, evaluation, and more. Stay tuned for some collaborations and events that we have in the works!

We are busy with so many virtual tours and information sessions. We had hoped for some in-person tours this year, but you can’t beat the convenience of the virtual options! For a list of upcoming virtual fairs, tours, and information sessions for students and parents, see our latest post, and bookmark it for later - we’ll add new events as the dates are released. Let us know what you think of these virtual events!

Enjoy the weekend!

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Weekly Update: September 3

A bit of a chill in the air when we came into the office this morning, kids back at school, and seniors submitting applications almost every day - happy September!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

TULANE EXPERIENCES BACKLASH FOR IDA RESPONSE

Early on Tuesday, Tulane University began evacuating students to Houston in response to Hurricane Ida. Students won’t be permitted to return to campus until October, and classes will continue online, so many are headed home while others will stay with faculty in New Orleans. 

Tulane blamed faulty forecasts for the late evacuation, and people on Twitter became ANGRY! Criticisms of the university’s response went viral, demonstrating that the path of the hurricane had been predicted to hit New Orleans several days in advance of the evacuation. We touched base earlier this week with a current freshman we have at Tulane and were glad to hear that she is safe and doing well, but really sad that she won’t be able to return to campus for six weeks. 

(Side note: Despite the sometimes unpredictable weather, Tulane is growing increasingly popular with students - their acceptance rate dropped from 30% a few years ago to 9.73% this past year! The class of 2025 at Tulane set records for diversity as well as academic excellence.)

BUT THE AMHERST COVID BACKLASH IS WAY WORSE

I have always been on the more conservative side with Covid - just this week I kept one of my kids home from school for days as a precaution because kids in other classes there were testing positive and I didn’t want to risk exposure. So I do understand being cautious and in general applaud that.

But what is Amherst thinking? They are taking their Covid restrictions way too far, in my opinion, and students are furious. This piece from the New York Post made me laugh - “Students, all of whom were already required to be vaccinated, will spend non-class time in their dorm rooms and may leave campus only in a handful of defined emergency situations. One of these is apparently going to the bank, though what a bunch of would-be rowdy undergraduates who can’t hit up the local dive bars or have a coffee will need money for is a mystery.” Sounds fun, right? I really like Amherst, but yikes.

COVID-19 OUTBREAK AT LIBERTY UNIVERSITY

On the other end of the spectrum, Liberty University switched abruptly to remote learning this week following a coronavirus outbreak on campus. Their numbers tripled within the last week and they now have 4x as many students with Covid as UVA, JMU, VCU and Virginia Tech COMBINED!!! To put this into perspective, their student population is about 15,000, and the combined student population at those four schools is about 115,000. Time to start getting vaccinated, guys! With limited ICU space at the only local hospital, the university had to pivot to protect its students. Liberty is just one of several schools, including Rice and Duke, that have made changes in the last few weeks in response to the Delta variant. 

One week ago at Liberty. Seriously???

COLLEGE FOOTBALL KICKOFF

College football started this week, with fans eagerly awaiting yesterday’s top-25 matchup between Ohio State and Minnesota. As universities struggle with the Delta variant, it is up to the colleges to manage COVID-19 during these travel games. Some football teams, including Ole Miss, Arizona, and Boston College, have 100% vaccination rates headed into the season.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

My favorite college rankings were released this week! I look forward to the Princeton Review’s rankings every year, and we often recommend them to our clients. Instead of ranking the colleges from best to worst in a general sense like many other guides, Princeton Review identifies the characteristics that students seek in an undergraduate education and identifies the top 25 schools that best fit each one. They are called "Great Lists" and range from "Great College Dorms" to "Great Career Services" to "Great Professors" and more. 

