Weekly Update: June 12!

Happy first day of summer, Fairfax County! And we are at Phase 2 of reopening - be safe this weekend, everyone.

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

More testing news! A whole lot of kids found out yesterday that their previously-confirmed June 13 testing administrations would be canceled after all - with less than 48 hours notice. Ughh! It is always something.

Schools continue to shift to test-optional, including Yale, which actually announced the policy while I was writing this post; Johns Hopkins; the University of Washington; and here’s the CRAZY unexpected one- CalTech went TEST BLIND! Definitely did not see that coming. Again, check out my post from April about the difference between test-optional and test blind. This happened on Monday, and I was waiting all week long to see if any other schools would follow. So far, not yet. CalTech is by far the most selective school to go this route.

The colleges are all continuing to release plans for the fall: some students at Duke will be living in hotels (which, to be honest, does not sound so terrible!) and Harvard’s Dean of Undergraduate Education has informed faculty that most fall instruction will take place online.

Purdue made headlines this week because of their fundraising effort to pay for PPE - this has not gone over particularly well from a PR perspective (to put it mildly) but they’ve raised over $112,000 so far! The reason this has gotten so much backlash is that the president, Mitch Daniels, has been one of the most outspoken proponents of reopening colleges and universities this coming fall.

At a reception at Purdue this past fall inside the stadium. That was definitely one of my most fun college visits!

On a more serious note and one that has not actually been covered much yet in the mainstream media, Betsy DeVos issued an emergency rule yesterday that banned colleges and universities from extending CARES Act relief funding to non-citizens, to include students who are DACA, Temporary Protected Status, and asylum recipients. To give you an idea of what a big deal this is, half of the state of California’s 2+ million student community college system is estimated to be impacted.

Now for some GOOD NEWS (it’s about time, right?!) Common App released their list of new members and there are some really great additions for kids hoping to head south. We already knew about UGA, but I had not known about the additions of Auburn and CLEMSON!! So excited about Clemson in particular because I have a ton of kids apply there each year. If JMU would just join this list, it would make me so happy. Please? (I have given up on VT and the University of Texas system!).

If you missed my video on Facebook, UVA released their 2020-2021 supplemental essay topics on Monday. The engineering essay is completely different from the prompt of years past, and some of the others have slight modifications. The last “choice” prompt is brand new - I said this on my video, but I’d be careful about what you write here. Don’t pick something too common. Protesting Black Lives Matter is beyond admirable but there are so many kids who will write about that for this essay. If you did something to contribute in a larger way like Avi Schiffmann - by all means, WRITE ABOUT IT! But I would not write about marching down Maple or you’ll blend in with all of the other kids in Fairfax County, as awesome as that was.

This is not really college-related, but I also put a lot of information about Gov. Northam’s return-to-school plan on facebook. You can find the entire 126-page document here. We are supposed to learn more next week about how FCPS will implement these guidelines.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

I enjoyed “March 10: The anatomy of a day” article from Duke’s campus newspaper - it was interesting (and sad) to read about the different perspectives and the ways that different lives in the Duke community were impacted.

Inside Higher Ed’s piece on how private colleges “report vastly different circumstances” is definitely worth a read. Some of this was not surprising - if you’ve ever been to Bucknell or Kenyon, you will understand exactly why they are highly sought-after options this year. They are in the middle of nowhere, literally!

I took this picture about 18 months ago just before driving onto the Kenyon campus - check out the cows!

I did find the part about NYU surprising, but it will be interesting to see how many students pull out down the line, particularly because NYU was one of the most inflexible schools I dealt with this past spring when it came to deposit extensions. This makes me wonder how many kids just went ahead and double deposited to keep their options open? Time will tell!

