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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Weekly Update: August 20

We made it!!!! The weeks between August 1 and the start of the school year for FCPS are always the craziest of the year for our office.. but we reached the finish line and have so many students finished as a result. Because of this, we just took a few students off our Late Start Waitlist this past week- don’t hesitate to reach out if you are a rising senior family that needs some last-minute help!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

FACULTY PROTEST LAX COVID-19 REQUIREMENTS, AND STUDENTS SEEK TO SPREAD INFORMATION

Tensions are on high this week as students have returned to campus and cases have risen. At Duke, more then 100 mostly-vaccinated students tested positive, which is very alarming. As a result, faculty at many colleges and universities are protesting the lack of strict COVID-19 precautions on campus. At Penn State, the faculty senate passed a vote of no confidence in the administration’s plan to allow unvaccinated students to return to campus. And students heading to Clemson may be in for a surprise - faculty are planning a walkout on the first day of classes to protest the lack of a mask mandate. 

Yet the faculty aren’t the only ones concerned! Students at 40 different colleges and universities across the country have joined the Covid Campus Coalition, an organization founded by a Cornell student, and are working on TikTok and Instagram campaigns to educate their peers with science-backed information.

DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH COLLEGE REALLY COSTS?

Turns out, many students and families underestimate the cost of attending college. On average, parents of high school students expect to pay $22,000 annually, even when asked to include room and board, books, and fees. In actuality, this number isn’t too far off for students who attend in-state public colleges, but students interested in private schools can expect to pay more than double: $51,000 per year on average. And keep in mind - that’s an average that encompasses many types of private institutions. The more selective private colleges that many of our students put on their lists cost right around $80,000, all in.

VACCINE REQUIREMENT RULING SETS A PRECEDENT

Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s denial of the lawsuit against Indiana University, which we covered on the blog a few weeks back, may have set a precedent about what colleges and other organizations are allowed to require of their students. It sets up a way, for instance, for the NCAA to require that student-athletes be vaccinated - something that hasn’t occurred yet, but that we’ll be watching closely as the Delta variant continues to spread. 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

We know that parents are getting nervous about sending kids off to school, and I LOVED the advice in this guide for parents of new college students and thought that so much of this was spot on - except the frequency of contact part. To the contrary, I actually think it would be almost strange for an 18 year old NOT to be in touch with a parent once per day or so via text to say hi. I am 36 and I still text with my mom most days! These don't need to be long conversations but just a way to stay in touch. Also, if you have a student at UVa, there was exactly one spot left in the author’s class as of earlier this morning!

On a more somber note, this article is definitely worth reading for the parents of any (soon-to-be) freshman boys (and though the article is specific to boys, a lot of the advice could help parents of girls too!). But generally, boys tend to share less with close friends and family, and so may need a more watchful eye to make sure that they are staying healthy and taking care of themselves when they’re away from home. 

This interview with University of Maryland president Darryll Pines is a much-needed shot of hope in a time that has been so tumultuous for higher education. Despite the crises in his first year as president (a global pandemic and a nationwide racial reckoning), he turned these challenges into opportunities for UMD to change and move forward.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Good luck to all of the FCPS students heading back to school next week! And a special congratulations to our rising seniors, who have been putting in serious work on essays and applications and are on the final stretch.

If your student is heading back to school, now is the perfect time to check out academic coaching. Many students and families don’t think they need a coach when the workload hasn’t started up yet, but really, this can be the most effective time to start working with a coach! Shannon can help your student go through their syllabus, plan out major projects and assignments, and work on figuring out what organizational systems and study skills work best for them - before things get too crazy later in the semester. Book an academic coaching Meet & Greet to talk more with her about how we can help your student succeed. Trust me, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and you don’t want to be scrambling to bring up grades and complete late work during finals week! 

And for students who struggled with finding productive opportunities for enrichment this summer, you’re in luck! Cornell is offering their pre-college program online this fall, including some little-known language courses and an Introduction to Evolution and Diversity. A great way for a student interested in biology or environmental science to get some helpful experience this fall. 

Lastly, we can’t sign off without mentioning that we can't get the situation in Afghanistan out of our minds this week. If anyone knows of any refugee families in the DC area who need help with anything relating to education as they are resettling, please let us know. It’s so hard to watch this without being able to help in some way, and it would make us feel good to be able to do something useful for them - whether helping to get their children placed in the right classes at school, finding ESL courses, or anything else related to secondary, higher, or even elementary education. Let us know if there is a need and we will either take care of it ourselves or find someone who can. You can email me (Colleen) directly here.

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Weekly Update: August 13

Another busy August week, another late weekly update :)

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

AND IT BEGINS.. (OR NOT?)

Ughhhhh. The University of Florida is planning to switch back to virtual learning for the first three weeks of classes during the fall semester. I wonder if this is going to be the first of many such decisions? Closer to the home front, FCPS is holding a “Return to School Town Hall” next week and they appear to be optimistic about sending kids back for five days. Fingers crossed!

Edited 8/14: Looks like UF reversed course on this after all! There was a lot of backlash last night, and the school sent out another email to the campus community less than 24 hours later.

COLLEGES AND VACCINES

Another week with a huge amount of news about colleges and vaccine requirements (or lack thereof). The issue of vaccines for colleges has gone beyond the campuses themselves, with state and local lawmakers weighing in on vaccinations. While Texas public colleges are not allowed to require vaccines (and UT Austin plans to start its school year online for this reason), the city of Philadelphia has issued a vaccine requirement for colleges. 

Vaccine requirements are likely to stand, at least for now - the Supreme Court recently rejected a case that students brought against Indiana University’s requirement. But if you are thinking about faking your vaccination status to attend school next year, don’t! This wouldn’t only lead to disciplinary action from the school, but is also a federal crime. Not to mention, you certainly don’t want to be the cause of a campus outbreak.  

P.S. If you’re headed to Tennessee State in the fall, get your vaccine on campus before August 27 and receive a $100 gift card!

SMALL COLLEGES CHARGE “COVID FEE”

In one example of an extreme vaccine incentive, West Virginia Wesleyan College has announced its intention to charge unvaccinated students a $750 “COVID fee” to cover the costs for testing on campus. So though the college does not mandate the vaccine, there is certainly a cost to not receiving one.

Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama implemented a similar fee, charging unvaccinated students $500 in lieu of a vaccination mandate. So don’t be fooled by the article in the Onion - these COVID fees are a real thing!

ELITE COLLEGES REQUIRE COVID-19 TESTING

This week, Stanford joined Brown, Harvard, and Princeton in requiring mandatory weekly COVID tests for all students, even those who have already been vaccinated. Students will also be required to wear face masks on campus. This is a shift in the university’s previous policy, which allowed vaccinated students to skip weekly testing.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Jeff Levy and Jennie Kent are two educational consultants who take the time every year to compile data on RD and ED decision rates - and I always look forward to it! They put it together based on the Common Data Set information, which is really the most updated and the only truly accurate information available online.

We highly recommend that students and families check out the CDS data for themselves - it is easy to find if you Google the school’s name and “Common Data Set,” because most schools make the data publicly available - they just don’t advertise it! But knowing this information is really key to educating yourself on the difference between ED and RD acceptance rates.

Here are some standouts from this year:

On a lighter note, we always love to check out dorm room decor, which has gotten more and more elaborate in recent years! According to a study from Deloitte, Americans will spend nearly $7 billion on dorm room appliances, furniture, and decor. This article covers many of the retailers and online spaces where parents and students are discussing and purchasing their dorm room decor for next year.

Can you believe those are DORM ROOMS? Incredible. And speaking of dorm rooms, this was a sweet blog post on Grown & Flown about taking time to grieve after dropping your kids off at college.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Hard to believe we are halfway through August already! We have been starting to submit applications with several of our seniors, and even more of them are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as they finish up their essays. We had MULTIPLE students who completed 8-10 essays in this past week alone - their hard work is so impressive and inspiring for all of us.

Despite some power outages last week (for us and for our clients), we still managed to have over 100 hours of client meetings this week - and that doesn’t include all the post-meeting follow-up! Shannon or I do an additional review of every single supplemental essay, so there’s a lot of behind the scenes work.. not to mention Donna tracking every single document, appointment, you name it for every single kid (she is a saint)!

Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Update: August 7

August is here, and we are busy!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

DC SCHOOLS GRAPPLE WITH COVID-19 LAWSUITS

American, Georgetown, George Washington, Howard, Catholic, George Mason, and the University of Maryland are among many other universities around the country that have been sued by current or former students for partial refunds of tuition fees. The students argue that they paid tuition expecting an in-person education, and the online schooling during COVID-19 is a breach of contract. There doesn’t seem to be a consensus yet on whether these suits have merit - the cases against Georgetown, George Washington, and American have been dismissed, while those against Howard, Catholic, and George Mason have been allowed to proceed. 

CALLING ALL DC AREA FUTURE LEADERS!

ABC and McDonald’s are seeking nominations for high school and college-age students with strong leadership skills and experience to be featured on the evening news’ “Future Leaders” segment. If you know a student whose leadership and service is an inspiration to the community, complete the form to nominate them!

DISABILITY ACCOMMODATIONS AT FCPS

If your student receives accommodations from school, unfortunately they do not carry over to the PSAT or SAT (though luckily, the ACT recently announced that it will give students accommodations from their IEP or 504 plan!). If you are an FCPS student planning to take a test on the October 13 test date this fall, you will need to submit an accommodation request by August 10 (this Tuesday!) to receive accommodations for the exams. 

Speaking of accommodations, FCPS students seeking them for dual enrollment classes will also need to submit an accommodation request through the college or university where they are taking the class, as well as through their high school. Submit your requests sooner rather than later to make sure that you receive the accommodations you need!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

A few weeks ago, we featured an article about students taking out loans for graduate school that they were unable to pay back. Some of you may have read that article thinking, “Well yeah, of course, if you go to graduate school for art or film, you’ll graduate with a lot of debt!” But even the graduate schools that were once considered “sure bets” may no longer be the best financial choice. With the job market so uncertain during COVID-19, law schools too have seen a big increase in applications, but law students are already graduating with high levels of debt. 