I also really like the write-ups in the Princeton Review rankings - they give a "School Says" and a "Students Say" section for each aspect of the school. This gives you a more realistic sense of what's happening on campus. For example, the "School Says" part about Wash U's campus life reads: "Washington University offers a nurturing, yet intellectually rigorous, environment where students from all identities and backgrounds thrive." But what do the students say? "WashU is ‘the package deal. Great academics, amazing extracurricular activities, and the best people.’ There’s ‘always funding for student groups, student initiatives, university-run activities, research, and the infrastructure is unmatched’: ’Dorms are five-star hotels, food is delicious with tons of variety, [and] the buildings are gorgeous.’ (I agree!). 

Create a free account on review.com to check out all of the rankings and write-ups, or buy the brand-new "Best 387 Colleges" book, which contains the same information all in one place.

Tulane and Penn State joined together this week for a webinar on “Making the Most of Your Common App.” If you missed the event, you can check out this recap. There are some common sense tips from each school, but our biggest takeaway is the importance of demonstrated interest at Tulane. As we mentioned above, their acceptance rate has dropped into the single digits, and Tulane is a school that takes demonstrated interest seriously! Students who are applying this cycle should make sure to prioritize visits, optional essays, and interview opportunities to maximize their admissions strategy. 

Lastly, the WSJ published a fascinating piece that I know would strike a chord with MANY of our readers here in Northern Virginia. It explores the increasingly problematic issue of public universities rejecting their own state’s students in order to accept more out-of-state applicants. Why is this happening, you ask? Because the out-of-state students pay a whole lot more in tuition. Texas and North Carolina were identified as two schools that are bucking this trend, which is why it’s next to impossible to get into UT Austin or UNC Chapel Hill from out of state. According to the article, the other “48 out of 50 flagship universities increased their share of out-of-state freshmen from 2002 to 2018. The average increase was 55%, although some … increased by more than 150%.” So basically everyone just pays extra to go to their neighboring state’s universities since they can’t get into their own, which brings the states more revenue but also increases student debt.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

As I have mentioned before, we are continuing to transition from working primarily with our original Class of 2022 cohort to kicking off the application process with our juniors and spending more time with our Late Start Seniors and grad students. And we’re hearing from our Class of 2021 students as many of them finish up their first week of classes, which is so fun!

One of our 2021 students sent us this absolutely adorable plant a few weeks ago (the picture doesn’t do it justice). I’m considering kidnapping it for my home office instead because I like the color so much ;)

Remember, if you just started senior year and are feeling overwhelmed - it’s NOT too late for help! Seniors who book a Meet & Greet within the next several weeks will likely be able to finish their applications by November 1. It never fails to amaze me how we can completely dig these families out of a bad situation and put them on a path to success in a matter of days, and it’s really gratifying because they are always so thankful and appreciative. A mom told me the other day that working with us was like taking a magic pill and losing ten pounds overnight. I wasn’t sure where she was going with that (haha) but then she explained that while it’s always better in retrospect to do things the right way (I.e. diet and exercise, or spending a year on the college application process), sometimes you really just need a quick fix and that’s exactly what we gave her! :) I can appreciate that!!

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Weekly Update: August 27

Happy back-to-school week! With a few exceptions, most of our students are back to the grind (and the seniors are really glad they worked so hard over the summer on their applications)!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

VIRGINIA SOL SCORES RELEASED

The Virginia SOL results were released for the 2020-2021 school year and we find them very concerning (although not all that surprising, I suppose). The navy column on the left represents Fairfax County's performance in 2018-2019, and the navy column on the right represents Fairfax County's performance in 2020-2021.

Note that these results only measure students who participated in the SOL exams, and many students opted out. In addition, these were only available for students attending in-person school. I read on one site that the results only reflect about 80% of the FCPS population, although I do not know if that is true or not.

The reason that this is such an issue is because coursework builds on itself, especially in areas like math, science, and foreign language. You can't perform well in AP Calculus until you master concepts from Pre-Calculus. You can’t do well in Spanish 3 if you have gaps from Spanish 2. You get the picture.. and now we have confirmation that many students really did miss key concepts last year.