In “Rich Colleges Can Afford to Spend More,” Paul Campos asserts that colleges with large endowments should start spending them to be able to avoid budget cuts. I’m not an economist, but at the same time, I don’t feel like it’s quite that simple…

This New York Times article is definitely worth reading for any athletic recruits, and discusses how the process has become very tricky this year given that coaches can’t see prospective student-athletes play in person. The girl they mentioned who is emailing five coaches per day is SMART! That’s exactly what she should be doing. This is definitely an issue right now, and that’s why we made sure to include resources for prospective student-athletes in our membership vault, from a player profile/athletic resume template to guidance for sample emails to coaches.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

I try to make our office run as efficiently as possible and am a big fan of automating whatever we can. This cuts down on back-end administrative tasks that aren’t client-facing and gives us more time to spend providing great service to our clients! With so many essays and application edits coming in at this time of year, I decided that there had to be a better way.

Several hours later, I came up with the following online submission forms:

Wow Editing Submissions - this is ONLY for edits related to Wow Writing Workshop

Editing Submissions - this is for everything else - supplemental essays, cover letters, resumes, applications, you name it!

We started using these with a few kids this week and will continue to roll it out slowly with all of our students over the next two weeks. From now on, instead of emailing to indicate that something is ready for review, all students will fill out one of the above two forms every time they have something ready. They will also fill out the second form at the end of each essay coaching meeting so that their progress from the meeting will continue to have the second level of review.

I have a lot of fancy automations and rules set up on the back end in our project management system, so these will route directly to my to-do list and will even end up in the right category, depending on the type of edits needed. I’m really excited about it and I definitely think it will also cut down on the amount of lead time I’ll need to edit an essay!

Weekly Update: June 5

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

Things fell apart even more with the College Board! I knew that they were planning a big announcement that day, but didn’t know what it was going to be. I have to say, I did not expect them to cancel at-home testing although I believe it was absolutely the right call.

SO MANY test-optional announcements resulted, including UVA, Penn, Columbia, Dartmouth… UVA also switched to an 11/1 deadline for ED (it was 10/15 this past year).

Catholic University ended up shifting to test-blind - for all of the conversations about test-optional admissions and equity, I am surprised that more people aren’t making a fuss about the test-blind vs. test-optional designation. I guess the average person simply doesn’t understand the difference?

More announcements about academic calendars - Stanford has a particularly interesting plan; I don’t know if it will work but it’s very well-thought-out! Drexel is the first school (to my knowledge, anyway) that is offering students a fully-separate cohort-based entry plan called Winter Entry. I wonder if we will see more of that.

By the way, have we collectively decided that COVID-19 is over?! Things have relaxed SO MUCH over the past couple of weeks. I really felt strongly that there would be no school this fall, but now I’m second-guessing myself. It makes me nervous when I don’t see people wearing their masks.. wear your masks, everybody!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Frank Bruni’s piece on the potential impact of COVID-19 on students’ fields of study (with an emphasis on the potential for a lack of humanities majors in the future) was interesting food for thought. This is always a tough thing, because I squirm a little bit myself when I hear kids talking about degrees that seem to have zero marketability. But then on the flip side, as I’ve written about before, I really do believe that I have a better life today in all regards because of my degree in English. I have a job I LOVE, I make a difference in people’s lives, and I have a high income - can you really ask for more from your career? (Maybe to get home a little earlier? ha). But seriously, I would not be where I am today without the utterly non-marketable degree I pursued! It put me in a position to be able to take risks.

A professor from the New School makes a case that college should be free. This is tough. I do think that community college and even a 2+2 community college + university program should be free if there’s a way we can make that work financially as a society. But on the flip side, if we’re running wild with the “free college for everyone” idea, we have to fund it on the back end… and as far as I know, there’s only one way to do that: taxes!

My favorite blog reader :) sent me this video yesterday about the potential impact of the lack of Chinese student enrollment this fall. I will admit that when I first saw the video, I wasn’t sure it would be all that interesting, but it was! Some of the statistics were staggering - like the enrollment at Michigan State. Wow.

Finally, a great piece from the New York Times with practical advice for the Class of 2021 - I thought the tips from Hannah Wolff at Langley were particularly spot-on and aligned with everything we tell our students here. I suppose one piece of criticism is that the article could have done a little more to point out who should NOT choose to write the additional COVID-19 essay. More on that from us later this week.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We sent out our senior graduation gifts on Wednesday. I’m really, really excited about them and I hope our seniors are too. I cannot even tell you how much work went into these on my end!!! But it was totally worth it. I spent about six hours (!) that day writing individual emails to each of them, and while I practically had carpal tunnel by the time I went home, I was glad that I wrote them all myself. It’s kind of sad how we get to know these kids so well and then in a blink of an eye, they are done!