We often tell undergraduate students to pay less attention to the school rankings - fit is much more important at the undergraduate level, and the rankings usually do not accurately reflect the student experience (for example, the number of books in the library is a big factor for US News, but usually NOT a factor at all in whether someone enjoys their four years at college!). When it comes to graduate schools, though, rankings do matter, and it is usually students at top-tier law schools that find high-paying jobs after graduation. But salaries for most legal jobs are not rising at the same pace as tuition, and students graduating from lower-ranked schools may find themselves with a lot of debt and no way to pay it off. And this will only increase in the next few years, as more students than ever graduate from law school and the job market becomes more saturated!

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Week 1 of August is done! Many of our students have rolled over their Common ApplicationⓇ, our essay coaches continue to work through supplemental essays, and we are so impressed with how hard our students are working! For many of them, this is the final stretch - and they will definitely see their hard work pay off this fall! 

Finishing up with our current seniors this month also means that we will have space opening up in the fall for Late-Start Seniors. If you are interested in working with us this fall, check out our Late Start Waitlist page for more information!

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Weekly Update: July 30

Hard to believe this is already our final July blog post! We are working hard to gear up for August :)

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

COMMON APPLICATION® RELEASE

The 2021-2022 Common Application® will be released Sunday, August 1, after a several-day shutdown period.  We’re excited! We will be hard at work updating all of our application guides, and our clients and membership vault subscribers will have access early next week!

SUNI LEE HEADED TO AUBURN UNIVERSITY

Suni Lee, the American gymnast who just won gold in the all-around gymnastics competition, has big plans for after her return: she’ll be reporting to Auburn University just a week after returning from Tokyo for her freshman year. She’ll be attending the university on a gymnastics scholarship, and said she looks forward to a more fun, less highly competitive experience. 

WALMART PAYS COLLEGE TUITION FOR EMPLOYEES

Walmart announced Tuesday that it will be doing away with the $1 a day fee that employees formerly paid for college, and now pay for 100% college tuition. They will also pay for books. The program allows employees to choose from ten different academic partners, including the University of Arizona and Southern New Hampshire University. Walmart is the country’s largest employer, with 1.5 million employees. 

UPENN ADDS BITCOIN TO PORTFOLIO

After receiving a $5 million donation in bitcoin earlier this year, the University of Pennsylvania confirmed that it still holds some of the funding in the cryptocurrency. Penn typically immediately liquidates these types of donations as per university policy, but in this case the anonymous donor wanted the university to hold onto some of the donation (it did liquidate a portion).

COLLEGES PROVIDE VACCINATION INCENTIVES FOR STUDENTS

While many colleges have announced that they will be requiring students to get vaccinated, some have gone beyond the requirement to provide incentives to vaccinated students. Auburn University, for example, is giving prizes like $1,000 scholarships, meal plan upgrades, and prime parking spots to vaccinated students. The University of Alabama is offering all vaccinated students $20 in Bama Cash to spend at restaurants and stores around Tuscaloosa. Rider University in New Jersey and Ohio Wesleyan University are taking it a step further - Rider will choose three vaccinated students at random to win a year of free tuition, and Ohio Wesleyan has opened up fifty additional spots for incoming vaccinated first-year or transfer students. Each of these fifty students will be eligible to receive a $25,000 scholarship as long as they meet basic admissions criteria. Pretty good!

“Currently, only a handful of colleges in Ohio are requiring all students to be vaccinated,” said Stefanie Niles, Ed.D., Ohio Wesleyan’s vice president for enrollment and communications. “We know that many students out there would prefer to live and learn on a campus where they feel safe and where they know they won’t have to experience another year of mask-wearing and social distancing.”

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

COVID-19 is continuing to impact college enrollment. After record low levels of enrollment last year, many schools were hoping to recoup tuition dollars and see a more typical campus environment in the fall. But with the spread of the Delta variant, over one-third of college-age students are reconsidering their college plans. Some will go to college closer to home, or attend a community college to save money. Others won’t go to college at all. 

The impact on students who did continue their education during the pandemic exists as well. While the college Class of 2021 will likely have an easier time with the job search than the Class of 2020, this is still a strange year, with many students still looking for full-time employment. If you are searching for your first post-grad job, check out this article with tips to stand out during the hiring process.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We are completely full for Class of 2022 students in our initial cohort, but have spots on our Late Start Waitlist for students who still need assistance beginning in late August/early September. Check out our Late Start Waitlist page if you’re wondering how it works, and fill out this form to be added to the list!

In other news, Common App® is rolling over from the 2020-2021 version to the 2021-2022 version this weekend, and we will hit the ground running on Monday with our Class of 2022 students as we help them navigate this rollover process. Check out our June 11 weekly update for a quick refresher of what that entails!

August is our busiest month of the year, but we love seeing our students’ hard work all come together!

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Weekly Update: July 23

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

AP EXAM SCORES RELEASED

2021 AP Exam scores are out! Check out the full distributions - if you click on the exam name, you can see the year over year differences in pass rates. Overall, students did not perform as well on this year’s exams, but the differences varied substantially from test to test. The pass rate for AP Lit, for instance, plummeted over 16 percentage points from 2020!

PURDUE TURNS TWO-PERSON HOUSING INTO FOUR

If you’ve been reading the blog (or any college news!), you know that many colleges received record numbers of applicants last cycle. Purdue was one of those schools, and will be welcoming the largest freshman class in its history in 2022, bringing 10,000 freshmen to campus. 

In response to the unprecedented number of first year students, Purdue has made the controversial decision to house three or four students in dorm rooms originally meant for two. Purdue is not the only school to have these “forced triple” (or quadruple!) rooms (Villanova is one school that typically offers a housing discount to students willing to stay in forced triples), but students who were used to social distancing for the last year may have to get used to being very close to their roommate(s)! We encourage all class of 2022 students to read any housing information carefully and prepare for potentially overfilled dorm rooms next year.

YES, WILLIAM & MARY IS PUBLIC

William & Mark faced criticism this week after Education Reform Now released a report about equity issues in Virginia higher education funding. The report pointed out that William & Mary is one of the highest-funded public institutions in the state, based on 2019 funding per full-time student - yet it enrolled the lowest percentage of students under a certain income threshold.

W&M responded by saying they consider their peer schools to be private institutions. Ouch! And that may be true in terms of who they consider their peers to be (W&M does fit a certain niche in that it is a public school that feels private!) - but make no mistake, the school is not private.

This Twitter thread about their tone-deaf response and potential student confusion caught our eye. I’ve certainly seen students confused by the fact that schools like University of Miami, New York University and the University of Pennsylvania are private, but William & Mary is definitely a public institution and we are pretty confident that our in-state Virginia students are well aware of this :)

ACT WILL HONOR STUDENT ACCOMMODATIONS FROM 504 PLANS

The ACT announced this week that it will automatically approve students with IEP or 504 plans to receive the same accommodations on the test as they receive at school! We have always recommended that parents initiate the accommodations process for students with disabilities as early as possible, but this is even more reason to do so!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

We know that the cost of college is rising, and students, parents, and families pay for college through a variety of means: income, savings, scholarships, grants, work study, loans - it can be overwhelming! This CNBC article explores how many families are funding students’ college education today. The moral of the story? Apply for as many sources of funding as you can! For more insight on whether you should complete the FAFSA, check out our blog post on the topic. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a lot of changes in the job market, and we are seeing many low-wage workers looking for more fulfilling work (and shortages of restaurant and retail workers as a result). Two-thirds of these workers do not have a college degree. This Washington Post opinion piece argues that employers should stop requiring that employees have bachelor’s degrees, instead allowing non-college-educated workers to rely on their skills and experience during the hiring process. 

Also in the Post this week, an article about the impact of smartphones and social media on teens’ feelings of loneliness. Concerns about loneliness and mental health struggles in teenagers have only grown after the year these kids have had, but this report reveals that loneliness in teens has actually been on the rise for years - doubling between 2012 and 2018. Before 2012 - that is, before over 50% of Americans had smartphones - loneliness and depression levels were relatively stable for years and even decades around the world.

Many today believe that standardized testing in college admissions is discriminatory, and equity and inclusion advocates have celebrated the increase in test-optional admissions during COVID-19. But this Atlantic article paints a very different picture, arguing that issues of equity are much more prevalent in student GPA and the course load available in high school, and that standardized testing is in fact an equalizer, at least in the University of California system that he investigates. The difference, though, is that GPA and course load are contextualized, usually by a counselor letter - admissions officers are aware of how a student performs in the context of their high school. The SAT or ACT, by contrast, do not provide the same context. This is part of why it’s really important for students to provide their counselor with thoughtful material for this letter!

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Shannon held down the fort last week while I was on vacation in Italy - and in a really fun coincidence, I got to meet up with one of my all-time favorite clients in Venice after discovering that we were both there at the same time! We worked closely together for four years with two different children, but the family doesn't live in the DC area, so it was a real treat to be able to catch up face-to-face and reminisce!

And speaking of all-time favorite clients, we also released a very exciting announcement this week about our new pro bono program, in partnership with the Fieldstone Foundation! Thanks to the incredible generosity of an amazing family with daughters in both the Class of 2020 and 2021, we are now able to offer 100% FREE college counseling services to a select group of talented, ambitious students who might not have access to expert counseling. We are so grateful to them for making this possible!

Successful applicants will demonstrate commitment and a desire to succeed, as well as significant financial need. Check out https://www.dccollegecounseling.com/probono to learn more about this opportunity - and please share with anyone who might be interested in applying! We will have more to say about this program in the coming weeks :)

Have a great weekend, everyone! Exactly one month until school begins for our FCPS families. Hard to believe, right?!

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Weekly Update: July 16

Colleen is out of the office, so it’s Shannon here again with this week’s update!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITIES LATEST TO CONSOLIDATE

Following in the footsteps of other state university systems like Connecticut, the Pennsylvania state system will be consolidating 6 different schools into just 2 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Students and faculty have continued to protest for their schools, but unfortunately I expect that we will see more changes like this as universities consider the best way to move forward after such a difficult year.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SYSTEM TO REQUIRE COVID-19 VACCINE

While the University of California system initially planned to require vaccines only once they were fully FDA-approved, the system announced a policy change yesterday that will require all students and faculty to be vaccinated before returning to campuses in the fall. The change was prompted by an increase in cases in California, and the UCs are now the largest state system in the country that will require vaccination. At the moment, nearly 500 schools will be requiring vaccines next year. Class of 2021, make sure you know the requirements for your campus before moving in this fall!

