Weekly Update: April 9

A huge CONGRATULATIONS to our students who received the last of their RD decisions this week - you did it!!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

LAST ROUND OF DECISIONS IS IN

After the Ivy League’s delayed release date of April 6 and Stanford’s April 7 release, all decisions are finally OUT! This has been a particularly difficult admissions cycle, as we’ve now said a million times, but you can see the hard facts on College Kickstart’s admissions results list. Those are some tough numbers! Regardless of the decisions you received, I want to be able to celebrate, commiserate, or strategize with you, so if you are a current client - let me know how you’re doing!

WAITLIST NUMBERS EXPLODE THIS CYCLE

This has been an extraordinary year for waitlists - the record numbers of applicants, combined with test-optional admissions and schools’ concern for yield numbers, have led to extensive waitlists and a lot of uncertainty. The Washington Post quoted UVa’s Dean of Admissions Greg Roberts, who reflected: “I’m not sure I’ve ever gone into a summer so uncertain about what is going to happen.” Well said - same here!

If you are one of the students who received a waitlist decision, check out our blog post about handling difficult decisions - and get to work on that LOCI (unless you’re waitlisted at UVa - they don’t want these letters)! Need help with your letter of continued interest? Book an appointment with us and we can walk you through it. 

TOURS AND INFO SESSIONS RESUME

Many schools have brought back some form of on-campus tour, and more than a few have brought back info sessions or one-on-one meetings with admissions counselors as well. This is great news for Class of 2021 students trying to make a decision before May 1 as well as Class of 2022 students who are still putting together their college lists. That said, visit options are changing all the time, so make sure to check your schools of interest before booking those summer trips!

UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY ACCIDENTALLY ADMITS 500,000 STUDENTS

It does seem like every year we hear about some unfortunate admissions errors! The University of Kentucky sent acceptance emails to 500,000 high school seniors for its selective College of Health Sciences program, which typically admits only 35-40 students per year. Luckily, most of the students who received the email were not interested in the program - and had not even applied to the university! So while this was a big error, it doesn’t seem like there will be too many disappointed students once everything is cleared up. 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

The miniscule admissions rates at top colleges this cycle are prompting a lot of thoughts about how to expand the number of students who are able to benefit from an education at an elite school. Should Harvard admit more students? Should Stanford create a second campus? And here’s my biggest question - would Harvard and Stanford even be as attractive to applicants if they weren’t as selective? While some of these ideas might drop the schools a rank or two in U.S. News, it does seem like a good trade-off for expanded access. We’ll have to wait and see whether this incredibly selective admissions cycle has any real impact for Ivy League schools in the long-term future. 

We are only beginning to understand some of the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. One seems to be a decrease in young adults interested in becoming teachers. Teaching as a profession has been upended this year, and as a result, teaching programs at both the undergraduate and graduate level are seeing a drop in enrollment, while applications for organizations like Teach for America are also down. On the other side, attrition of teachers has increased with all of the uncertainty the profession has seen this year. This is just the latest decline in an industry that has been slowly losing candidates since 2006, and we’ll be watching to see whether there is a rebound from this latest drop.

You may have heard this week about the absolute chaos at Notre Dame Law School. Students were warned via email that they needed to deposit before the deposit limit was reached, or they would be unable to secure their spot. In just six hours, Notre Dame Law filled its class and all admitted students who wanted to consider other options, were unable to pay immediately, or just didn’t check their email were moved to the waitlist. This situation clearly disadvantaged students who did not have the money to deposit immediately, as well as those who did not have reliable internet access or work during the day. 

This instance of inequity in the admissions process is just an indication of a larger underlying problem. With everyone in our industry occupied with COVID-19 in 2020, the National Association for College Admissions Counseling slipped a major change under the radar because of pressure from the DOJ: they replaced the required "Code of Ethics and Professional Practices" with the optional "Guide to Ethical Practice in College Admission." The situation at Notre Dame may just represent the beginning of what’s to come, now that less regulation exists in the admissions space.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

I’m coming at you from Day 2 of a spontaneous road trip back from Florida on I-95. We had plane tickets and decided to drive at the last minute so my daughter wouldn’t have to quarantine for a week. I have seen a lot of teenagers in college gear at rest stops, which makes me so happy! Although - pro tip, don’t go crazy with the sweatshirts until you have an acceptance letter in hand next year!! ;)

Still not sure what to do this summer? Many of our students have reported great experiences at Cornell’s Precollege Summer Program, which will be holding an information session next Wednesday, April 14 at 8:00 pm. The application deadline is May 17, so interested students still have plenty of time to get an application in (or book a session with us for some help!). 

Closer to home, JumpStart NOVA is providing graduating seniors with the opportunity to take two free courses at NOVA this summer and get ahead on their general education requirements. Interested students should apply by April 30. And if neither of these options work for you, check out the summer college courses list on our Summer Opportunities Database for some more ideas! 

Enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend!

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General Education Curriculum Series 2: UVa

We are continuing the curriculum-focused blog series that we began last week with our first deep dive into a school curriculum: UVa!

UVa is the perfect school to start with because they have a wide variety of core curriculum options within one school - some that are open to all students and some that are application-only. Keep in mind that we are only going to look at the requirements for the College of Arts & Sciences, so the information in this post may not apply to your specific situation. 

Buckle up, because this is about to get complicated.

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To start with, UVa’s core curriculum has three components. It is helpful to become familiar with the three components at the start, because each of the available curriculum pathways incorporates some variety of these components. 

The curriculum components are: Engagements, Literacies, and Disciplines. 

Engagements

The College of Arts & Sciences defines Engagements as “small, seminar-style courses that put you face-to-face with many of UVa’s leading scholars and teachers…they ask big questions, and invite you to think and talk about what you know and value.” Sort of reminds me of UVa’s “flash seminar” essay question, if you remember that one!

There are four Engagements: Aesthetic Engagement, Empirical & Scientific Engagement, Engaging Difference, and Ethical Engagement.

To meet the Engagements component, all first-year students must take one 2-credit course in each Engagement. Here are some examples of Engagement courses from the 2020-2021 academic year:

Aesthetic Engagement: “Are Movies True?” “Art: Inside/Out,” “The Aesthetics of Trauma,” “The Politics of Popular Music,” “On Ghosts”

Empirical & Scientific Engagement: “The Big Bang,” “Poverty Counts,” “Thinking Like a Scientist,” “Why We Hold Hands,” “Exploring Your Genome”

Engaging Difference: “#StayWoke,” “The Individual & Society,” “Other People’s Music,” “Unnatural”

Ethical Engagement: “Mortality & Morality,” “Ethical Dilemmas and Science,” “What is Engaged Citizenship?” “Why We Work,” “The Ethics of Piracy”

With me so far?

Literacies

The next component, Literacies, “equip students with the necessary skills and fluencies needed to succeed in a rapidly-transforming world.”

Literacies has three aspects: World Languages, Rhetoric for the 21st Century, and Quantification, Computation, and Data Analysis. Students must achieve intermediate proficiency in a language and take 6 total credits (or two courses) in each of the other literacies. 

The Rhetoric for the 21st Century literacy is met first by a first-year “Writing and Critical Inquiry” seminar, and second by a more subject-specific writing course or an advanced writing seminar. The Quantification, Computation, and Data Analysis literacy requirement is met by many mathematics and statistics courses, as well as logic-heavy classes in other disciplines - such as Statistics for Psychology or Symbolic Logic for Philosophy. 