Other than that, I just had a whole lot of meetings with sophomore and juniors, edited about 124,643,234,123 essay and recommendation drafts, and I had the podcast interview today that I wrote about in my last weekly update! It was unexpectedly nice to be able to share my story of how my business came to be and how it’s evolved over the last decade. I am excited for what the future holds!

Weekly Update: May 29 (a little late!)

I’m a guest on a podcast this week and have to provide an answer to the question “What is one thing about you that may surprise people?”

Well, one thing that would probably surprise most people is that I spent a year in college interning as a Complaint Counselor at the ACLU of Eastern Missouri for fifteen hours per week. I then spent ten weeks during the following summer as an “intern investigator” for the Public Defender Service in DC, in the Parole division. I spent incredibly long days tracking down witnesses all around Southeast DC and PG County, meeting with our clients at the DC Jail, and so much more. I know people throw the words “life-changing experience” around a lot, but that’s exactly what these internships were.

The biggest thing I learned from both of these positions is that the justice system will only work if both sides do exactly what they are supposed to do. The minute someone goes rogue, the entire system collapses. In the Parole division at PDS, I was helping out convicted criminals who had done some really horrible things. But it was my job was to help make sure they had the best possible representation so that the system could operate as it was intended. And police misconduct is a very, very real thing.

If I’m being honest, I almost didn’t post this week. I felt silly writing a blog post with sections like “Biggest News of the Week” when the SAT registration debacle is clearly NOT the biggest news of the week - or anywhere close to it. I have been glued to CNN. Truly, though, I am horrified by this entire situation. And yet I am not surprised. So I will say this: my heart absolutely breaks for George Floyd and the thousands and thousands of other names I’ve never heard.

Without getting too personal, I have realized one thing for sure over the past few years: I have absolutely no clue what it’s like to be a person of color in America today. The more I learn, the more I realize how much I still don’t know. But I am trying to understand, and I am so very sorry that this has happened. I wish I had something more eloquent to say.

There is absolutely no good way to segue this, but here goes:

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

(Yes, changing the title on this..)

More test-optional announcements, including the University of Miami and Rutgers.

Tons more announcements about the shifting of academic calendars at various colleges and universities.

ACT

We did get some clarity on the June ACT on Friday. First of all, some sites will be offering the test. ACT is trying to source community-based test sites in certain geographic areas without other options (for example, if the local school districts will not offer it). Depending on how that goes, it’s possible that more test sites will be added as time goes on.

In case you were wondering:

• Test-takers will not be required to use PPE (i.e. masks), although they are encouraged to bring their own to use.

• Test-takers that do bring/wear their own PPE will need to remove it upon arrival for facial identification purposes.

• Test centers will be set up to adhere to social distancing guidelines. I assume that means six feet apart, but they may have left it vague on purpose.

• There are definitely test centers open within a reasonable drive of the DC area. If you are okay with the risks above, then you may be able to log in and adjust your registration to one of those centers (please note that I am not advocating doing this, but I wanted to at least share the information I have).

As of Friday morning, ACT hadn’t specified exactly how the lack of required PPE will work in states where PPE is legally required in public indoor spaces, like Virginia (although I am sorry to say that I have seen many people without masks in Virginia in public indoor spaces since the law went into effect on Friday.. so maybe no one is following this anyway?)

FAQ released early Friday indicated that all students registered for the June ACT would receive a personalized email update at some point that day regarding their options. I heard from a lot of students who did receive this email, so it sounds like that actually came to fruition.

For what it’s worth, ACT also announced that their CEO is stepping down (was fired? not sure) and their COO is stepping into the CEO role. This is pretty big news and was sort of swept under the rug.