CDC URGES SCHOOLS TOWARD FULL REOPENING

Even with those rising cases in some parts of the country, the CDC is still encouraging K-12 schools to fully reopen in the fall. This new guidance recognizes the challenges that students, parents, and teachers have faced with fully virtual learning, what the former CDC director calls the “real costs” of keeping children at home.

Large school systems are coming up with their own guidance for students and families. The New York City school system does not intend to even offer an online option next fall, while here in Virginia schools are proceeding cautiously by still requiring mask-wearing. Meanwhile, eight states including Vermont, South Carolina, and Texas have banned schools from instituting these types of mask requirements.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Community college has really come into the forefront recently with Biden unveiling a proposal this week that would provide tuition-free community college to all young adults. After community college enrollment plummeted during the pandemic, this plan may help more students attend college.

Here in Virginia, UVA’s Guaranteed Transfer Admission program makes attending community college a really attractive (and less expensive!) option. For students who meet the academic requirements at a college in the Virginia Community College System, there is a guaranteed spot at UVA waiting for them after two years! This article from the Wall Street Journal is a great read for anyone who wants to learn more about the pros of attending a community college.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Colleen will be back in the office next week - in the meantime, I am holding down the fort with the essay coaches as we work with students on their supplemental essays! I love being able to read students’ work and get to know them even better. I always discover something new about students in these essays, which is so much fun!

If you are not a client, but still want a sneak peek into what we do when we work on these essays, check out our post from last week: Supplemental Essay Secrets Revealed!

Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Update: July 9

Colleen is out of the office today, so it’s Shannon here with this week’s update!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

COLLEGE PERSISTENCE RATES SEE PANDEMIC DROP

As you have probably read already this year, on this blog and elsewhere, the number of students enrolling at colleges during COVID-19 dropped dramatically, particularly at community colleges. Now, statistics are showing an alarming drop in college persistence rates as well - the largest single-year fall since 2009. The college persistence rate (not to be confused with the retention rate) measures the percentage of students entering college in fall 2019 who returned to school in fall 2020 - this year, 73.9%. Like enrollment, persistence and retention rates declined most at community colleges.

IS YOUR COLLEGE REQUIRING THE COVID-19 VACCINE?

With vaccine requirements changing by the day, it can be difficult to keep track of what you need for next year! This helpful graphic tracks the rules that states have when it comes to vaccinations (colleges in Florida and Texas, for example, are legally prohibited from requiring vaccinations), as well as providing a comprehensive list of colleges that will require the vaccine next year.

2021-2022 SAT REGISTRATION IS OPEN

Seats for the SAT are filling up fast, so make sure that you register now! Many local schools are already full (Madison filled up the first day!) so getting a seat could be challenging if you plan to take the test this fall. We recommend completing your registration as soon as you can.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Discussions about student loan debt often focus on undergraduate students, but many young adults are in debt due to a graduate or professional degree - particularly one that did not lead to higher income to pay down the loans. This Wall Street Journal article explores “the elite master’s degrees that don’t pay off,” including programs at Columbia like film, history, social work, and architecture. The same held true at other top colleges and universities, like NYU, Northwestern, and USC, where students with six-figure loan debt from their master’s programs were making low five-figure salaries two years after graduation. Unlike undergraduate loans, there are no limits on the loans that graduate students can take out, making them very profitable for these universities.

For students who are touring colleges this summer and fall, make sure to check out this list of places you should explore on a college tour! Some of my favorites include “facilities associated with your desired major” - these are the building where you’ll be spending most of your time, and it is easy to go the entire tour seeing only the most renovated buildings on campus. Great if you’ll be studying in one of them, but not if your department is housed in that unairconditioned building all the way across campus! Same goes for any facilities related to your hobbies or extracurriculars you’d like to try. The article also recommends keeping an eye on the bulletin boards, which is a great way to see what types of activities are happening around campus.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We have continued to be extremely busy working with students on their supplemental essays (and researching to ensure that our supplemental essay prompts list remains up to date!). We love working with our students on essays - reading their writing really helps us get to know them even better!

We also have a big announcement coming up next week about a project that I have been working really hard on with one of our client parents - stay tuned!

Enjoy the weekend!

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Weekly Update: June 25

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

SUPREME COURT RULES IN FAVOR OF STUDENTS AGAINST NCAA

On Monday, the Supreme Court decided in a rare unanimous vote that the NCAA could not limit the educational perks offered to student athletes. These perks can include everything from scholarships and paid internships to free computers or textbooks. The ruling could lead to further action against the NCAA’s stance on compensating its players, especially in light of many new state laws that will allow athletes to make money off of their name or image, beginning July 1. 

YES, YOU CAN NEGOTIATE FOR COLLEGE AID!

Many students and families don’t even realize that they do have some power to negotiate for more financial assistance from colleges after admission. But this family’s successful appeal to Fairfield University led to a scholarship increase, as do around one-third of funding appeals each year. Of course, the effect of an appeal depends greatly on the school, as well as the reason for the additional funding, but if you are a student whose ability to go to your dream school is dependent on more aid, don’t be afraid to go ahead and ask!

FLORIDA GOVERNOR SIGNS CONTROVERSIAL COLLEGE LEGISLATION

Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation this week that will require students and faculty at state colleges and universities to take annual surveys about their beliefs. The surveys are intended to determine whether a diversity of perspectives are taught at the institution and whether students feel safe to express their beliefs. 

INDIANA STUDENTS SUE OVER COVID-19 VACCINE REQUIREMENT

The Indiana University system is one of a small number of schools in red states that will require students to have the COVID-19 vaccine in order to return to campus in the fall. Eight students filed a federal lawsuit, arguing that the requirement violates their 14th amendment right to personal autonomy. The outcome of this lawsuit could have an effect on the hundreds of other campuses that will also require the vaccine this fall.   

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Duke Professor John Rose published an interesting opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, sharing the classroom principles he uses to encourage open debates in often-controversial classes like “Political Polarization” and “Conservatism.” Professor Rose says that his commitment to open conversation in a non-judgmental setting allows students to share a variety of opinions and viewpoints, and improves his class discussions. 

Speaking of Supreme Court decisions, this week also saw the Court agree with a fourteen-year-old high school student that an inappropriate Snapchat post taken outside of school should not have consequences in school. There is no doubt that the ubiquity of technology has blurred the lines between what schools can control and what they can’t, and this Washington Post article dives further into the topic, considering whether teens’ social media posts should be temporary, disappearing as they age. This is especially important to us in the admissions process - we always advise students to be careful about what they post on social media, since 36% of admissions officers say that they use social media to help make admissions decisions, and over half of those say that social media has a negative impact on the decision! 

Since the Israel-Palestine conflict worsened this spring, many schools are seeing a rise in anti-Semitism on campus. In an op-ed for the New York Times, Matthew Bronfman, chairman of Hillel International, argues that schools have to do more to protect Jewish students, while still allowing for debate about the conflict in Israel. 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Shannon attended a great webinar this week about preparing students for college success. If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that I love Julie Lythcott-Haims’ book How to Raise an Adult (so much so that we bought the companion book, Your Turn: How to Be an Adult for all of our graduating seniors!). And this slide from the presentation really sums it up - high school parenting vs. college parenting: 

This summer is also a great time for students to learn the important skills that they’re going to need in college, and here is a list to choose from (though, let’s be real, we don’t expect many students to learn how to iron!): 

If you are worried about your student’s organizational skills heading off to college, and you don’t want to be on call for those daily reminders, why not try out academic coaching? It is a great way for students to gain some of these skills and have a head start when they arrive at school in the fall!

Some of our current class of 2022 students have already moved on to their school-specific supplemental essays! Even though the schools are not required to release their essay topics until August 1, many release earlier, and our seniors usually have around half of their essays DONE even before the beginning of August! If you are not a current client, but you want to get ahead on your essays, check out our Supplemental Essay Prompts page, which we are updating every week as we find out new prompts have been released. Happy writing!

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Weekly Update: June 18

We hope that everyone is enjoying our brand-new federal holiday - Happy Juneteenth!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

SUPREME COURT PUTS OFF HARVARD AFFIRMATIVE ACTION CASE

The case against Harvard’s race-conscious admissions policy has made its way all the way up to the Supreme Court, but the Court declined to review the case, asking the Biden administration to weigh in first. The delay does not necessarily mean that the case will not be heard, but it is now likely to have to wait until the next Supreme Court session in October. Harvard has asked the Court not to take the case. 

ARE STUDENTS LEARNING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS?

One of the most persuasive arguments for a classical liberal arts education has always been that it teaches students how to think - not just knowledge, but the ability to use and analyze it. But according to Jeff Selingo’s latest newsletter, colleges may not actually help students gain the critical thinking skills they need to be successful in the workplace. In an analysis of 2,500 college students, natural sciences students had the most gains in critical thinking skills - while business majors had the lowest! 

If you want to dive deeper into learning about how to think critically and how it benefits students in the long run, we love Range by David Epstein - this book about the importance of general skills over specialized knowledge is just one of many on our Summer 2021 Reading Guide, available to all Membership Vault subscribers! 

LAW SCHOOLS OVERBOOKED FOR THE FALL

While the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a lot of unexpected events this year, the rise in students attending graduate and professional school was easy to anticipate. During a recession, many adults who would otherwise be working often choose to return to or continue with school, hoping to graduate into a better job market. 

But what was unexpected was the change in testing procedures - it turns out, students taking a shortened version of the LSAT at home are much less stressed than those taking the traditional test! The number of students scoring 175-180 doubled last year, leading to many more highly qualified applicants in the pool and the danger of over enrollment at almost all of the top 200 law schools. The larger class sizes are expected to lead to an extremely competitive job market for law school graduates in three years. 

There is also the consideration of what the impact will be on students applying this cycle, given the larger cohort above them. Duke, for example, offered students a $5,000 scholarship to accept a binding deferral to next year - a move that may lead to even fewer accepted students than typical for a highly selective school when it comes to this year’s applicants. 