Disciplines

If you’re caught up on Engagements and Literacies, we’ll move into the third and last component: Disciplines. Defined as “the varied ways our faculty approach knowledge, learning, and discovery,” the seven disciplines more or less align with core academic subject categories.

The Artistic, Interpretive, & Philosophical Inquiry requirement can be met by many courses in cultural studies, anthropology, art history, studio art, drama, music, creative writing, literature, history, media studies, philosophy, political theory, religion, and more. 

The Chemical, Mathematical, & Physical Universe requirement can be met by courses in the hard sciences, such as astronomy, chemistry, physics, and environmental science, as well as mathematics courses.

The Culture & Societies of the World requirement can be met by many courses in cultural studies, anthropology, history, politics, sociology, and religion, as well as global studies courses across many departments. 

The Historical Perspectives requirement can be met by many history classes, including art history, as well as American History and other cultural studies courses with a historical focus. It can also be met by English courses that focus on historical works (like Shakespeare), as well as historically-focused philosophy, religion, and politics courses. 

The Living Systems requirement is looking for biology, chemistry, psychology, or environmental science courses, as well as select courses in anthropology and physics. 

The Science & Society requirement can be met by a large number of economics courses, as well as certain classes with a scientific focus in anthropology, philosophy, and sociology, and some select environmental science classes.

Lastly, the Social & Economic Systems requirement is fulfilled by a huge number of courses in economics, politics, and international relations, as well as some classes in anthropology, cultural studies, history, sociology, psychology, and media studies. 

BA candidates must earn 3 credits (usually one course) in each discipline, by taking courses across at least 6 different departments. But for BS candidates, the disciplines are a little more complicated. BS candidates can take 9 credits in disciplines 2, 5, or 6, and double-count one 3-credit course to meet both 3, 4, and/or 7. BS candidates must take courses across 5 different departments.

If that seems like a lot of information, that’s because it is! But don’t worry, students will have academic advisors who can help guide them through this process (and as previously noted, we have helped students with this kind of thing for years as well!). But at this point, if you’re thinking okay, I get it, I just have to take all of those courses… - nope! There are a few different pathways through the curriculum at UVa, some of which require separate applications and others which are randomly assigned to students in the incoming class. 

Here are the two most common options to which incoming students are randomly assigned: 

Engagements

Nope, this is not the Engagements component from above - this is Engagements pathway.

Students in the Engagements pathway take courses in all three components described above, and they take the credits exactly as we listed. That was easy! 

Disciplines Plus 

Students in the Disciplines Plus pathway do not take Engagements component courses at all. Instead, they fulfill their requirements through 30 credits of Disciplines courses. In addition to the requirements described above, they take an additional course in Discipline 1, an additional course in 2, 3, or 4, and an additional course in 5, 6, or 7, for a total of 9 additional credits (or three additional courses). They complete the regular Literacy requirements as detailed above. 

When it comes to these two pathways, students are notified of their randomly assigned pathway in May. Current high school seniors can apply to switch pathways between May 22-June 1, 2021 by submitting a 500-word statement detailing why they wish to switch.

In general, students who enjoy debates and discussion may prefer the Engagements pathway, while students who prefer a more traditional lecture approach to coursework may prefer the Disciplines Plus pathway. Regardless, students seeking to switch pathways need to make sure that their 500-word statements show that they clearly understand the differences and have well-thought-out reasons for seeking these changes.

But didn’t I mention more applications earlier? You bet!

There are two more selective approaches to the general education requirements at UVa, as well:

Forums

Forums are made up of 40 students who take a tailored group of courses around a particular topic or theme. Forum faculty select the courses that students will take over their first two years. In addition to this selection, students must also complete the World Languages and Rhetoric for the 21st Century requirements. All Forum students must take a required forum class for the first two years in addition to other required courses. Forums in 2020 included “American Dreams,” “Information and Disinformation,” and “Democratic Statecraft.” Students apply separately to this program in the spring before they enter UVa. 

Echols

Echols Scholars are exempt from General Education requirements entirely, though they must complete them in order to transfer outside of the College of Arts & Sciences. First year Echols Scholars also participate in the living-learning community and receive priority registration. Students also have the option to declare the Echols Interdisciplinary Major. Students are selected as Echols Scholars by the Office of Admissions when their applications for admission are reviewed, without a separate application. However, students who are not initially selected can apply for admission during their second semester, with the application deadline in May of their first year on Grounds. 

Whew! If your head is spinning, you’re not alone. Let’s highlight three key takeaways from the College of Arts & Sciences’ curriculum:

1. You’ve got options!

While this list of requirements may seem daunting, students really do have a lot of flexibility to complete core classes. There are a huge variety of classes across multiple departments that fulfill most of the requirements, so you have some structure while still being able to take classes that interest you.

2. You can explore

Despite all of the flexibility mentioned above, the College of Arts & Sciences does require that students take classes across five or six different departments! This means that you can’t stick too close to your comfort zone, so you can explore other things while still playing to your strengths. For example, an English major who loves to write could explore courses in history, anthropology, and philosophy while a chemistry major who loves science could focus on fulfilling her requirements in physics, environmental science, and psychology. And if you want to take something totally outside of your field, you have that option too! 

3. You need to know this stuff

Once you are on campus, you will have an academic advisor who will help to guide you through your course selection. However, there are 12 advisors for all 12,000 or so Arts & Sciences students at UVA, so you will definitely still need to keep track of requirements on your own. You also need to be aware of the pathways with May due dates - often, these can sneak up on students who don’t think they need to worry about course selection until August! You don’t want to miss out on any interesting curriculum opportunities.

Still feeling overwhelmed? Book a strategy session with us to begin mapping out your four-year curriculum plan. We can help you make the best course selection choices for your goals! 

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Weekly Update: April 1

We will be closed tomorrow for Good Friday, but don’t worry - we’d never leave you hanging on the weekly update! Here it is a day early..

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

PANDEMIC IMPACT ON THE MENTAL HEALTH OF COLLEGE STUDENTS

There is no getting around the fact that the transition to college can be difficult for many students. This is often the first time that students live away from home, and the increased independence can also sometimes feel like the loss of the support system that they’ve had throughout high school. While colleges try to make mental health resources easily available to all students, mental health on college campuses has been a big concern in recent years, and is only increasing with the isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Make sure to check in with your new college students this fall, even if they are still learning from home!

BROWN UNIVERSITY VOTES FOR REPARATIONS

Over 2,000 undergraduate students at Brown voted last week on the question of whether students who are descended from enslaved people should receive preference in the admissions and financial aid process. Over 80% of students voted yes. While the vote does not directly impact the school’s policies, we will be watching to see what the administration does in light of this overwhelming support for reparations from students.  

STUDENT ATHLETES TRANSFER IN RECORD NUMBERS

Why have college coaches and sports journalists been glued to the NCAA’s transfer portal this cycle? The portal, which lists student athletes looking to transfer, is not new - it debuted in 2018. But what is new is the potential change in the NCAA transfer rule. Up until now, athletes in certain sports like football and basketball were required to sit out for a season as a penalty for transferring schools. But now, the NCAA is scheduled to vote on a change to the rule that would enable these students to transfer once without penalty. The vote was originally scheduled for January, with the new rule taking effect in August 2021. Though the vote has been pushed back, students and coaches anticipate that this new transfer rule will still apply to the 2021-2022 school year - and as a result, we may see a LOT of transfer movement from student athletes. 

WATCH OUT FOR FAKE COLLEGES THIS APRIL FOOLS’ DAY

Have you heard of the Southern Rhode Island Institute of the Arts? Us either, because it doesn’t exist! Some high school seniors blew off steam during this more-stressful-than-usual admissions season by creating a fake university, complete with a website, mascot (the soft-shell crab), and emotional admissions acceptance videos. Hopefully, “SRIIOTA” creates a bit of fun for other students as well! 