SAT

Last week, the College Board was supposed to open their site up for August, September, and October registrations for students who met priority criteria:

• Students already registered for the June SAT or Subject Tests who didn’t cancel their registrations

• Students in the high school class of 2020 who don’t have SAT scores

• Students in the high school class of 2021 and don’t have SAT scores

It wasn’t clear whether the priority students were limited to one sitting or multiple, and to be honest, it’s still not fully clear. What we do know is that many students were able to register who did not meet the priority criteria at all. As a result, lots of students who should have had priority got shut out. Anecdotally, I found that families who were not registering for SSD (extra time) spots definitely had an easier time registering for multiple sittings.

Non-priority registration opens up June 3, but I’m sure the site will crash again.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

I liked this one from the New York Times - it compares the strategy that Washington University in St. Louis (my alma mater!) is taking with St. Louis University down the street. SLU’s approach is definitely the one that we’re seeing from a ton of different schools. I can’t decide if I think the people at Wash U are being really smart about this or the exact opposite, but I’m intrigued to see how this plays out.

I thought this piece, also from the New York Times, asked some important questions about standardized testing.

Nearly half of high school students who graduated in 2016 had at least an A- average, but an admissions officer may give an A- from a struggling public school in Mississippi less weight than one from Phillips Academy, even though grade inflation is worse at wealthier and whiter schools. Other application components — personal essays, recommendation letters from illustrious mentors, calls from well-connected college counselors — also favor students from richer families.

While I agree with the author’s point 100% that the alternative is worse because of grade inflation, what I completely disagree with is the part about how grade inflation is worse at wealthier and whiter schools. Some wealthy and white schools, sure. The grade inflation at some FCPS high schools is so wild I can’t even wrap my head around it.

But Phillips Academy and peer schools? Not a chance. No way. We work with a lot of boarding school kids and this is just plain wrong. These schools have deflated grades, not inflated grades. That being said, the author’s incorrect assumption indirectly proves his point: so much is subjective and we need some kind of standardized way to measure achievement.

I thought about that article a lot as I read the one that ended up being the most interesting of the week, a piece from the WSJ about revolutionizing admissions in the wake of the pandemic. To be honest, I found this one very puzzling. I agreed with everything for a while - there’s no question this will be an extremely different year. However, I did not agree with some of the assertions at the end. Like this:

The unavoidable shift in the admission process this year could help to address stubborn longer-term problems. It may, for instance, de-escalate the current arms race widely decried by colleges, high schools, students and their families.

I’m sorry, but I’m with the New York Times article on this one. I truly do not think that the holistic approach that de-emphasizes testing data will de-escalate the arms race. In fact, I think it will escalate the arms race. Trust me when I say it’s already happening; the people who have the means to pursue professional assistance are doing so right now in droves. Your jaw would drop if you saw what our numbers looked like for the month of May… despite the fact that we’re in an economic depression.

Any of the assessment methods mentioned in that article can be easily manipulated. The Bowdoin videos? Come on. We prepped several students for that exact exercise last year. It’s very easy for a consultant experienced in admissions interview prep to help a student showcase their best self in that kind of setting. Same with the Character Skills Snapshot (to which the authors refer as the “Character Snapshot.”

As I see it, “revolutionizing” admissions to make it more holistic is going to help the people who can afford assistance with the soft aspects of their application, like interviews, essays, and recommendation letters. I’m not in the test prep business, but I would imagine that it’s much harder to ensure that a student achieves a high score on the ACT than it is to provide content to help that student’s recommender write a fantastic letter.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Just another super busy week. All the ACT/SAT nonsense took up a lot of time.

We are working on something that I’m very excited about for our graduating seniors, although they don’t know about it yet. Soon!

Some of the schools have begun to release supplemental essay topics for the Class of 2021. Stay tuned for a post on those later this week!

That’s all for now. Here’s hoping we can turn 2020 around during the month of June, am I right?!

Weekly Update and Exciting News to Share: May 22

Another very busy week in our office with some exciting news at the end of this post!

BIGGEST NEWS OF THE WEEK

A number of schools went test-optional, including Elon, UConn, RIT and more.. but all anyone is talking about is California!!