NORTHEASTERN ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH MILLS COLLEGE

We covered here on this blog the shuttering of Mills College, a small liberal arts college in Oakland, California. Mills was just one of several smaller schools closing its doors in response to lost enrollment and revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Northeastern University has now established an historic partnership with Mills College, bringing the school into its global network. We will be interested to see how this alliance develops, and whether other large, selective institutions follow suit when it comes to these struggling smaller campuses.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

The Wall Street Journal published an article last week that is providing a lot of food for thought for us and other education professionals. The author, R.R. Reno, writes that he won’t hire Ivy League graduates - because students at selective, typically liberal colleges are not prepared to speak out against prevailing opinion, students he calls “thin-skinned.” Reno acknowledges that his organization speaks for “religious and social conservatives,” and so looks for employees that share these views. 

This Slate article, “The Real College Admissions Scandal,” attempts to shine the spotlight on private schools, arguing that the real advantage in college admissions is not athletics, legacy status, alumni donations, or race - the real advantage is attending a private school. 

This is a common misconception that we hear from students and parents, but I think the writer is conflating correlation with causation here. The article does not mention that it is typically a self-selecting group of high-achieving, ambitious students who choose to attend private schools in the first place, and that students who do so are also more likely to pursue opportunities that lead to admission at selective colleges. 

One important thing the article does mention, though, is the counselor call. We’ve talked about this on the blog before, but one of the most important things a school counselor can do to help students understand their admissions decisions is to make a counselor call, and counselors at private schools are more likely to take advantage of this than those at public schools, who often have a larger caseload and less time to make calls.

We always encourage our students, especially those who receive a defer or waitlist decision, to ask their counselor to make a call to get more information! This advocacy can definitely be important in the admissions process.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

For high school students looking for a volunteer opportunity this coming year, Vienna Youth Cheerleading is looking for cheer coaches (18+) and assistant cheer coaches (16+) to teach cheerleading skills to young students and attend games and practices. Interested students should email the VYI cheer commissioner at melissa.pechulis@gmail.com. This is a great organization!

I have been out of the office (but still working, somewhat!) for most of the past two weeks and today I took my first steps on a college campus since Covid began! My daughter and I toured Penn, which I just love.

I have mentioned before that if I could go to any school today, Penn would probably be it. I really admire the way they seek to provide ALL students with the perfect mix of pre-professional career skills and a liberal arts background. I also love the city of Philadelphia and the way it is so integrated into all things Penn, yet the campus is green and leafy with a vibrant sense of community that most other city schools are missing. Plus, students have the opportunity to become involved in athletics and/or Greek life without it overtaking the undergraduate experience .. and it goes without saying that the academic opportunities and career outcomes are phenomenal.

I will be back in the office next week, and I’m excited to jump into some more Rising Senior Meetings with the Class of 2022! Things are speeding up around here for sure and we are LOVING reading all of the supplemental essays - such a good way to learn more about all of our amazing students.

Enjoy the weekend! 

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Weekly Update: June 11

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

Happy Pride Week! We have so loved seeing all of the rainbow art around town, and are proud to be allies. Keep an eye out next week for more on LGBTQ-friendly colleges, and in the meantime check out the Princeton Review’s list of Top LGBTQ-Friendly Colleges.

ANNANDALE HIGH SCHOOL COMMENCEMENT SPEECH

Mario Ramos, an immigrant from El Salvador who came to Fairfax County in 2007, gave an inspirational commencement speech at Annandale High School last week. He gave the speech in English and Spanish, in a powerful message of inclusion for graduates. After graduating with his high school diploma, Ramos became a “classroom monitor,” helping Annandale open up to students in-person during the pandemic. 

WILLIAM AND MARY WILL NOT REQUIRE COVID-19 VACCINE IN THE FALL

In a session that Shannon attended on Thursday, William & Mary’s President Rowe confirmed that the school will not be requiring students to get the COVID-19 vaccine. W&M does not plan to require the vaccine until it has been approved by the FDA (it is currently under emergency use authorization), but does intend to eventually require it for students as well as faculty and staff once it receives full FDA approval. 

COMMON APP® CHANGES ARE AHEAD

The Common Application® held a webinar earlier this week which shared some important information about ongoing and future changes. I was glad to have been able to attend! Here’s what I learned:

• The organization embarked on a pilot program between March 2020 - February 2021 called “Evolving the App,” a project which sought to ensure that all questions on the core part of the application are inclusive and do not present barriers to any applicants

  • The project was broken into five distinct stages, beginning with the identification of sections to examine and concluding with the delivery of final revisions to the Common App® technology team and member schools

  • The process was considered to be a success and will now be completed annually

Feeling overwhelmed? Don’t be!

The process of transferring pre-completed information from the 2020-2021 application to the 2021-2022 application is called rollover - we work with all of our rising seniors to complete the 2020-2021 application to spread out the work involved and take advantage of this rollover option!

• As most of them know, we will create a step-by-step guide to the rollover process by the end of the day on August 3, at which point they will hear from us with instructions to complete the Common Application® and Coalition Application Rollover processes in advance of their first August college counseling meeting.

• They will also be asked to complete all non-essay application supplement questions at that time, along with an additional supplement guide that we will send.

• Then, our rising seniors will have three separate college counseling meetings with Shannon and me.

  • At the first meeting, we will help them submit recommendation requests to their teachers and counselor, and we will also review/edit all of their work to make sure that you completed the rollover process and all non-essay application supplemental questions correctly.

  • At the second meeting, they will work with us to go through and finish anything that remained outstanding from the first meeting (they will typically have a list of action items from the first meeting).

  • At the last meeting, they will meet with one of us again to perform a detailed, line-by-line, final review of all applications and supplements before submission. We will discuss how the status chart and tracking process will work and will give you them final all-clear to submit! 

  • Some students prefer to submit applications with us in real time; others can do so at home with their parents. If they would like to submit together, we ask them to schedule a separate meeting to do this. 

SPRING COLLEGE ENROLLMENT NUMBERS DROP

Many schools were hoping that the drop in enrollment during COVID-19 would be limited to the fall semester, but that does not seem to be the case - while fall numbers declined 3.6% from last year, spring enrollment numbers declined 5%. 65% of total enrollment losses were felt by community colleges. 

Graduate school enrollment, on the other hand, actually increased in the uncertain job market caused by COVID-19. This means that while some students will not have college degrees, others who already have degrees are receiving more education. 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

The big news in college sports this week is the expansion of the college football playoffs to include twelve teams rather than the usual four. The expanded bracket likely won’t come to pass until at least 2023, but 24 teams rather than eight are likely to see playoff games. This also means that college football players may be playing 16 or even 17 football games, increasing the potential for injury and potentially overworking athletes during a time when college athletics has been under increasing scrutiny for its treatment of college players. 

As we all know, rates of anxiety and depression for college students, which were growing over the past several years, skyrocketed during the pandemic. Unfortunately, they do not seem to be dropping now that vaccinations are widely available and campuses are opening up again for the fall. Researchers at Dartmouth discovered a correlation between students’ mental health and the prevalence of phone searches for terms like “covid fatigue” on campus. Four student deaths on Dartmouth’s 4,400 student campus this year have prompted students to call for mental health reforms, and the school has vowed to create more support for students.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

There are still plenty of summer opportunities available for students who don’t yet have their summer plans in place! If you are looking for an opportunity that starts later in the summer or fall, consider applying to work as an usher or ranger at Wolf Trap National Park. The position is open to all current high school students and will run from August 1 to October 2 during the park’s performance season. Interested candidates should email Sam Swersky, House Manager at sam_swersky@nps.gov.

Shannon attended a session yesterday with the admissions offices at Barnard and Stanford to discuss selective school admissions for the coming year. We always try to emphasize to our students that no matter what, it is important to apply to a balanced list of schools. As Michael Devlin from Stanford put it, “There are more valedictorians in the United States than spots in the class at Stanford.” 

"Sometimes when students email me afterward and ask what they could have done better, there is no answer. There's nothing they could have done better." 

Yes, really! Even students who do every single thing right might be denied from an extremely selective school. “Holistic” admissions does not just mean that the admissions office reviews the student holistically, but also that they need to take into account the needs of the school and the student body as a whole, in addition to the individual applicant. 

And for those still keeping fingers crossed on the waitlist, Barnard announced that unfortunately they are done pulling from their waitlist for the year, and Stanford expects to be done as well (though this is not confirmed). This should be a reminder to everyone to submit letters of continued interest early - Barnard was done pulling from their waitlist on May 1!

As some of you saw on social media, I was quoted this week in Forbes about whether the pandemic may have permanently boosted private school enrollment - and it was perfect timing because yesterday was my daughter's last day of school at Our Lady of Good Counsel here in Vienna after transferring from FCPS!

Those of you who have been reading since last year will remember that I was really in tune with the issue of instructional equity last spring and summer. Because I had an up-front view of the differences that my clients in public and private schools were experiencing, and also saw it myself as an FCPS parent, I was approached a lot by the media - you can read a little bit about that here.

But anyway.. here we are a year later, and as someone who literally assesses schools for a living, I can't say enough about how AMAZING our experience has been at OLGC. I honestly feel like nothing I could write would adequately express my admiration and appreciation for the administration and teachers, and the impact that their hard work had on my daughter’s life this year - not just academically, but also socially and emotionally during what was an incredibly turbulent time.

I came in just hoping she'd be able to attend in-person school - like I said in the Time piece, she just wanted to get out of the house! But what we got was so much more. I cannot tell you how much I would recommend OLGC for a family seeking a K-8 alternative to FCPS in our area (and for what it’s worth, we are an interfaith family and this was not an issue at all whatsoever).

Back to the point of the Forbes article, I feel beyond fortunate to be able to keep her there. I know that many other families all over the country are making similar decisions, and it will definitely be interesting to see the impact on private school enrollment in the long term.

Have a good weekend, stay cool, and stay dry!

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Weekly Update: June 4

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

COLLEGE WHISPERER DOCU-SERIES COMING SOON

With Operation Varsity Blues dominating headlines, the independent educational consulting profession has gotten a lot of scrutiny in the last few years! The College Whisperer is being advertised as the antidote to that. The new series will follow Perry Kalmus, a consultant in Alaska who was featured in the Operation Varsity Blues documentary on Netflix, as he counsels eight students through the process. The goal of the series is to show what it looks like to work with ethical independent consultants and the ups and downs inherent to an honest admissions process. Fun fact: I was contacted by a film crew to do the same thing about six years ago. I turned it down because I was pretty confident that none of my clients would be up for having their confidential information shared on national TV :)

VACCINE REQUIREMENTS ARE MORE DIFFICULT FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

We’ve been following the lengthening list of schools that are requiring vaccines for the upcoming school year. These requirements will not pose a problem for most of our students, who have easy access to vaccines this summer. However, it is a different scenario for international students, many of whom may not have access to WHO-approved vaccines. 