IMPORTANT VACCINE DEVELOPMENTS FOR ADOLESCENTS

Lots of great news this week on the vaccine front! First, the Pfizer vaccine was found to be 100% (WOW!) effective in adolescents ages 12-15 - and no major side effects occurred. According to the New York Times, middle and high school students may be able to be vaccinated by the end of the summer, followed by elementary students.

For our sophomores through seniors, some very promising news out of Gov. Northam’s office today - all individuals ages 16+ will be eligible to register for the vaccine later this month! Shannon and I actually just wrapped up a meeting in which we were discussing our own reopening plans. Right now it looks like our clients prioritize having in-person essay coaching meetings vs. in-person college counseling meetings, so we plan to start with those this summer with our vaccinated students as we begin the transition back into a new normal. We’ll be in touch with more information for our Class of 2022 families over the coming month.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

The pandemic has made boarding school seem like a very attractive option for many parents and students. For students unable to attend classes in person in their local schools, boarding school provided the opportunity for face-to-face learning. Boarding schools, like selective colleges, have seen a rise in applications this cycle as students and families look for a chance to get “back to normal” in a new environment. 

We have a lot of personal and professional boarding school experience here in our office: in addition to working with a lot of boarding school clients (both in terms of admissions and exmissions), clients who have seen the banner over my desk know my Choate pride! What you may not know is that Shannon is also a boarding school alum - she graduated from Andover, where she also gave admissions interviews and evaluated candidates for admission. And Staci also has a substantial amount of experience teaching and working at boarding schools!

If you are considering a switch for your student during this difficult time, book a strategy session with us and we can help you think through your options and the boarding school application process. For some students, repeating junior year or pursuing a post-graduate year can be the right choice on the journey towards college - particularly if athletic recruitment is involved.

And if you’re just plain interested in what boarding school life is like, add All Girls: A Novel to your summer reading list. E! Online noted, "If Gossip Girl meets Curtis Sittenfield sounds like your jam then All Girls is extremely your jam. [E]ngrossing.” Gossip Girl and Curtis Sittenfeld are very much my jam and I can attest that it was a page-turner for sure - but it went deeper than that. It led me to reflect upon issues of consent and institutional betrayal, along with the anxiety, pressure, and expectations that are so present in the lives of teenage girls. If UVA keeps their long-time Arts & Sciences essay prompt for the upcoming application cycle, this book could lead to a very compelling response.

On Choate’s campus in Fall 2019 - the more things change, the more they stay the same!

Many students come to us looking to pursue business-related careers, and investment banking is a big one. But this passion may have dimmed this week in light of multiple reports from young Goldman Sachs analysts about the dangerous workplace culture at high-level firms. As cultural norms shift, more young people become much more interested in work-life balance and a healthy mindset than making a lot of money - and larger firms may find that their work cultures have to keep up.  

There have been a lot of waitlist-related blog posts this year because the uncertainty relating to COVID  made the current admissions cycle the unofficial "cycle of the waitlist" in highly selective admissions. I'm actually going to take this opportunity to proactively share a piece with which I do NOT fully agree and I think should be read with some caution, especially because it's on a very popular admissions blog that I normally love and recommend to families all the time. 

In The Waitlist. Why?!, Georgia Tech's Rick Clark shares some very helpful background about waitlists, including why they are needed and how they work. He's spot on about a lot of this, including the need to deposit elsewhere, the slim chances of waitlist admission, and the fact that no amount of begging (or yummy cookies!) will supersede institutional priorities. But I don’t agree that demonstrated interest doesn't matter. In my own experience, time and time again, demonstrated interest actually matters a heck of a lot more in a waitlist situation than at any other point in the admissions cycle. 

This is because admissions officers at many schools are often instructed to recommend waitlist admission for a certain number of students that meet the institutional priority criteria. For example, "Find me 5 female chemical engineering majors from the Mid-Atlantic." In these situations, I cannot emphasize enough that the squeaky wheel is the one that gets the metaphorical grease. That doesn't mean you should go crazy, but you also HAVE to make sure you're "known" - in a good way - to get one of those coveted spots. After all, there might be 100 chemical engineering females on the waitlist from the Mid-Atlantic! 

My experience has been (time and time and time again) that once it gets to this point, demonstrated interest actually outweighs any other factor - because every student on the waitlist has already been deemed to be qualified. At this point, the admissions committee is primarily concerned about yield protection and only wants to admit students who they are sure will accept the offer. While it obviously doesn't work like this at Georgia Tech, it does at the vast majority of other institutions.

Anyway, I’m concerned that families could get the wrong idea from this post. One of my fellow educational consultant buddies was so surprised to see this advice that she actually started a text chain with a group of us about it the other day to make sure that she wasn't losing her mind (we all agreed: she wasn't!).

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Speaking of Rick Clark, Shannon was able to chat with him and several other admissions officers at an Atlanta-area counselors event. Rick mentioned that Georgia Tech has not yet decided whether to be test-optional for next cycle, so we will have to wait on that news for Class of 2022 applicants. The admissions officers at the event also spoke about the “demographic cliff” that they expect to see in the next few years, when 15% fewer students are expected to graduate high school and apply to college. Some schools may admit more students over the next few cycles in an effort to combat this anticipated drop in applications. 

This year, however, applications are up - but attendance may not be. Georgia State is up in applications and admits, but actually down in students who have deposited or registered for orientation. This suggests that while students may have applied to more schools this cycle, they still have to choose just one, and schools like Georgia State are often dependent on waitlist releases from more selective state schools like UGA and Georgia Tech.

Speaking of UGA, this has been an incredibly difficult cycle for students from out of state. We have already told our students who were admitted that they should be very proud of themselves!! For students who are still waiting, UGA plans to release their waitlist by the end of June or early July. 

We have been hearing from several of our students about the grading changes at FCPS this semester, which will let students change F grades to “NM” (no mark) and C or D grades to simply Pass. While some students and families may see these changes and think of them as a positive in the college admissions process, students should assume that any information about grading provided to them is also provided to admissions officers. In other words, colleges will know that an NM grade is on the transcript instead of an F, and that a P likely means the student received a C or D in the class.

The upshot is that these grade changes won’t really make a difference for a student in the college process, and the same is true of grade changes at other high schools. Some students think that if they have a 4.0 GPA, for example, they should select for even A- grades to be reported pass-fail to keep the GPA intact. But keep in mind that colleges may see that “P” in the context of the information provided by the school and wrongly assume that the student’s grade was much lower. If current clients have additional questions about grading options for this year, please feel free to reach out to us. Or better yet, book an academic coaching session to learn about how we can help your student stay on track and out of a grading dilemma!

Lastly, we are so excited to announce the opening of our new and improved Membership Vault! If you are looking for a DIY approach to the college admissions process, the vault is for you. And if you are a current client, you have access to the vault (with easy, one-stop access to all of our many resources) automatically included in your package.

Current clients should check their email for an access code, and others can learn more or register for membership on our Membership Vault page.

Enjoy the weekend, and a very happy Easter to those who will be celebrating! I will be out of the office during the week ahead, but Shannon will be holding down the fort!

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General Education Curriculum Series 1: Understanding Undergraduate Curricula

Many of our seniors have already committed to their schools for next year - hooray! At this point in the cycle, we tend to get a lot of questions from students about how to approach their freshman year. Soon, students will receive information about housing, course registration, healthcare, orientation, recommendations for sorority recruitment… no wonder it can get overwhelming! 