The University of California Board of Regents approved some incredible changes yesterday - including a shift to a test-blind (!!!) approach for in-state applicants in the Class of 2023 and 2024. Crazy! And they finally got rid of that writing section requirement! If you are interested in all of the details, I would highly recommend reading straight from the source as linked above; I read a few different articles in the mainstream media that contained errors regarding the impact on out-of-state students.

We also learned more admissions statistics from this year’s senior class - College Kickstart did a great job of sharing it!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

We saw many more colleges and universities share their plans for fall, and I enjoyed reading coverage from a New York Times reporter who was able to listen in on COVID-19 discussions at the University of Kentucky. I also really liked this piece from the Chronicle of Higher Ed (which I imagine most of you cannot access due to the paywall). You can see the first line, though, and that’s probably all you really need to get the point!

Along the same lines, this piece from a public school teacher in California provides an incredibly in-depth depiction of what the fall will look like if K-12 schools open. From a parental perspective, I am DYING (DYING!!!!) to get my kids out of the house, but I also spent nine years of my career working in school-based settings - including a year in a New York City public school.. and the professional side of me knows that this guy is right. I would rather school systems just focus their efforts on improving virtual instruction.

This blog post on writing from Brad Schiller was actually written a week ago, but I didn’t read it until last night so it’s fair game, right?

Students don’t realize they’re bad at writing. Grade inflation and limited feedback make students believe they’re good. They receive little feedback on their Structured Thinking – i.e., the higher-order aspects of writing (content, structure, and clarity). The problem compounds year over year throughout K-12 and higher ed until students become unprepared job seekers.

Oh my gosh YES! I see this constantly. I am always surprised by the poor quality of the written work that students produce, and am even more puzzled when they have a straight-A transcript to go along with it. I really do believe that our process helps students become better writers, which is one silver lining of all of the essay work in the college admissions process. Still, it doesn’t make up for the lack of proper instruction in most K-12 settings.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

This has been such a hard secret to keep!

We launched pre-orders for a brand new offering today: the DC College Counseling Membership Vault! This has actually been in the works since April of 2019, but COVID-19 reinforced the idea that there is an incredible need right now for college admissions assistance at a lower price point. While I wish we could provide individualized help to everyone, this offering provides an amazing alternative.

Current clients will gain automatic access when we launch one month from today.. and we’ll be sharing more details throughout the month to come!

Weekly Update: May 15

I have struggled with how best to share all of the ever-changing news relating to the college admissions process throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. At first, I was trying to update our Coronavirus Page every day, but it became too time-consuming. Still, the links on that page should provide the most up-to-date information regarding a situation that is constantly changing.

Instead, I’m going to try publishing a weekly update each Friday with the biggest news and best articles of the week, plus anything interesting that’s been happening in our office!

Here goes:

Biggest News of the Week

• AP Exams did not start out so well, to put it mildly. In addition to thousands of students having to choose between no credit vs. retaking their exams in June, cheating was rampant (see screen shot!). So frustrating for everyone involved. Most of the complaints we heard were about three exams: AP Physics C: Mechanics, AP Calculus AB, and AP U.S. History.

• William & Mary announced a shift to a test-optional pilot program that will last three years (Classes of 2021-2023 will be impacted). By the way, William & Mary was the big shocker of the 2019-2020 application cycle for Virginia residents before all hell broke loose in March with the virus. They waitlisted so. many. qualified. candidates. It was insane and felt very different from previous years. ED is the way to go there, no question (like basically every other school!).

• Villanova will be test-optional for the Class of 2021 and also added an EDII option. I think we are going to see many more schools move to EDII. Which is awesome because I LOVE EDII. It’s still relatively under-utilized as a strategy. We were 4/4 for EDII acceptances this year with the Class of 2020, and were also 100% with the Class of 2019, although I can’t remember offhand how many we had - around 3-5, I believe. The right EDII strategy can be huge for a candidate.

• The Cal State system announced that it will not provide in-person instruction this fall and the UC System has indicated that they will likely follow suit. Remember that the UC and Cal State systems were some of the first to announce a switch to test-optional admissions - UC made the decision all the way back on April 1.