One Columbia student who received the Covavaxin shot in India has been told that she will need to be re-vaccinated with an US-approved vaccine once she arrives on campus - a potential health risk that has not been explored. India sends the second-largest number of international college students to the US (after China), so this issue is not an isolated one - we are likely to see many students who have received Covavaxin struggling with US vaccine requirements. 

WILBERFORCE UNIVERSITY ERASES GRADUATES’ STUDENT DEBT

Wilberforce, an HBCU in Ohio, forgave all student debt for students in the classes of 2020 and 2021 in a surprise graduation announcement on Saturday. The funding to erase the debt was secured through various nonprofit organizations. Students were excited for the fresh start that they received from the university. 

WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY WILL KEEP ITS NAME

The Board of Trustees at Washington and Lee voted today in favor of the university maintaining its name, after nearly a year of investigation into the name, symbols, and other issues related to the university’s history. The board decided that it will expand diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in addition to retaining the name. The college, originally called Augusta Academy, adopted the current name in 1870. 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

This is an important article from the New Yorker that gets to the heart of why students and families experience so much stress from the college admissions process - the feeling that colleges are judging applicants, in a fair environment, and finding the “best” ones. But we want to remind students and families - a college admission or rejection is NOT a personal judgment!! We do our absolute best to help colleges get to know you, but at the end of the day, there are a TON of factors that affect admissions that are completely out of your control. At the end of the day, where you go to college is part of your story, but not a value judgment on you as an individual.

We shared our recommended summer reading for high school students last week. It is super important for high schoolers to be able to talk about books, articles, and current events that interest them, especially for admissions essays and interviews! Students who don’t yet read the news regularly may be interested in participating in the New York Times’ Summer Reading Contest - where 13-19 year olds can enter to win prizes by reading an article every week this summer. 

If you are a current client looking for some good reads, don’t forget to check out our Summer 2021 Reading Guide in the Membership Vault! 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Shannon attended a testing update webinar this week to get some more information on this cycle of standardized testing! We learned that there is a good reason the College Board decided to drop SAT Subject Tests in favor of AP tests - students who took APs over the last few weeks probably won’t be surprised to learn that revenue from the AP test accounts for 60% of the company’s revenue. 

Despite all of the anticipation for digital versions of the SAT and ACT, we are unlikely to see digital versions of either test until 2022. The ACT is also putting plans on hold to let students retake individual sections to incorporate into their superscore - though we are hopeful that this will happen sometime in the next few years! Students using the ACT superscore should be aware, though, that schools will also receive their highest composite from a single test date along with the superscore. 

Over 4 million students have taken standardized tests this year - about half have taken the ACT and half the SAT, so as we always tell students, take the test that works for you! Colleges truly do not have a preference. And for those still waiting on a test date, keep an eye out in July for registration to open again for both tests.

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While this won’t apply to families, I know that there are a lot of other educational consultants who read our blog, and I wanted to provide an update on the videos I mentioned from a few weeks back:

It can be challenging to stay on top of all the key components necessary for developing and operating an independent educational consulting business. To provide peer-to-peer training and share expertise, the IECA Business Practices Committee has created a new pilot series of videos to help you learn from fellow IECA members about topics that have been core to the growth of their practice. The video topics include: Networking 101, Project Management 101, Accounting Systems, Email Newsletters, Budgeting 101, Sales: Part of Your IEC Toolkit, Time Tracking 101, and Using Evernote. Learn more and watch the videos here (scroll down to IECA Business Training Videos icon).

Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Update: May 28

Now that summer is almost here, we’ve got a lot going on this week - graduation gifts, rising senior meetings, and summer reading lists coming your way! 

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

COLORADO BANS LEGACY COLLEGE ADMISSIONS

On Tuesday, Colorado became the first state in the country to ban state colleges from using legacy as a factor in admissions. This is a BIG DEAL, because it sets a precedent for other state university systems, such as Virginia (which does consider legacy as a factor) to follow suit. The move is aimed at making higher education access more equitable. 

STUDENTS WITHOUT HELP ARE DISADVANTAGED BY THE INCREASED IMPORTANCE OF ESSAYS

Speaking of factors that lead to certain admissions decisions - a recent study found that college essays are “‘the most important “soft factor’ and the fourth-most important overall factor — after grades, curriculum strength and standardized test scores.” Not surprisingly, it also found that students’ essays are influenced by their social class; wealthy students are more likely to have help with their essays, whether from their parents or a paid professional. This is an important reminder that class continues to be a factor in the admissions process despite the fact that standardized test scores have lessened in importance during the pandemic.

We encourage all students to get a second set of eyes on their essays - whether you work with professionals like us or not! We saw this for the Class of 2021 and will see it again for the Class of 2022 - so-called “soft” factors like the essay, recommendations, and extracurricular activities have become more important than ever. 

COLLEGES IN BLUE STATES MORE LIKELY TO REQUIRE VACCINATIONS

We’ve been keeping track here as more and more colleges and universities announce that they will require students to be vaccinated in order to return to campus in the fall. Now, over 400 institutions are requiring vaccines. But whether or not a student needs to be vaccinated likely depends on whether the state where they will attend college is red or blue - nearly all of the colleges requiring vaccines are in states that voted for Biden. A major exception is the Indiana state system, which announced last Friday that vaccines would be required for students. 

COVID-19’S IMPACT ON HEART DAMAGE IN STUDENT ATHLETES

A recent study of Big 10 athletes who suffered from COVID-19 revealed that heart damage may be more prevalent than originally thought, especially in students that have not exhibited symptoms. The researchers’ recommendations of cardiac MRIs for students may cause the NCAA to rethink its guidelines when it comes to the treatment and monitoring of student athletes who have contracted COVID-19. 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

This beautiful New York Times article really captures the joy of “summer reading” - something that we certainly did a lot more of during the pandemic lockdowns! We encourage any students looking for a summer reading book to drop the plans to read books that you THINK would impress admissions officers and look for books that actually help you discover more about your passions! That way, you will be more likely to enjoy the reading AND be able to speak about it more genuinely, in a way that reflects your interests. 

And to be honest - that authenticity is what actually will impress the admissions officers. If you tell them that you’re reading War and Peace or The Fountainhead, they won’t think you’re smart - they’ll think (a) you’re lying and (b) since you had to lie, you probably aren’t reading anything at all. Not the message you want to convey in an interview!

Since many colleges will ask for reading lists, essays discussing a recent read, or mention books during the interview stage, so it is smart to have a few good ones ready to discuss. We want to particularly highlight Shape, by Jordan Ellenberg, because sometimes it’s hard for students interested in math or quantitative fields to find a book that interests them - but even future mathematicians should try to fit in some summer reading! This would be a perfect book for a math student to mention in an interview or application.

If you are a current client looking for some good reads, don’t forget to check out our Summer 2021 Reading Guide in the Membership Vault! 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

A few private schools are already out for the summer and we have started family meetings with our rising seniors, working to finalize their college lists, make sure they are where they need to be in the process, and set a plan to finish up all of their remaining tasks in the admissions process over the summer. At this point we ideally like students to be finished with their standardized testing; to have their Common Application activities section, main essay, and four generic supplemental essays completely edited and ready to go; to have turned in the final drafts of their recommendation prep work to two teachers and their school counselor; and to have gathered all of their state residency information to prepare for any in-state applications to come.

After every meeting with students or families, we send detailed meeting recaps with what was done in the meeting as well as a list of action items for the student. Here is an example of part of a recap from a recent meeting with a rising senior:

In addition to rising senior meetings, we are already celebrating some private school graduations! Shannon has been busy packaging up gifts for our graduating seniors with some help from Tyler! 

Tyler actually went to pick up a gift for a GMU-bound student this week and was very impressed with a coffee shop near campus, Gathering Grounds. Tyler is a coffee buff (his unique approach to building community at a particular coffee shop here in Vienna even made it into his Common App essay), so you can trust his review! 

Hello everyone, this is Tyler! I just went to the Gathering Grounds Coffee Shop near George Mason University and it is incredible! They build your own coffee with tons of flavors such as blackberry, Coconut, and Lavender. I got the Coconut Latte and trust me, Starbucks has nothing on this coffee! The staff is lively and sociable, and get your coffee out in a snap, and the vibe of the shop is cozy and perfect for study breaks. If you attend George Mason and want a good hangout spot, I would highly recommend Gathering Grounds, and trust me, there's a good chance you'll become a regular. 

YUM! After a long few weeks of ordering coffee gift cards from all over the country, Shannon was THRILLED to get her own from a happy student who will be headed to a top west-coast university in the fall! We are so appreciative of our clients :) 

Our office will be closed for Memorial Day on Monday - we hope everyone enjoys the long weekend, but also takes some time to remember the brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice. If you’re looking for a good cause to support, check out The Honor Project, which I read about last night in this inspirational Washington Post piece. It really goes to show that anyone with a good idea and a passion for helping others can make a true difference in the world!

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Weekly Update: May 21

I think that today is the first graduation for a few of our seniors and we have a whole bunch following next week and the week after! Such a perfect day for a graduation and I hope that the sunshine holds for everyone else :)

June 1, 2003 - A very IMPERFECT day for a graduation but a happy one nonetheless :)

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

WAITLIST MOVEMENT THIS CYCLE

If you have been placed on a waitlist this cycle, make sure to bookmark College Kickstart’s Class of 2025 Waitlist Statistics. They keep the page updated with 2020 statistics at a long list of schools, as well as the notification dates by which students should expect to hear about waitlist movement. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for all of you!  

FCPS OFFERS COVID-19 VACCINES

If you are a student over 12 who has not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19, take note of the upcoming vaccinations at four different high school locations. FCPS is also offering transportation from the students’ base schools to the vaccination sites. 