[Side note: if any of our current seniors do need help with this, let us know and we can assist! We don’t typically advertise this but we help a whole bunch of students each year with all of the above upon request! Just last week I had a meeting with a graduating senior to start mapping out her four-year plan at UVa, which inspired this post!]

At the same time our seniors are getting bombarded with course registration information, our juniors continuing to plan their lists, and many don’t have a sense at all about why it’s important to pay attention to the types of general education requirements that their schools of interest have.. let alone the differences between curricula and figuring out where their own preferences come in to play!

In our new midweek blog series, we’ll be covering some of the different general education requirements across several different colleges and universities. But to kick it off - what are general education requirements, anyway?

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The answer definitely depends on the school. At some colleges and universities, there are certain required courses that every single student must take. At Notre Dame, for example, every single student on campus has to take the Moreau First Year Experience course during the fall and spring of their freshman year.

At other institutions, there are types of required classes (i.e. students must take one history class, one math or science class, etc.), but within that category, there’s a lot of variation between the flexibility offered. At Vanderbilt, every student needs to take a lab science class - that’s hardcore for a non-science major - but there’s choice involved because the students can pick from chemistry vs. biology and so on. Other schools approach the idea of choice from a more flexible and liberal standpoint, with a lot of options for courses that fulfill a very broad requirement (so students can take the Mathematics of Flight instead of Linear Algebra if that is more their speed!).

There are also schools that have only a few requirements, typically including one or two writing-intensive courses and a language requirement, but no other general education requirements. And finally, there are the supremely liberal schools which don’t have required classes at all! 

But that isn’t all that students have to consider. Sometimes, specialized colleges, divisions, or programs within a university will have their own curricula that are separate from the general curriculum of the institution (our post next week on UVA’s curriculum will offer some examples of this from a liberal arts standpoint). This is true in many schools’ pre-professional divisions; for instance, during the first year of an engineering or business program, most students take a very similar course load before choosing a specialty in their second year.

So with all that confusing information, is it really worth the time it takes for prospective students to parse through the curriculum options when choosing a college? YES, YES, and YES! At the end of the day, this is one of the criteria that is most going to impact your college experience. Here are some things to think about when deciding which undergraduate curriculum is right for you:

1. Do you know what you want to study, or do you need more time to explore?

Students who are eager to jump right into specializing in their field might get frustrated with a core curriculum - why am I taking this history course if my true passion is engineering?? These students might look for schools that will allow them to focus on their major right from the beginning, with fewer breadth requirements. 

Some students don’t know exactly what they want to do, or they want to consider a few different options. Students like this might benefit from the structure of the core curriculum, that will allow them to stretch in new directions and take classes that they might not have considered on their own. The core curriculum can really aid students in discovering their passions and strengths! 

2. Do you like to forge your own path, or do you thrive under structure?

At a school like Brown with an extremely open curriculum (which we’ll describe in more detail in a later post!), students really need to be self-motivated in order to make the most of their opportunities. For a student that does not have a clear vision for their college experience, this huge amount of choice can feel more overwhelming than exciting. It’s like the college version of the menu at the Cheesecake Factory!

For students that like more structure and guidance, especially in the first year or two at a new place, required courses (such as a mandatory, small-sized freshman seminar) can make it more comfortable to ease into course selection and meet classmates. If everyone on your freshman hall is taking some of the same classes, it gives you something to bond over while working on those papers! 

3. Do you intend to pursue more education after college?

Some post-graduate programs, like law school or medical school, will have particular classes that they want to see on a student’s transcript. While pre-professional advisors on campus can help with that, it is important for a student who is interested in further education to make sure that their intended school’s curriculum provides them with enough flexibility to take the courses they need, and enough structure so that nothing gets left out. 

4. Do you really struggle with certain subjects or really find success with others?

If having to take a math class is going to ruin your entire first semester, it is better to know that sooner rather than later! While some schools have so many options for their requirements that any student could find something that would enjoy, others really stress a breadth of knowledge. Only you can know for sure whether having to take a certain class is a dealbreaker for you when thinking about your college of choice. 

5. Do you like to be pushed outside of your comfort zone?

Some students who answered “yes” to the question above may still be better served by a core curriculum which allows them to push out of their comfort zone and expand their knowledge base. Some core curricula even include experiential learning opportunities, like internships and community service experience, as part of the requirements for students to graduate. If you are someone who really likes to take on new adventures, but isn’t sure quite where to start, a core curriculum that forces you to move outside of your comfort zone could be for you! 

In every single one of our initial brainstorming sessions with students, we bring up these issues. One thing we’ve learned is that curriculum considerations can present a brand-new idea for many students - but we hope that as you’ve read this post, you’ve discovered that it is worth doing the research!

One important thing to remember is that wherever you go to school, it is unlikely that the core curriculum will look like what you are used to from high school. Rather than only a handful of courses to choose from, you may have hundreds, and you likely will have a lot more flexibility in your schedule - even at the school with the most strict requirements (looking at you, Columbia!). 

You might also surprise yourself. When I applied to college, I was positive that I wanted a flexible curriculum because I knew exactly what I wanted - and didn’t want - to study. I am one of the only people I know who never took calculus (yep - in high school or college!) and I was dead set against going to a school that would require me to take specific courses. But then I ended up changing my entire major and undergraduate division because I fell in love unexpectedly with the subject matter from the ONE course that Wash U did require. Go figure, right?

Whatever curriculum you choose, we hope that your college experience will open doors and let you explore new subjects as well as specialize in something you love. 

Stay tuned for an in-depth look at the curricula at some of our students’ top choice schools!

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Weekly Update: March 26

We are so excited for this spring weather! We hope everyone is getting out and enjoying the sunshine.

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

JMU AND UIUC JOIN THE COMMON APP

YES! We cannot tell you how excited we are to see JMU join the Common Application this cycle, along with the University of Illinois and over 30 other colleges and universities. This addition will definitely make it easier for our students to apply to these schools, and will save students and families a lot of time! Now if UT Austin could hop on board, all my application dreams would come true…

ADMISSIONS STATISTICS CONTINUE TO COME IN

We’ve reached that point in the year where new regular decision releases are happening every day, and as a result, we are starting to see more statistics come in for this year’s admissions cycle. Check out this list for some of the overall admit rates that we’ve seen so far this cycle, including a recently released 19% admit rate from Boston College, 21% from UVA, and a miniscule 4% from MIT! Dean J also released a more detailed breakdown of admissions statistics at UVA that encouraged students not to pay much attention to that 21% average. Instead, students should look to two different admit rates - 28% in state, and 17% out of state - since residency is such a large factor in UVA admissions. 

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY REQUIRES VACCINES IN THE FALL

Rutgers was the first college to announce this week that they will require students to be vaccinated in order to return to campus this fall. Other schools are also considering how they will encourage students to pursue vaccination - Dickinson State in North Dakota will not require vaccinated students to wear masks on campus. UNC, Michigan, and the UC schools have said that they are not currently requiring students to be vaccinated, while Notre Dame has not yet decided on a vaccine mandate. 

Most colleges already require students to have certain vaccinations in order to attend: MMR, meningitis, and Hepatitis B vaccines are commonly mandated before students arrive on campus, so there is some precedent for the Rutgers requirement. We’ll wait and see if other schools follow suit! 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Next Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear the case of NCAA vs. Allston, which addresses the question of whether lucrative NCAA programs should compensate their players. This article breaks down why the NCAA’s refusal to pay players may be a violation of federal antitrust laws. If the Supreme Court agrees, it could mean a lot of changes for Division I college sports - but it is unlikely that this will happen.