• FCPS just announced this afternoon (Friday, May 15) that school buildings will remain closed in July. Students in grades 7-12 will be able to pursue daily synchronous instruction through Online Campus coursework for a reduced price. Be careful - this is not for everyone. The grades count - if it doesn’t go well, they will be on the transcript regardless. If you haven’t looked at our Guide to Virtual Instruction Alternatives for FCPS Students, check that out.

• Speaking of, everybody is talking about MISC. I personally think this is the final nail in the coffin for in-person K-12 instruction this fall.

Best Articles of the Week

• Loved, loved, loved this article from the Atlantic. I think that our society needs to open our eyes more to the idea of college students starting at home through online learning. I know it stinks, believe me. But this too shall pass and no matter what happens over the next four years or where the classes take place, the students will have degrees from the schools in question. That’s what’s most important at the end of the day in my personal opinion.

“We must ask ourselves: What would make leaders gamble with human life this way? The answer is twofold: fear and acquiescence—both of which, when left unchecked, lead down a path to moral damnation. The fear of the fiscal damage associated with empty campuses in the fall is the primary reason that schools are exploring every option to avoid that possibility … The other reason higher-education leaders may be forced into questionable decisions is their refusal to stand up to the unrealistic expectations of many faculty and staff members, students, alumni, and other stakeholders. If you are a college president right now, not everyone is not going to like what you do. But if you are fair, honest, and transparent, you will be respected; and it is always better to be respected than liked.”

• An interesting piece from New York magazine about what the future of higher education may look like (side note: wow, the BC stuff, ha!). Not sure If I agree with the prediction but it was interesting to consider.

• This piece from Forbes considers the future of K-12 education through four separate models. I haven’t heard too many others discussing microschools - but maybe they should be!

Office Happenings

• After just over ten months, our trademark was approved this week! So exciting.

• During the last several weeks, we have had an incredible amount of 10th graders sign up for ongoing services. I don’t know that we have ever had this many 10th graders sign up in such a short period of time… but I’m glad because starting early makes it so much easier in the long run! So much easier to do things right the first time than have to backtrack later and fix mistakes. Right now, we are helping many of these students strategically map out their summer experiences and target their test prep.

• Most of the 11th graders have been done with their Common App essays for a while and the focus over the last few weeks has shifted to teacher and counselor recommendation work. We have an extensive process that I referenced on the blog last year.

• Our July calendar should be live by the beginning of next week. Two months in and (knock on wood) our pivot to 100% virtual services has gone exceptionally well, even though I’m getting lonely here all alone. All of our students are Zoom experts now!

Enjoy the weekend, everyone!

Recent Updates (a.k.a. why August is so CRAZY)

Here in Northern Virginia, Fairfax County Public Schools have instituted a couple of recent-ish changes that have made life a little more difficult for us here at DC College Counseling. This is not to say that I personally disagree with them (I can see pros and cons) but boy do they present a logistical challenge.

CHALLENGE #1:

The school board made the decision to shift start times about an hour later during the 2015-2016 school year. I appreciate the rationale (more sleep!) and can identify with the need for it, but it's made an already-short window of time to meet with students after school even shorter. I get home way later each night than most people I know (I try to cut off meetings at 8), but at the same time we're still talking about a pretty limited amount of time in which my team can actually meet with clients.

Because of less time after school, this scenario pushed everyone to feel even more insistent about finishing their applications before senior year. I think this is best anyway, so i’m on board - but it definitely made things a little more hectic for us in August. Remember, the new versions of the applications are not released until 8/1. We do as much as humanly possible beforehand but there’s still some tasks that can’t be completed until that date.

CHALLENGE #2

This has been the real doozy!! FCPS was granted a waiver to begin before Labor Day, and our already-short window of time became even more compressed. In 2015-2016, school began on September 8. This year it's August 26. Suddenly, five weeks of sixty-hour work weeks became three weeks of … well, you do the math. Then you add the Coalition, which didn’t exist a few years ago, and it’s a perfect storm!

Fortunately, we have great systems in place to make things as streamlined as possible, but it’s still quite a month!