DIFFICULTY WITH COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY VACCINE PLANS

On the college end, there’s not much consistency between the vaccine mandates from school to school - and with all of the various exemptions, rules, and laws involved, it’s no surprise that people are confused. If you are heading off to college this fall, make absolutely sure that you know what’s required of you from a vaccination standpoint so that there are no unhappy surprises during freshman orientation!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Even with many students getting vaccinated over the summer, colleges and universities are still looking for ways to manage the virus on campus. At Colorado Mesa University, a comprehensive app tracking program developed in conjunction with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has helped the school to track and control COVID-19 outbreaks. Hopefully the sophisticated system in place at Colorado Mesa will become accessible to more schools, who can help to manage the coronavirus on campus when students return in the fall. 

The debate about how colleges should allocate their resources has been particularly salient in light of COVID-19, when even highly selective colleges have been struggling with budget deficits. This article argues that colleges should focus more on retention of current students than on recruitment. There is an inherent tension in higher education between the institutions’ need to make money and the desire to serve low-income and underserved student populations who can’t afford to pay full tuition. The article argues that serving the students who are already on campus, rather than working to recruit more full-pay students, would actually help to increase the institution’s bottom line by attracting more gifts from donors in support of their mission. By delivering a high-quality education to current students, schools won’t need to pay large amounts of money for the purposes of recruitment. Seems like a win-win for everyone!

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

The hot weather lately definitely reminds us that summer is coming! We are still adding to our Summer Opportunities Database every week. Most recently, we featured Fairfax County’s Teen Police Academy and Future Women Leaders in Law Enforcement, both week-long camps for teenagers interested in careers in policing, law enforcement, public policy, or criminal justice. Read more about these and other camps in the Other Educational Opportunities section of the database!

We’ve been hearing from a lot of students and families this cycle that the COVID-19 pandemic has created a lot of gaps in their education - particularly when it comes to writing. In response, we added small group writing instruction, 1:1 writing tutoring, and academic coaching to our offerings this past school year - all of which were very successful!

Please take the time to fill out this survey to let us know whether you might be interested in this offering. Whether you want to be prepared for a first-year writing seminar in college, gear up for AP Language or Literature classes next year, or get a head start on college essays, Staci and our other coaches will help you get there!

We are also working hard in our office on a little gift for our seniors - we don’t want to ruin the surprise, but we did post a sneak peek on Instagram:

And then lastly I was asked by a professional organization to create tutorials for my fellow educational consultants on time tracking and project management - two areas in which our practice excels! I finished those this week, and they were a lot of fun to make! We are really proud of all of the systems and processes we use to make our client experience as seamless as possible :)

Have a great weekend, stay cool and AVOID THE CICADAS!! :)

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Weekly Update: May 14

Good luck to all the juniors and seniors taking AP exams this month! We’re keeping our fingers crossed for you.

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

NATIONAL MERIT COMMENDED STUDENT CUTOFF RELEASED

The National Merit Scholarship Corporation announced the new Commended Student cutoff this year - 207. The score is two marks points than last year, making it the lowest cutoff in a decade. An estimated one quarter or more of students were not able to take the PSAT last year, which may have contributed to the drop. 

We will have to wait on the Semifinalist cutoffs, which are determined by the individual state scores rather than national scores, so we may see a big variety of cutoffs depending on how available the test was to students in each state. Compass Prep predicts a cutoff in the 218 - 223 range in Virginia - we will likely see the actual numbers leaked once schools are notified in late August. 

SUPPLEMENTAL ESSAYS ARE COMING

Our first juniors have finished up their Common App essays and are starting to work on supplemental essays. Our unique process helps students prepare information that they can use across multiple essays, saving them a lot of time and energy once the specific prompts are released! 

Some schools have already released their prompts for 2021-2022, announcing that their prompts will remain the same. The UC system and the University of Miami, in particular, have both already announced that their prompts will not change from the 2020-2021 choices. Don’t be tempted to make sweeping generalizations about other schools based on this news, though! We always remind our students that they should ALWAYS wait to begin a specific essay until the school confirms its use, whether it’s a change or a continuation.

CHEATING SCANDAL AT DARTMOUTH MEDICAL SCHOOL

We know already that cheating has increased at all educational levels due to the online environment this school year. But it is particularly frightening when those cheating charges come from adult students who will soon have a lot of important responsibility - like medical students at Dartmouth! The accusations leveled against 17 students have prompted protests from students and faculty on campus who feel that those students were unfairly treated, especially given the unique challenges that they faced while testing remotely. The controversy centers on the fact that the school used the online Canvas system to retroactively track student’s computer activity during the tests, what some see as an unacceptable level of surveillance. 

Many different high schools and colleges also use Canvas or similar systems that enable this type of tracking, so this story should also serve as a warning to all students to avoid even the appearance of misconduct while testing or completing assignments online.

FCPS GRADING OPTIONS UPDATE

FCPS has extended the deadline for high school and middle school students to request to have a class switched to pass/fail rather than a letter grade. Seniors will need to designate a class as pass/fail by May 17, while all other students will have until June 1 to make this decision. If you are a current client wondering how to report your grades, let us know and we are happy to help!

GEORGIA PUBLICS REQUIRE TEST SCORES

Public universities in Florida received a lot of pushback this past cycle for being the only state university system besides Wyoming to require test scores from students. However, now that young people are able to receive vaccines and things are slowly returning to normal, more state schools may follow suit. The University System of Georgia announced this week that test scores will be required for applicants in the class of 2022. They also announced that USG campuses will return to normal in-person operations this fall, though have not yet required students to be vaccinated to return to campus (Emory, as a private institution in Georgia, does have a vaccine requirement - and will also remain test-optional in the fall).  

So if you have your heart set on UGA or Georgia Tech next year, make sure that you are taking the time to study for those tests!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Our corner of the internet has been buzzing this week about this New York Times opinion piece about the college essay. The author makes a really strong and difficult point about how many students feel that they have to “sell” their trauma, trying to outdo each other with stories of hardship that are going to pull on the heartstrings of admissions officers.

I was so struck by what the author reports her teacher asking her when she questioned this idea:

“Who are you?”

YES! The very first thing we do with any student working on their college essay is ask them to speak with family and friends and write down adjectives that those people would use to describe them. Students often think they have to have the best story, but that isn’t the case at all - it is MUCH more important to demonstrate a specific personal characteristic, and the story is just the vehicle for that! Colleges want to know who you are, where you’re going, and how you’ll contribute to their community. 

You might have a difficult story that can do all of that, and that’s great! But just writing about personal tragedy for tragedy’s sake, in a way that doesn’t demonstrate personality or growth, is not the key to a strong college essay.

I thought this was so interesting when one of my sorority sisters posted it on her social media this week! She is a professor at USF and is researching the impact of COVID-19 on undergraduate STEM education. This video on her early findings is available for online viewing until May 18.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Amherst, Bowdoin, Carleton, Pomona, Swarthmore, and Williams are teaming up to offer group info sessions and events for prospective students - a great opportunity for any juniors interested in small, liberal arts colleges. As you work on your college search, we really recommend seeking out sessions like these that go beyond the traditional info session. Reed, for example, is offering a variety of sessions including a Case Study of a College Application session. These case studies can be super helpful for some inside info on how the admissions office is evaluating applications. 

In more exciting news, we are so excited to welcome (back) Tyler! As we mentioned last week, Tyler was a client of ours who just finished up his freshman year at the University of Richmond! He is back in our office as our summer intern, learning more about entrepreneurship and what it’s like to run a small business. We often work with past clients on graduate school applications and we love seeing them in a different context, but this is the first time we’ve had one working alongside us!

Tyler will be taking over the midweek blog next week to share more about himself and his experience with DC College Counseling, so keep an eye out for that. He is excited to talk with both prospective and current clients about the DCCC process and the college transition, so don’t hesitate reach out to him with any questions or words of welcome!

Lastly, I really enjoyed having the opportunity to attend a Zoom on Thursday morning with admissions officers from Brandeis, University of Rochester, Case Western and our own neighbor across the Potomac, George Washington. Shannon and I have both been attending a ton of these sessions lately, but I really enjoyed this one in particular. Here are some takeaways I thought were interesting:

• One of the schools mentioned that they look at actual interactions within prospective student online chats in order to determine demonstrated interest. So if you think that just signing into the chat is enough, think again! Make sure to come up with some well thought-out questions that show that you have done your research.

• On that note, another school’s representative noted, “Before you demonstrate interest, you have to develop interest.” So obvious, but at the same time so wise! His point was that showing up on campus once to check off a box isn’t enough. Take your time, read your emails, do your research, maybe start a dialogue, and THEN start to demonstrate interest if you authentically have it - whether that involves showing up on campus or not.

• Several of the schools reported some interesting observations on waitlist activity that may lead to more waitlist movement later in the summer than ever before. These fascinated me.

  • The numbers are not in alignment between the number of accepted students nationwide and the number of deposits that schools have received from the students. So there is a theory that many students have actually double OR TRIPLE (omg!) deposited this year… (like we have said, this an absolutely terrible idea). And if that’s what’s going on, we’re going to see a ton of activity right around the time when tuition payments are due. At some schools, that’s just two weeks before the start of the semester.

  • Many enrollment management offices are concerned about the travel bans in place with foreign countries and the impact that this could have on international student visas. These students were accepted and have enrolled, but if their visas don’t come through, there are going to be a lot of spots opening up at the end of the summer as a result. When Shannon and I were talking about this yesterday, she made a particularly insightful comment about how waitlisted students who didn’t apply for financial aid are the ones who will really see a huge benefit from this. This is because international students are nearly always full-pay and most schools won’t replace a full-pay student with one that has financial need, so I think she’s absolutely correct. And this, my friends, is why you don’t apply for financial aid just to apply!

Enjoy the weekend!

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Weekly Update: May 7

Congratulations to all of the seniors who sent in their deposits last weekend - we are so proud of you!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

REMOTE WORK CONTINUES AT MANY COLLEGES

With all the focus on whether or not students and faculty can safely interact in-person on campus, many people have overlooked the other major population on college campuses - staff! At some universities, staff are overwhelmingly in favor of continuing to work remotely. At Duke, for example, three-quarters of staff want to work remotely three to five days per week. Colleges and universities, which often pay less in salary than private companies, are considering remote work as a potential benefit to attract top employees. Georgetown, for example, is planning to indicate in job descriptions going forward which positions can be done remotely. It will be interesting to see how colleges, especially those with a high value on a residential campus community, respond to the increasing push for remote work. 