We’ve covered before how colleges are using mass testing to try to keep students safe on campus. But colleges are not bubbles, and even if students are being tested regularly, there is a chance for spread in the surrounding areas. This New York Times article argues that colleges (and other businesses) would benefit from increasing mass testing not only for students and employees, but for the surrounding community as well.

While many schools are opening their doors for the first time, some have already been open for months, and there are definitely some lessons to learn from how they have managed the pandemic. This article has some interesting things that have been discovered from in-person learning, some of which go against conventional wisdom (for instance, that it is actually safer for students to have fully in-person classes rather than hybrid, since students who split their time are exposed to more people). 

We love Coursera! The site offers free online courses in hundreds of subjects, and it is a great way for students to delve deeper into subjects that interest them, as well as displaying an interest in those subjects to colleges. This course on the science of well-being was a popular one for our students this year, and according to this New York Times article, over 3 million people agreed! We really recommend this course not only to students but to anyone who needs to focus more on well-being these days.

We found this Atlantic article interesting because it shows how oftentimes, what parents and even students themselves think is the problem with their learning, the actual problem is even deeper. These parents are concerned that their student isn’t remembering what he learns, but the article suggests that maybe he isn’t actually learning it in the first place - the issue isn’t with memory, but with comprehension. This is a really common issue that can make it difficult for students to find the help that they need with learning in the classroom.

As an academic coach, Shannon sees this kind of confusion all the time! That’s why in her first session with a student, she always takes the time to ask questions and get to the root of the problem. We recently had a parent tell us that she is GREAT at asking the right questions! If you are looking for extra support in the classroom, you can hear more about how we can help by booking an Academic Coaching Meet & Greet.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

2021 is quickly shaping up to be “the year of the waitlist.” A lot of students learned decisions this week and will continue to hear decisions next week. Remember that in a waitlist situation, a letter of continued interest is EXTREMELY important! For tips on writing an effective LOCI, check out our blog post. And if you are a student who received a decision that wasn’t what you hoped it would be, read this! If you are a client who received a waitlist decision, please let us know so that we can support you. If you are not a client but are looking for some extra help, book a strategy session with us!

And adults, we know it is difficult, but the best way to support teenagers during this time is refrain from asking them about decisions. Of course, that doesn’t apply to your own children - but if your group of friends agrees not to ask each other’s children about their decisions, it takes the pressure off for all of them. While we know this is a tough process, and a rejection is absolutely not an indictment of the student, many students still feel shame over a deny decision, so try to respect their space during this part of the process. 

For those who are itching to get out and visit colleges - today is the LAST DAY of Amtrak’s big Northeast Corridor sale on train tickets. This is a fantastic sale that we wanted to let you know about - only $19 for a ticket to NYC! The sale applies to trips taken before September 30, so this is a really great deal for students planning to visit colleges in NYC, Boston, or anywhere in between over the summer. 

Shannon has been really enjoying conversations with students and families during drop-in hours (especially when she gets to talk about her alma mater, William & Mary!). Have a quick question about your course schedule for next year, or having difficulty completing a form or research assignment for us? Drop in on Thursdays between 11:30 am and 1:30 pm and Shannon is happy to chat with you and get you on the right track. 

Have a great weekend!

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A Day in the Life, Part II

Shannon is joining us again today to share her perspective from a day in the life here at DC College Counseling - truly, there is never a dull moment!

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If you have been following us for a while, you may recall Colleen’s blog post a couple of years ago giving a glimpse into a day in the life of our office! Today, I wanted to share my version of a behind-the-scenes look at how we do things here at DC College Counseling.

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7:00 am -

My alarm goes off. The first thing I do is check my email, to make sure there is nothing urgent to address. Thankfully, no crisis today! One of my favorite things about working at DC College Counseling is the later start time, because I am able to get through my morning routine. Every morning, I meditate, do some yoga, and get my workout in - this is really such important time for me. 

As I have breakfast, I check some email and send off a couple of quick responses. I also log into our project management system, Asana, to see my tasks for the day and start to create a plan of action. While I try to keep some balance in my work life, I usually can’t resist getting a head start by completing a couple of quick tasks in the morning. It makes me feel that much more prepared for my day.

10:00 am -

11:30 am -

Head to the office. We need to be available after school to meet with students, so my day in the office doesn’t start until noon on Mondays and Tuesdays. I’m a podcast junkie, so my 15-minute commute is the perfect time to catch up on the news with The Daily or get a glimpse into the world of owning a small business (considering that I work at one!) with Stacking Your Team - check out this episode featuring Colleen!  

11:45 am -

Arrive at the office. Honestly, no matter how hectic my day is about to be, I always get a little wave of calm from walking into our office - it’s just so beautiful! The first time I came in, I was thrilled to see William & Mary represented on our wall. Colleen is already busy meeting with a client, so I’ll have to check in with her later. On days like today, both of us have so many meetings it is hard to find a spare minute!

12:00 pm -

I’m starting the day by adding content to our monthly newsletters, so that our current clients can get some important information from us and our prospective clients can learn more about our process. I am especially excited to spotlight some of our college profiles for our Class of 2022 and 2023 students. I’ve been working hard to build up our profiles library for our clients. Get a sneak peek of this month’s featured school, the University of Richmond.

12:30 pm -

In my first meeting of the day, I’m working with one of our clients who is applying for an MBA program. I really enjoy working with our graduate school and transfer applicants, so I’m excited to get into another MBA application.

Colleen and I are both vaccinated, so we don’t have to wear masks in the office anymore when it’s just the two of us here! The rest of our team has not been vaccinated yet and are still fully remote.

1:30 pm -

Jumping out of Meeting #1 and straight into Meeting #2! Another current college student looking at graduate programs.

2:30 pm

Quick break for lunch. On a nice day, I love to order from Zoe’s Kitchen - so close to our office, and it is great to get outside for a little walk in the middle of the afternoon :)

2:45 pm -

Fire off some more emails and reminders to current clients.

3:00 pm -

Back to my meetings - a couple of brainstorming sessions with Class of 2022 students. I prep for each meeting by looking at their college preferences, so I can come prepared with some good matches to add to the list. I love this part of the process, and it really helps me get to know all of our clients as we start to build their college lists. 

6:00 pm -

Wrap up meetings for the day - phew! Double-check that all of my detailed recap emails have gone out to each student, and they have all the information they need to complete their action items. Reward myself by raiding the candy jar - one of the best DC College Counseling perks!

I swear there’s some chocolate at the bottom somewhere!

6:05 pm -

Update our Summer Opportunities Database with some new opportunities that have come in throughout the day, and add in some others that I found interesting.

Colleen finishing up some last emails before heading out - we try to stagger our schedules to offer more availability to our clients!

6:15 pm -

Record some instructional videos that we can add to the website to help our clients with systems like the Wow Writing Workshop - now that Common App essay topics have been released, we want our students to be able to hit the ground running!

7:00 pm -

I like the opportunity to turn my attention to some longer-term projects and ideas once things quiet down a bit and I have the time. We have some great stuff coming your way, including my drop-in hours pilot and academic coaching sessions. We are also working hard to launch our new and improved Membership Vault this spring!

A lot of really great information is coming your way!

8:00 pm -

Finish up any emails that have come in later in the evening and head home!