We recommend that parents stay on top of this and take a very proactive approach, particularly if their students were enrolled in courses like the ones I just mentioned. I am less worried about courses like Geometry, which isn’t all that relevant for the next course in the math sequence, Algebra 2. Or World History, which is good to know in general but won’t impact most students’ performance in U.S. History, the next course in the history sequence. But for the those who are enrolled in courses that build on previous years’ material, it’s never too early to start with a tutor!

EARLY ADMISSION PLAN CHANGES

We love the lists on the College Kickstart blog! This past week they shared a list of schools with changes to their EA, ED, and ED II plans for the upcoming 2021-2022 admissions season, and it’s worth a look. Some standouts: Princeton reinstated SCEA, Carnegie Mellon added ED II, Syracuse removed EDII, and Loyola Marymount added EDII. Remember that we may still see some additional changes in the next month or two, as well!

COVID’S FALL SEMESTER IMPACT MAY VARY WIDELY FROM SCHOOL TO SCHOOL

It looks like Covid’s impact on undergraduate education during the fall semester will vary greatly from school to school, according to this Washington Post article. The University of Michigan’s chief health officer is optimistic and excited for the semester to begin, believing that we’ve turned a corner, and the president of Wellesley College agrees that this year will be different because of the vaccine. But not at the schools without mandates! At Florida A&M University, one out of every four students living in a residence hall has not been vaccinated. That does not bode well…

GETTING BANG FOR YOUR BUCK

If you’re on the fence about which major to pursue, we liked this research showing the best ROI for three different types of programs: bachelor’s degrees, associate’s degrees, and certificates. This is a smart way to look at it, because the type of degree obviously impacts earnings and there may be certain fields that are better for students to pursue if they know from the get-go that they don’t want a four-year degree. I actually thought there would be more variation than the study showed - nursing for the win!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

We saw this graphic from Binghamton University that we LOVED! This is hard for a lot of parents, including me. You should have seen the “tell me about your child” worksheet I filled out for my daughter’s teacher the other night! I had a lot to say :)

So I get it - we want to fix their problems, or even better, we want to prevent their problems in the first place. But it’s so important to recognize the message under the “Roll” graphic - we are HELPING our children by letting them problem-solve on their own. Yes, we can be there for support and we should. But they need these skills, even if they are a little painful to learn at times. If you aren’t convinced, pick up a copy of Grit!

…Or just read this WSJ article, “Lessons From the Parents Who Raised the World’s Top Soccer Sisters.” It was published earlier this summer, but we just saw it and thought it was worth spotlighting. Pretty amazing that two sisters made the same Olympic team! Their parents made sure that the girls were the ones driving their soccer training as young children - particularly when it involved missing school for camps and making up a ton of work. “Every single time they went, they were taking responsibility and commitment to say they wanted to do it,” their mom explained.

While most of our students complained about online learning this past year, we have a few for whom it was a very positive experience. They are not the only ones! The New York Times published a piece on the positive impact of remote learning for students with disabilities, and it brings up some very interesting points. I wouldn’t have thought this before reading the article, but it looks like there may be some legitimate legal reasons for colleges to offer virtual or hybrid options to students who need it.

Lastly, check out this Philadelphia Magazine article about the broken nature of the college admissions process. I know, I know, we’ve read about twenty of these so far this year, and I almost skipped right over it because of that. But this was a good article that’s worth a read, particularly for parents of sophomores or juniors who are about to start the process in earnest.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We still have a few stragglers whose private schools haven’t opened yet, but our whole team enjoyed having a few minutes during the school day to breathe this week since most of our students were back at school. Of course, this just means that afternoons are busier than ever!

Hope everyone had a great first week! My two are very happy to be back at their respective schools and I’m crossing my fingers that ALL of our kids are able to attend in-person school all year long!!

And if you are getting back into the swing of things and already at home Sunday afternoon working on homework, check out the NWHE Virtual Information Session featuring Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins, Wash U and Emory. Don’t forget to sign up in advance!

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