CORNELL ROCK CLIMBING CLASS CAUSES CONTROVERSY

Cornell’s spring BIPOC Rock Climbing course has caused some outrage from those who see this type of course offerings as in violation of Title IV, a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race or national origin in education programs. Cornell says that all students on campus have access to rich opportunities, and that this course is intended for students who are traditionally underrepresented in the sport of rock climbing. 

CHOOSING A COLLEGE

Decision Day has passed, but for juniors who are still working on putting together a college list, we recommend giving this Forbes article a read - a professor and parent of a college senior provides some interesting considerations as you think about which college would be the best fit for you! We want to emphasize:

“There are amazing universities across the spectrum. Pick one that fits individual needs not ‘name’ or ‘reputation’ metrics alone.”

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Several great articles this week that focus on equity in the college admissions process. This one from the Atlantic is a must-read! It delves deeper into the issues referenced in the above quote, discussing the chicken-or-the-egg relationship between college admissions, elitism and social status.

“Today, schooling is how elites secure income and pass their privilege down to their children. The U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges Rankings are our Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage. And it is a truth universally acknowledged,” it reads, in a satirical take on the first line of Pride and Prejudice, “that elite parents, in possession of excellent jobs, want to get their kids into college.”

Can’t argue with that, and some of the statistics mentioned in the piece were staggering, including a study quoted by Ron Lieber which found that “nearly 50 percent of America’s corporate leaders, 60 percent of its financial leaders, and 50 percent of its highest government officials attended only 12 universities.” In this type of landscape, it’s not surprising that many students and families feel so much pressure to keep rankings at the forefront of their college search.

Varsity Blues demonstrated the dangers that arise when students and families become hyper-focused on admission to a big-name school, but schools also have issues with this system, going as far as to hire expensive “rankings consultants” to help them increase their ranking (or even, as with the Temple University business school dean we discussed two weeks ago, falsifying the numbers to beat the ranking system!). 

And we recognize that the role of private college consulting companies is often considered alongside these considerations, as discussed in this Yale Daily News article. Here at DC College Counseling, we pride ourselves in working hard to discover students’ true passions and best-fit schools, rather than focusing on the rankings alone, but we recognize that not all students and families are able to afford our services (though, keep an eye out for an exciting announcement about that coming your way soon!).

However, we believe that students and families deserve robust support during this challenging time, and that school counselors do not always have enough resources to be able to provide that support to each student. We are proud to be part of the educational support network that our clients have built! We are educators first, and that is the attitude that we want to bring to all of our students and families. This is a nuanced article with a lot of information about the work that independent counselors do, for those looking for more information about these considerations.

Speaking of equity and rankings, I am always excited to read work from Angel Perez, CEO of the National Association of College Admissions Counseling. In his most recent article, he explores the issues driving people away from the admissions profession. This is a tension that so many admissions officers experience (including Shannon and I!) - entering the profession with the goal of helping young people get a great education. Angel offers several different ideas for colleges to step away from a focus on the bottom line, like diversifying revenue streams, so admissions and enrollment professionals don’t feel that pressure to meet the budget, and creating a more flexible culture in higher education as a whole. 

Jeff Selingo, in a LinkedIn article this week, also offered some ideas for how higher education can view emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity for a reset. Some changes include:

• Students watching pre-recorded lectures at home, but using class time for discussions and group work. 

• Changes in grading, particularly grades based on participation, given the challenges that students and teachers faced with this issue during online learning. 

• More flexibility for students with class assignments, including major exams and papers, after a year that has required professors to become a lot more comfortable with flexibility! 

• An emphasis on human connection and campus community - something college students have really missed this past year. 

Jeff’s article also gives some more interesting insight into test optional admissions this cycle. We’ve written before about how it does seem that testing had some effect on admissions this year, and this is particularly true in STEM subjects - students applying for STEM majors were much more advantaged by submitting test scores than those who applied for majors in the humanities or social sciences. At schools like Emory, Colgate, Georgia Tech, and Vanderbilt, students who submitted test scores were more likely to be admitted than those who did not - so if you have the opportunity to take a test this cycle, take advantage of it! You can always decide whether or not to submit the scores later. 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We are so impressed with the determination and perseverance of our juniors, who continue to finish up their beautiful Common ApplicationⓇ essays as they juggle school work and preparing for AP exams, which started this week at many schools! 

We’ve also had several strategy sessions with younger students who are planning ahead, and as we tell them, this is the perfect time to start thinking about your four-year plan for high school and how the next four years can help you develop your passions.

Lastly, we’ve been busy getting ready for the newest member of our team.. our summer intern and former student, Tyler! A future entrepreneur himself, Tyler will be spending the summer with us learning about what it’s like to run a small business. You’ll hear from him periodically with his perspective on a variety of different topics: the college search and admissions process, the transition from high school to college, attending college during Covid, and more!

Finally, Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!

If you’re tired of reminding everyone about everything and carrying the burden of the mental load - the “mostly invisible combination of anxiety and planning that is part of parenting,” (a) I can relate and (b) our team can help! Book a Meet & Greet and get the college admissions-related reminders, worrying and stress off your plate!

Now can someone please invent a way to outsource reminders about keeping kids’ hands off the walls?! My four-year-old son and I will be your first clients :) Have a great weekend!

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Weekly Update: April 30

Decision Day is almost here - good luck to all of the seniors who are making their decisions this weekend! Make sure to celebrate once that deposit is in :)

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

MORE COLLEGES REQUIRE VACCINATIONS IN THE FALL

Over 100 colleges and universities will require COVID-19 vaccinations for students this fall, with Emory, Wesleyan, Stanford, and others announcing that they will require vaccines. Colleges are still dealing with outbreaks of coronavirus, even as students are eligible to get vaccinated this spring. While many of the schools requiring vaccines are private, some public schools are requiring them as well - including the University of Maryland system. Other schools, like Baylor, are not requiring vaccinations, but are allowing vaccinated students to skip mandatory COVID-19 testing, creating an incentive for students to get vaccinated. The University of Wyoming is taking incentives a step further - vaccinated students will be entered into weekly prize drawings, and staff will receive an extra day off! 

PRIVATE SCHOLARSHIPS STILL AVAILABLE

I think it is hard for many students and families to realize how many scholarships are out there! Even for students who did not receive merit aid from their college of choice, there are still private options to apply for this spring and summer. Check out any local community groups you belong to, as well as any groups for your particular academic interest - there is a lot of money that you could find! Shannon even applied for a scholarship for tall students when she was going to college. As the article states:

“Do you love asparagus? There’s a scholarship for that. Are you left-handed? There’s a scholarship for that.” 

So do your research!

BIDEN PROPOSES FREE COMMUNITY COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR ALL

One of the components of President Biden’s $1.8 trillion (ouch) American Families Plan involves free community college for all Americans - regardless of income. While I am NOT a fan of increased government spending in general, I really do like this idea. I’ve written about this before, but I have always found it sort of puzzling that more families in our area do not consider community college to be a viable plan for their students. I get that most of us are hoping for a traditional college experience for our children, but you truly cannot beat NOVA’s guaranteed admissions agreements. Yes - guaranteed! You will automatically get a spot at the University of Virginia and other great schools if you spend your first two years at NOVA, take certain classes and achieve a 3.4 GPA or higher. That’s pretty incredible when you consider what it takes to get into UVa these days. And I haven’t even gotten into the cost savings! For a student who doesn’t mind sticking around for two more years, this could really be a path worth considering. Remember, it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

We’ve heard a lot about artificial intelligence in the last several years - how it might affect jobs and even everyday tasks. But higher education is not immune from AI, and many schools are increasingly relying on the technology to do everything from emailing students to grading assignments. Algorithms have even worked their way into admissions, raising questions about bias if we have programs, rather than humans, evaluating students. NYU, for example, uses a program to determine students’ interest in the school based on how they interact with the school’s website and respond to its messages. Georgia Tech pioneered a chat bot, not only to answer questions from admitted students, but to serve as a TA, answering questions about course material. We will have to wait and see if these technologies become more prevalent in making big decisions!

From a do-it-yourself graduation at the University of Tampa to arrivals in shifts at Vanderbilt and Northwestern, colleges and universities throughout the country are taking all kinds of approaches to graduation ceremonies this year. This New York Times piece details the various options, along with the frustration that the students and parents feel about the situation.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We are so excited for all of our seniors who have sent in deposits, and have been busy talking through a few last-minute decisions over the past few days! Congratulations to everyone for such phenomenal success in such a difficult year. We are so proud of you!

We also passed a fun milestone - our first junior is 100% done with her main college essay, and we have about ten more right behind her in the final editing stage! Our students go through a very extensive soup-to-nuts process to make sure that their work is “17-year-old-perfect” and represents their best selves. It’s so nice for them to have this huge accomplishment out of the way and finished early.

For juniors looking for a weekend activity, we recommend attending NACAC’s Virtual College Fair, including live and recorded sessions from over 600 colleges - a great way to get an overview of many different institutions. 

Enjoy the sun this weekend and be careful out there in the wind today! I just heard from friends that a tornado hit Great Falls?! Yikes! No clue if that’s true but I sure hope everyone is safe!

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Weekly Update: April 23

Happy Earth Week! Don’t forget to check out our blog from earlier this week about some of the greenest colleges in the country if you are hoping to be eco-focused all year round.

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

WEST POINT CHEATING SCANDAL

Back in 2020, West Point experienced its largest cheating scandal in decades, when over 70 cadets were accused of cheating on a calculus exam. 55 of the students who confessed to cheating were enrolled in the academy’s “second chance” program, which provides rehabilitation for cadets who break the rules. Now, the academy is announcing plans to scrap the second chance program, in an effort to crack down on cheating in the future. 

ACT SUPERSCORING

ACT has rolled out an option that allows students to submit their own ACT-generated superscore to colleges instead of sending multiple score reports and letting schools calculate, which has always been the process in the past. The concept is a good one, but in practice it’s been very confusing. Compass Prep did a great job of putting together a guide for students who are interested in sending ACT-generated superstores.  