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Weekly Update: March 19

We hope everyone had a happy St. Patrick’s Day and a great week (and isn’t too tired from springing ahead)!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

REGULAR DECISION RELEASE DATES

It is that time of year again - many of our students are receiving regular decision news from colleges! Fordham, American, Bucknell, Northeastern, and Dickinson were among the colleges to release decisions this week, and we expect to hear from UGA, Swarthmore, UCLA, and Boston College today! For more updates on release dates, we recommend following College Kickstart’s list - it is updated almost every day with new information. 

US CANCELS DEBT FOR STUDENTS OF FOR-PROFIT COLLEGES

For-profit colleges in the US have a long history of taking advantage of students, and the Department of Education has decided to forgive $1 billion in debt for students who have been scammed by these institutions. DOE will also work with these students to improve their credit after carrying loans from these private, for-profit college systems. 

IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON COLLEGE ADMISSIONS

CNN released an interview with the Senior Vice President of Enrollment Management at NYU, discussing the impact of the pandemic on college admissions. As we’ve recounted on the blog before, schools that interest our students are seeing huge application increases (17% at UVA; 42% at Harvard; an enormous 103% at Colgate!). 

But community colleges and other institutions are seeing enrollment fall due to COVID-19, and are providing incentives like debt forgiveness and extended application deadlines to encourage students to enroll. Mills College, a private women's college in Oakland, CA, is the latest institution to close its doors due to economic struggles caused by the pandemic.  

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

This week saw the release of Netflix’s Operation Varsity Blues on Wednesday - check it out! This interview with one of the creators is also worth reading. Those who made the movie believe that with the notoriety around the scandal, this type of “side door” into college admissions will never open up again. I hope this is the case! We were also excited to see other independent consultants featured in the film… and thought it was funny that we got invitations to some watch parties this week! Maybe we will host one ourselves :)

Schools across the country (and here in Fairfax!) are starting to reopen, and some students are headed back into the classroom for the first time in a year. This New York Times article captures some of the excitement and nerves that students are experiencing during this time, as well as some of the safety measures that schools are taking right now in line with new CDC guidelines on the reopening of schools.

This WSJ article provided more information that aligned with the interview above, including raw numbers. I liked the quotation from Sam Bigelow from the Middlesex School, who disagreed that test-optional admissions is ”tipping the scale on access and equity.” He noted (and I completely, 100% agree with this): “More than anything else it’s just making these applicant pools disturbingly big. It’s by and large just making more kids for them to reject.”

And as our juniors are busy with their college essay work, this piece from the New York Times gives a great sampling of college essays from the Class of 2021. I enjoyed reading about the breakdown of topics submitted:

The coronavirus was the most common theme in the essays submitted to The Times, appearing in 393 essays, more than 40 percent. Next was the value of family, coming up in 351 essays, but often in the context of other issues, like the pandemic and race. Racial justice and protest figured in 342 essays … Family was not the only eternal verity to appear. Love came up in 286 essays; science in 128; art in 110; music in 109; and honor in 32. Personal tragedy also loomed large, with 30 essays about cancer alone….Some students resisted the lure of current events, and wrote quirky essays about captaining a fishing boat on Cape Cod or hosting dinner parties. A few wrote poetry. Perhaps surprisingly, politics and the 2020 election were not of great interest.

All things being equal, I maintain that it’s better to break away from trends in essays if possible. I definitely remember how tedious it felt to read the same type of essay over and over and over again when I worked in admissions. That said, I understand that all things aren’t always equal, and sometimes writing about a popular topic is the right choice for a given applicant.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Shannon attended a series of talks this week for CACHET Counselor Conversations, learning more about many different STEM programs. We are definitely starting to see how different schools will handle testing going forward - as we anticipated, extremely selective private schools and large state schools will be looking to use testing in admissions as soon as possible, while other institutions may leave it behind for good. MIT will be placing “more weight” on APs in admission than in the past in the absence of SAT Subject Tests, while WPI has shifted from a test-optional to a fully test-blind model going forward. Case Western expects to admit more students than last year and see a lot of waitlist movement to make up for a smaller class in the previous cycle, while Purdue does not expect to see much if any waitlist movement for their engineering program. 

One thing we were happy to learn was that this cycle overall, as a Purdue admissions officer put it, was the “most empathetic review” of student applications that many of these schools have ever done, taking into account the impact of COVID-19 on applicants. Want to learn more about the STEM programs who make up CACHET? Check out their Virtual College Fair for students March 29-31. 

If STEM programs aren’t your thing, there are still plenty of upcoming college fairs to check out. Register for the National Catholic College Admission Association fair on March 25, or the Colleges that Change Lives fair on March 23-24. 

Lastly, this blog post would feel incomplete if we did not mention that we were deeply saddened and angered by the events in Georgia this week. We stand in solidarity with our many AAPI clients and the wider Asian community. If you are looking to do more to combat rising anti-Asian violence, we recommend participating in this free bystander intervention training or making a donation to one of the organizations on this list to support Asian communities.

Enjoy your weekend! 

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Creating Your Four-Year Plan

As we’ve mentioned here before, a strategy session for an 8th grade student can be an incredibly valuable way to set yourself up for success in this process. Some advice that we always give these students is to start creating a four-year plan. Yes, that’s right - make a plan for all four years of high school, now! 

This can seem really overwhelming for a lot of students and families. Several weeks ago, we had a parent reach out to ask if we had a template that families could use to create this type of plan. Our first thought was, why didn’t we think of that?? (We LOVE getting great suggestions from students and parents, so if there are materials or tips that would be useful to you in a future blog post, let us know!)

So here it is - our DC College Counseling Four Year Plan Template!

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Wondering why it is necessary to come up with a four-year plan? For families with middle school students, it can be difficult to see the big picture, but the truth is that for better or worse, the curriculum students take in middle school will set them up for high school, college, and beyond.

Students who are successful in Algebra I in middle school, for instance, will be primed to jump into high school geometry as freshmen and more advanced math courses in subsequent years. This is especially important for students interested in math or engineering, who will be expected to take calculus before entering college.

Making a four year plan is the best way for you to see where you will be when you graduate high school and start college, and it helps you be prepared early for the admissions process. 

This slide from Shannon’s recent presentation on Academic Planning for Middle School Students at the College of William & Mary shows how a very advanced student in middle school will be able to take highly advanced math courses as a high school junior or senior.

If you’re convinced that you need a four year plan, you might be wondering: where do I start?

First, look at the requirements and typical progression for courses in your high school. Depending on whether you are at a public or private school, you may have very different options and expectations for courses.

If you have a dream college or program in mind already, take a look at the college’s requirements too - many schools will want students to have three to four years of all their core subjects, including a language.

And if you are debating transferring from a public to a private school or vice versa, comparing the curricula is a great way to assess rigor and how each school will prepare you for college. 

Once you have a sense of the courses available and typical progression, you get to the fun part: what do you love to do? Are you passionate about science? English? History? Choose your passion, and let it guide the courses and extracurriculars that you participate in throughout high school.

Now is the time to start thinking of yourself as an “expert” - how can you explore and deepen your knowledge throughout your time in school? Our template provides reflection questions that you can use to think more deeply about your interests and how you can explore them fully as a high school student. 

We hope that this resource helps you break down the next four years and think clearly about your passions and goals.

Questions about how to make a plan? Book a Grades 8-10 Strategy Session now, or let us know in the comments! We’d love to hear your ideas for future posts and other content that you and your family would find helpful. 

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LOOKING FOR MORE INFORMATION FOR K-12 STUDENTS? CHECK OUT THESE POSTS!