—

I share all of this for a few reasons:

1. To apologize that we can’t be as flexible during this time of year as we’d like. Last week I was in the office most days from 9 am until about 10-11 pm, and then came home and worked for a few more hours each night. So brutal. I’m a pleaser by nature and HATE having to tell someone that I can’t squeeze them in, but it’s truly out of my control at this time of year. I’m sorry!!

2. To beg prospective clients to book the right package from the start. Parents grossly underestimate the amount of time this process takes, and while we do make sure that we have at least some wiggle room at the end for families hoping to add extra hours, we realistically can’t leave half our calendar empty in our busiest month. That would not be a very good move from a business standpoint :) We have to plan based on the packages that have already been purchased, so please take our advice if we recommend more hours from the start. We have plenty of business and are absolutely not trying to up-sell anyone. It’s just that we know what’s ahead and it will be difficult to accommodate last-minute adjustments in our busiest time of year.

3. To explain some changes in our offerings. I recently changed the names of our packages (not the pricing or included services - names only!). I initially chose our former package names a decade ago in a very different landscape, and I realized recently that that are not representative of the services we provide today. When I started this business, we had three packages representing 10, 25, and 35 hours. 25 hours was plenty to get a typical student through the process and 10 could definitely make a substantial dent. Now, 75% of clients choose the 35-hour package and it’s often a struggle on our end to finish in that amount of time. 25 hours makes a substantial dent for a motivated student and 10 will cover a very small component of the total work.

We added a 55-hour plan a couple of years ago to provide a realistic option for students needing more help than others (recruited athlete, an artist with portfolios, etc.), but we never really adjusted the others accordingly. I realized that it made no sense to call our current 25-hour package the standard plan, because it’s far from standard. I was thinking about making the 35-hour package the standard plan, but realized that could get pretty confusing. We ultimately just chose new names (except for the 55-hour plan, which will not change).

Next, we also dropped our 10-hour package after we filled up for the 2019-2020 season. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time and just felt like it was the right thing to do. The truth is that I can’t provide meaningful help to an applicant in such a small period of time when I don’t have full control over how each minute is allocated.

Instead, we created an option that I believe to be a much better package for clients who want to stay at the same price point - it’s about the same amount of time, but in a standardized manner that gives families what they actually need, not what they think they need.

You can read the offering updates here.

It’s fun for me to reminisce about how far we have come over the years and all the kids we’ve helped. Actually, as I was writing this post, I received an email from a past client requesting help for her son’s graduate school admissions process. It is so hard for me to picture him as an adult when most of our work together took place during the summer of 2014 or 2015. 2013? The years all blend together! I was still in my K Street office and my second-grader was a baby.

I can truly say that I LOVE what I do, and I know how fortunate I am to be spending my life this way - even if my schedule is a little crazy. Sometimes I really feel sorry for people who have “real jobs.” Honestly, for 11 months out of the year, mine doesn’t feel like work.

And then August comes :)

One week to go!

#ThursdayThoughts

1. Have you read the newest on Sidwell from The Atlantic? Sigh.

2. UVA has now released their 2019-2020 supplemental essays! I knew they’d be coming soon, but I didn’t anticipate them quite this soon. Regardless, I’m happy, because they didn’t change very much from last year.

3. A lot of kids will need to be able to write about a book for the first UVA essay (I personally think that’s the easiest way to approach that prompt). I suggested some options here back in January but will do another post soon about some new summer releases. In the meantime, I’m just loving this throwback from The New York Times. So many fun memories associated with reading some of these.

4. Southwest is having my favorite sale of the year! There are a ton of round-trip options from the DC area under $100 - perfect for college visits all over the country. The reason I love booking Southwest for my own college visits is because of their cancellation policy, which makes everything so much easier. I don’t have to stress about whether the dates will work or if something is likely to come up. If something comes up, I just cancel.

5. I can’t believe this is the last full week of the school year. CRAZY! We are getting so booked up for August and are in the process of adding additional essay coaching meetings for kids that want even more support. We just added a few Sunday afternoon slots with Alan earlier today.