HIGHLY UNUSUAL WAITLIST ACTIVITY

As I posted on social media earlier this week, we’ve started seeing waitlist movement already. For context, it’s EXTREMELY rare to see waitlist activity before the reply deadline of May 1, because it doesn’t make sense to start accepting students from the waitlist until all of the admitted students have responded and schools can determine how many spots remain. So this was either part of the overall enrollment management strategy, which is very possible in such a conservative year, or these schools are trending very, very poorly with their yield, which is also possible. Either way, the fact that this is happening so early means that any expressions of demonstrated interest, including LOCIs, need to happen immediately! The schools that have already turned to the waitlist include NYU, Barnard, Lehigh, SMU, Virginia Tech, JMU, and many more!

NEW BOOK OUT: YOUR TURN: HOW TO BE AN ADULT

This is a follow-up to one of our long-time favorites, How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success. The author, Julie Lythcott-Haims, is the former Dean of Freshmen at Stanford and is so spot-on in so many ways. Truly, every parent should read the first book if they haven't already, and we're willing to bet that the new student version is just as great. Although if you are one of our graduating seniors or transfers, don’t buy it… a copy may be coming your way in the future! :)

You can get a sneak peak from Julie's famous Ted Talk on raising successful kids without over-parenting, as well as her recent NPR interview. Julie's experience with her own son really resonated with us, because we see this all the time: 

"He got a diagnosis of ADHD and anxiety when he was in the fourth grade... And I think in hindsight, my husband and I didn't quite understand what that meant. He seemed to be so smart and capable and kind and lovely and had good friends and was doing just fine …. [but] he really got into a downward spiral when he got to college. When the scaffolding of home and high school was taken away, this kid began to really struggle."

For many students, the most difficult part of the transition to college is learning how to manage their time - they see a lot more white space on the calendar, but really, that means that they have to figure out their own schedule and that can be incredibly difficult for students used to the structure of high school.

These are exactly the kind of skills that we teach students through academic coaching, which is a great idea for high school and college students alike who need a little extra help developing the executive functioning skills that will set them up for success! Interested in learning more? Book an academic coaching Meet & Greet!

FIRST ANNUAL MARYLAND DAY

If you are looking for a fun virtual activity for young students, check out the University of Maryland’s first virtual Maryland Day on Saturday, April 24! Sessions include “Fun Science for Kids,” “Build a Better Lemonade Stand,” “Dance and Movement,” “Engineering is Awesome!” and more! 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

The lack of standardized testing this cycle, along with a nationwide focus on social justice, has enabled colleges and universities to welcome their most diverse classes ever. Relying on standardized testing often works to the advantage of more affluent families, who can afford tutoring and test prep, so the removal of the emphasis on standardized tests worked to level the admissions playing field this year. Last year, 77% of students reported test scores with their applications - this year, that number was only 46%. We are likely to see similar numbers this cycle, as many schools remain test optional for the Class of 2022. 

If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you know that we take US News ratings with… a few grains of salt. But many students and families use rankings to consider their college choices, and in fact rankings do become more important for graduate schools like business and law school (as opposed to undergraduate programs, where rankings truly don’t provide much useful information).

The pressure placed on schools to retain their place in the rankings was brought to life this week when the former dean of Temple University’s business school was federally charged with fraud for falsifying information to ensure that the school would appear at the top of the US News list. This scheme doubled Temple’s enrollment for MBA programs, which rose from #28 on the list to #1 within two years. This just goes to show that US News does not audit the data that schools send in for rankings - and the rankings system may be even more precarious than we thought! 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Shannon and I both attended an great discussion on Clubhouse this week called “What the Heck Just Happened?” - funny, right? But it’s a completely accurate description of the reactions we’ve seen from counselors after this “hectic and insane” admissions cycle! Everyone in attendance emphasized the need for a balanced, conservative college list, given the current upheaval (which is likely to continue for at least the next several years).

My colleague Joyce Wong, who serves with me on the Independent Educational Consultants Association’s Business Practices committee, is a prominent consultant in the Bay Area. I couldn’t agree more with how she summed up the list-making process:

“More than ever it is so important to have a balanced list… I don’t think our parents fully understand what unpredictability means. There is really no formula for guaranteed admissions and that’s a [mindset] that is hard to break.”

She’s completely right - this really is a mindset issue. This is not the college admissions process of a generation ago, a decade ago, or even a year ago - so it’s been a tough season for many students and families that didn’t know what to expect and didn’t have enough options spanning a wide range of selectivity.

However, that does not mean that there aren’t things you can do to help make your application as strong as possible. We keep reminding students that even with their activities severely limited by the pandemic, they can still include the passions they’ve taken on during their time at home - baking bread, learning to code, studying aquatic animals - there are so many things that students can do now to show colleges their drive and passion. Bob Carlton, another seasoned consultant who chairs the committee on which Joyce and I serve, noted:

“Personal stories seemed to be much more significant - their ability to find their personal story and their impact [for the] common good - how they are helping with an issue that they care about in society or in their neighborhood.”

Even with the crazy and unpredictable admissions cycle, we are so relieved to have a lot of happy students who followed our advice and made smart, strategic decisions. During this past week, we started to hear from transfer applicants and I have to say - these decisions on the whole are coming in much better than I expected! We LOVE to get emails like this one, which came from one of our favorite students last night:

I mean, how can you not read an email like that and want to jump up and down?! #lovethisjob

And for our seniors who are still trying to make their final college decisions, check out our blog post from earlier this week on choosing your college - we know it can be stressful to make this decision, but you have everything you need, and you can have a fulfilling college experience at whichever school you choose!

Enjoy the weekend!

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Weekly Update: April 16

Another Friday, another weekly update!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

COLLEGE ENROLLMENT DOWN 25%

In our world, it seems like college is all students are thinking about - we’ve talked about institutions dealing with huge application increases, students applying to more schools than ever before, and historic numbers of waitlisted applicants. But when you focus on the small slice of selective colleges (a tiny fraction of all the higher education institutions in the US!), you can sometimes miss the bigger picture. According to one study, the pandemic has led to a 25% drop in college enrollment - that is a huge number! Many students were forced to postpone college due to financial hardship from the pandemic, and these students are significantly less likely to attend college at all after putting it off. Community colleges, which educate half of the students who eventually obtain bachelor’s degrees in the US, saw on average a 10% drop in enrollment.  

COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES CONTINUE TO REQUIRE COVID VACCINATION

Since Rutgers University announced that they would require the COVID-19 vaccine for students to return to campus in the fall, over a dozen other colleges have followed suit. The list includes highly selective institutions like Cornell, Brown, and Northeastern. While these requirements have seen some legal pushback, for now it is legal for these colleges and universities to require vaccination in order to help the community develop herd immunity.

FCPS EVENTS THIS SPRING

FCPS and APS’s virtual career fair is starting next Monday, April 19. This is a great opportunity for high school students to learn more about internship opportunities, as well as take part in mock interviews and resume workshops to prepare them to apply for summer jobs and internships!

(And if you’re still looking for the right summer opportunity? Don’t forget to check out our Summer Opportunities Database - we add new listings every week. Future psychology or education majors should definitely check out the special position I shared on our facebook page yesterday. Not only is it well paid, it would look amazing on applications and you’d be helping out a really wonderful family and incredibly sweet little girl!)

Back to virtual events - parents may be interested in FCPS’s annual Special Education Conference this Saturday, April 17, to learn more and talk with other parents about supporting students through hybrid learning and the slow emergence from the pandemic.

NCAA EXTENDS STANDARDIZED TESTING POLICY

As we’ve seen more and more schools announce that they will be test-optional this cycle, there has always been that important caveat - not for hopeful DI and DII athletes. But the NCAA finally announced this week that it will extend its test optional policy for the Class of 2022. Yay! The NCAA is convening a task force this spring to discuss their testing policy moving forward.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

We found this article that emphasizes the “specialist approach” to parenting really interesting! The author is right that many people who are exceptional in their fields start honing their skills at an early age. Does that mean that you should have your six-year-old specializing in piano and quitting the soccer team? We’re not quite sure if it works that way, but we’re confident that it works that way in the college process!

Remember: the well-rounded students of earlier generations are out, and colleges now want to see depth, rather than breadth, from students who know*** what they want to pursue and demonstrate their passion through their course selections, summer plans, and extracurricular activities throughout high school. If you are a high school student looking to maximize your college admissions chances, specialize!

***Totally fine to change your mind. We all do. But have a plan going in!

TIME published an article this week about the impact of climate change on higher education. Particularly, the number of majors that address climate change has expanded from just environmental science to architecture, engineering, business, and more! Interested in studying at a college that emphasizes environmental issues? Check back next week for our Earth Day blog post spotlighting some of the greenest colleges in the country!

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Shannon did a lot of different sessions this week, including one with the Common Application to collect data about 2020-2021 college admissions cycle. For our post-game assessment of the data and some key takeaways, check out our post from earlier this week.

We have been getting a lot of questions this week about double-depositing. If my student hasn’t decided where she wants to go, can we put down a deposit at two different schools until we have a chance to visit in person this summer? The answer is a resounding NO! Colleges share lists of students who have deposited, so they will know if your student has deposited at more than one school. This will likely result in both admissions offers being rescinded. It is absolutely not worth the risk! And with the length of waitlists this cycle, it is also unfair to other students who may be waiting on one of those spots at their dream school.

Of course, it has long been considered acceptable (in fact, encouraged!) for students to put down a deposit at one school while they are on the waitlist at another - or on multiple waitlists. If admitted from the waitlist, the student simply has to withdraw from the first school. Make sure to read the fine print, though, because we mentioned a very strange example earlier in the week with a school that had a rather unorthodox waitlist requirement.

And today, we heard about a school that required a student to accept the offer before technically receiving it. How does that work, you ask? We were wondering the same! The school required the student and his parent to sign a binding statement promising to enroll if admitted from the waitlist. Sort of like early decision, waitlist edition? And then he got in ten minutes later. I swear this year gets crazier and crazier..

All of the upheaval has led to a lot of questions from current seniors who are looking for help with waitlist strategy, decision appeals, or just deciding between college options when many schools still aren’t open for in-person tours. So, by popular demand, we are introducing a one-time Strategy Session for Class of 2021 seniors who need help navigating their post-decision landscape.

Have a great weekend!

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