Weekly Update: March 12

We hope everyone has been enjoying the beautiful weather!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

UMD CONFIRMS TEST OPTIONAL FOR 2022 AND 2023

The University of Maryland is the latest school to announce that admissions will be test-optional for the classes of 2022 and 2023. They specify that students who choose not to submit test scores “will not be disadvantaged” in the admissions process. Living-learning programs and merit scholarships will also be test-optional, though the English proficiency test requirement will remain in place. 

AN INTERESTING SPRING BREAK IDEA

We’ve written before about the variety of plans that colleges and universities have this semester to prevent students from traveling for spring break. From starting in February, to ending in April, to giving students single days off throughout the semester rather than a week-long block, we thought we had seen it all. But UC Davis has a different plan - offering $75 gift cards to local businesses as a “staycation” grant to 2,000 students who agree to stay on campus during spring break. That’s one way to incentivize students to follow CDC guidelines!

TJ ADMISSIONS LAWSUIT 

Last Wednesday, the Pacific Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit against Thomas Jefferson High School, alleging that the school’s admissions policies are discriminatory against Asian-American students. This comes after new admissions criteria were put in place for TJ’s incoming class of 2025. These changes include increasing the class size, eliminating the application fee, and no longer requiring teacher recommendations.

This case definitely recalls the affirmative action case against Harvard, as well as those that other Ivy League schools have faced recently. For more of my thoughts on these cases, you can check out my Newsy interview on our Facebook page!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

This article by Jeff Selingo examines the future of admissions in light of all of the changes we have seen during the pandemic. One of the things that is most fun (and most challenging!) about this work is that things change all the time, but Jeff thinks that some of the changes will stick. Here is an excerpt from the article: 

"The numbers from this year’s early-decision rounds were reaching high-school seniors just as many of them were applying for regular decision. For a certain set of prospective applicants — namely upper-middle-class and wealthy students — the early numbers seemed to indicate that applying test-optional might be the way into a selective college."

Key word here - SEEMED! Sure, the early numbers seemed that way to applicants, but that’s not necessarily what they actually said. Test-optional admission alone in the absence of other positive attributes wasn't enough to help a typical upper middle class or wealthy applicant gain admission to a selective college. As always, our current clients should speak with us first before deciding whether the test-optional route is the best choice for them, given their applicant profile. 

Quite an article from The Atlantic this week - “Private Schools Have Become Truly Obscene.” I was actually interviewed for this piece last summer, though not ultimately quoted. COVID-19 has definitely thrown the major differences between public and private schools into the spotlight this year, especially as schools have decided whether or not to offer in-person instruction. 

It is worth noting, though, that just because more private schools send students to highly selective colleges, that isn’t necessarily about the school - it could be about the student. The sort of highly-motivated, full-pay student who attends an elite private school is often the same type of student who is admitted to an Ivy League school. The article also mentions the endowments at Exeter and Andover without noting that these schools, like Harvard and other Ivy Leagues, are also need-blind, admitting students regardless of demonstrated financial need. 

But it was a funny read nonetheless and I love the author. This was my favorite line:

College admissions is one of the few situations in which rich people are forced to scramble for a scarce resource. What logic had led them to believe that it would help to antagonize the college counselors? Driven mad by the looming prospect of a Williams rejection, they had lost all reason.

Tongue-in-cheek, but also SO TRUE. As I’ve said before, a student’s [school-based] college counselor at school plays an essential role in the admissions process. This is NOT the person to antagonize, trust me!

Bad news for some class of 2021 students from the Wall Street Journal - college wait lists are likely to be longer than ever this year. This is in part because schools, concerned about pandemic yield numbers, have chosen to be conservative with admissions (which may mean that more students are admitted off the waitlist in the end). But it could also be a symptom of the sheer numbers of qualified applicants that applied to highly selective schools, just the latest sign of a crowded playing field. 

This is also a great reminder to NEVER DOUBLE DEPOSIT - not only could it end with two rescinded offers of admission, but you may be taking a spot from another deserving student who won’t be able to attend that college because the school didn’t have an accurate idea of enrollment numbers until it was too late. 

Something else that can lead to rescinded admission: not being careful with your social media use. Check out our blog post from earlier this week, from guest blogger and hiring expert Jayana Garvey, for more tips about keeping your social media in tip-top shape.  

Students might enjoy this list of secrets and surprises from former college admissions officers. There is some great insight here, but keep in mind that some of these come from admissions officers at less selective schools and may not be true about the schools where our students apply. Legacy students certainly aren’t always accepted (though for more on the impact of legacy status, check out this blog post!) We definitely hope that students keep #15 in mind: “One thing that’s really important to know is that at schools with really low acceptance rates, probably 50-60% of the applicants are equally qualified, and only 5-10% will be admitted.” So true! You can only control what you can control - at some point, even the most qualified applicants are relying on luck! 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We are really excited to introduce a new offering to past, present and future clients alike - academic coaching! We've proven that breaking down the college admissions process into manageable chunks makes it more successful and less stressful. Now we are officially helping students from ninth grade through graduate school approach their regular academic work in the exact same way! Check out yesterday’s blog post to learn more about this offering and set up a session.

Lastly, I couldn’t finish this without acknowledging the one-year “Covid anniversary.” Exactly a year ago today, March 12, was our last normal day seeing clients in the office. I wish I had something meaningful or insightful to say about the past year, but nothing could come close to capturing the challenges we have all faced. From a business standpoint, though, everything has moved forward so seamlessly and I’m incredibly grateful for that. And we are so close to the finish line now!

Enjoy the weekend!

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Introducing: Academic Coaching!

We are so excited to formally announce a new offering to our high school clients starting this spring - academic coaching! Shannon is an experienced academic coach and looks forward to working with our clients in this capacity.

Many of our students struggle with executive functioning challenges, and we have been so grateful for the opportunity to support them throughout the college application process. Families have seen what a difference it makes for their students to have us acting in the role of “project manager” and breaking daunting tasks down into manageable and accessible chunks.

Over the years, families have noticed how effective our method has been for their students and asked for our assistance outside of the active stage of the application process - helping students to develop their skills so they are more successful in high school with much less stress.

With so much interest, we decided to transition from offering this service upon request to including it among of our formal service offerings!

Think your student could be a good fit for academic coaching? Keep reading to learn more!

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What is academic coaching?

Academic coaching is offered to help high school students who struggle with time management, organization, study skills, or academic anxiety. Our process gets to the root of a student’s difficulties and equips them with the practical tools they need to be successful in managing their workload, in their current academic stage and beyond! 

What isn’t academic coaching?

Academic coaching is not a replacement for psychotherapy! Coaching focuses on helping students implement actionable skills to achieve specific academic and personal goals. A coach is not a teacher or tutor - instead, a coach is a partner in helping your student be successful. Coaching can work in tandem with psychotherapy, medication, and other strategies as part of a treatment plan - or just by itself.

Academic coaching is also not subject tutoring. We will not work with your student on a paper, or teach them math skills - instead, students will learn organizational and time management skills that can be applicable across any academic or professional discipline. We can also work with an existing tutor or academic support professional to provide the best possible coaching for your student. 

Who could benefit from academic coaching?

Academic coaching is helpful for a range of students. Students with executive functioning difficulties, including those caused by ADD/ADHD or ASD, are great candidates for coaching. High-flyers who struggle with test-taking or other forms of academic anxiety can also learn coping skills from working with a coach.

Some students only need an hour or two of coaching on a periodic basis, to get them on track during busy weeks like finals, or through a recovery period from an illness or injury that led to missed schoolwork! Our flexible options let you choose what works best for your family. 

DOES THE STUDENT HAVE TO BE A CLIENT OF DC COLLEGE COUNSELING TO PURSUE ACADEMIC COACHING?

While academic coaching is open to current, past, and future clients, it’s also open to students who have no affiliation with us. The services are completely separate.

What does a typical academic coaching session look like?

This is a hard question to answer, because we hope that our sessions look like help to your student - and every student’s needs are different! Here are some things that might happen in an academic coaching session:

1. We work with your student to plan out their schedule for the next week - when and how they will complete their homework, as well as any upcoming major tests, projects, or papers 

2. We work with your student during a busy time of year, like finals, or after they are injured and are struggling to catch up with work. We help them to plan out a schedule to get through their busy season, and look ahead to what is coming up next! 

3. We help your student come up with a plan to tackle a particular project, like studying for a major exam or writing a paper. We break the project down into manageable steps, then build a schedule to guarantee that it is completed on time. (Does this sound familiar? Yes - we can teach students to approach ALL projects just like they approach the college admissions process!)

4. We work on study skills, test-taking strategies, or suggestions for note-taking in class or while reading. Working on these skills now will leave your student ahead of the game in college, where many students will arrive without ever really learning how to study. 

5. Anything you need it to look like! Is your student having trouble sending an email to a professor or signing up for a time to meet with their academic advisor? Stop nagging and let us step in. We can provide support for a variety of executive functioning challenges as well as academic anxiety - feel free to reach out to us to learn more about how we can support your family.

Packages and Fees:

Our flexible packages let you choose the best fit for the needs of your student and family. 

HOURLY COACHING - Introductory Rate of $200/session on an as-needed basis

WHAT YOU GET: 

• One-hour student coaching session to discover and address particular needs and challenges. 

• Follow-up email including any materials or strategies covered during the session, along with tips and instructions for implementing them at home. 

• One fifteen-minute follow-up phone call to check in on student progress and make changes to strategies if necessary. 

MONTHLY COACHING - Introductory Rate of $600/month with minimum commitment of three months

WHAT YOU GET:

• Monthly parent meeting to talk about student needs and parental concerns. 

• Weekly one-hour student coaching sessions to discover and address particular needs and challenges. 

• Follow-up emails after each session including any materials or strategies covered during the session, along with tips and instructions for implementing them at home. 

• One check-in text message each week to remind student of important tasks and deadlines. 

• One check-in parent text message each week to further discuss student’s progress.

Shannon loved her work as an academic coach at Boston College before joining our team, and is excited for the opportunity to support more students in this role!

We are so excited to introduce this additional way to provide support for our students, and help prepare them to take the next step in their education.

Questions about academic coaching? Reach out to Shannon for more information.

Ready to get started? Let us know you’re ready for monthly coaching and we’ll send a contract your way, or sign up for a one-time coaching session here.

Social Media, College, & Careers

This week, we have our promised guest blog post! Recruiting and hiring guru Jayana Garvey is here with us today to share some great tips for cleaning up your social media.

While Jayana’s primary focus in this post is on the hiring process for a student’s first job or internship, everything she says is applicable to the college application process as well!

Think we’re exaggerating? Check out this timely article from this week’s Washington Post about the impact that the use of social media can have on your college applications.

And for other potential red flags for admitted students (yes, even after you have been admitted!), don’t miss last week’s post on staying out of trouble.

Now, here’s Jayana!

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Do my social channels matter while I’m in high school and college? Can they impact my career search? 💯yes.

Studies show that 70% of employers are using social media to screen candidates during the hiring process. Some companies and organizations certainly will and others follow strict protocols and only look at a candidate’s application in their system. You’ll never know for sure because every organization has different policies and processes related to their recruiting.

I would encourage today’s high school and college students to look at ALL their social media accounts as fair game for ANY recruiter or hiring manager (or admissions counselor!) to potentially come across.

In my campus recruiting days, I could tell you about several college students who were in the running for prestigious leadership programs and were denied due to questionable content on their social media. It came up in many discussions with career services at universities.

It came down to this: recruiters were simply not confident that the individual could have a professional presence at work with an unprofessional, public, social profile. That immediately made the candidate lose credibility. Right or wrong about your character, it clouded a hiring manager’s view of you immediately and made them question their decision.

Remember, they are generally only going by one page about you and an hour spent with you. Employers are looking for a variety of competencies when interviewing you and assessing your candidacy. These could range from leadership skills, teamwork, your ability to collaborate, handling change, technical expertise, and so on.

You want an employer to stay focused on your application and interview - not to get distracted with a poor decision online that may jeopardize the stellar resume you’ve worked so hard to develop!

So how do you know what is OK and what’s not?

A good rule of thumb is to not post updates or share content on social media that you would not feel comfortable having a future boss see.

Use that as your litmus test. It’s an easy way to think before you share, comment, upload a photo, or like content. 

There will likely also come a time where colleagues at work may become friends with you on social channels and have a deeper view into your personal life.

Of course, you don’t have to accept everyone, but I’ve been on teams where it’s common and others where you would never be connected on personal social accounts with a boss.

Every single company culture and team culture is different. It’s best to begin preparing now. And if you’re reading right now and thinking about certain posts, TikTok videos, or Insta photos in your head that you might not be so proud of, it’s never too late to clean up your online presence and prepare for your future job search (Note from DCCC: This is also true about preparing for your college applications!).

Sure, you may be thinking some of this sounds overkill, and I get that! Our work and personal lives are becoming very blurred nowadays and are continuing in this direction. If you think about years ago when people went to work and didn’t have a laptop to bring home - work stayed at work. We now have remote work, colleagues as friends, and social media mixed in. This creates an entirely different environment - something your parents didn’t experience when they were applying to their first jobs out of school. 

Of course you can never control the social media trolls on your pages or crazy Aunt Sally’s comments on your photos, but how you interact with them and respond is key.

You may want to lock down certain profiles to keep them more controlled while being more discerning about who you accept as a friend. You may even want to take it a step further and approve tagged photos/timeline posts for example (if you’re on Facebook). Again, some organizations will look at things and some will not. You’d rather err on the side of caution. 

I’d also recommend being mindful of what you post on your personal social pages vs. what you post on LinkedIn. As you begin creating your professional presence on LinkedIn, you’ll want to keep it just that - professional. It’s not the page for a long vacation reel, tons of political posts, or controversial topics. People go to LinkedIn for work related topics, idea sharing, job searches, and business connections.

The few people who are sharing content not aligned with the general purpose and intention of LinkedIn always stand out on the newsfeed - and not in a good way. 😀 Yes, it’s OK to share some personal stories and information on LinkedIn too, but there should be a thoughtful connection to your professional life (generally). 

So we talked a lot about mitigating your social media working against you. It is absolutely a powerful tool to work for you in maintaining personal and professional connections and showcasing your “brand” as a prospective employee. If a recruiter or hiring manager goes to channels you choose to keep public and sees insightful content, industry articles, and friendly conversations with followers, they may feel even better about your candidacy by seeing you interact with others with varying viewpoints in a professional manner.

Now let’s contrast that with someone having a Twitter war with poor tone and dropping f-bombs with their followers. That may be an indication of how you would interact with your team members who might challenge your ideas or not share the same perspectives. Your creativity, professionalism, and intelligent conversations can boost your candidacy. 

In the end, you want social media to accelerate your applications, your job search, your candidacy, and your eventual career - not put opportunities to a halt! Think about what you have today and whether you need to tune things up now to help make that happen. You got this! 

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Looking for more information on Admissions Strategy? Check out these posts!

Weekly Update: March 5

Happy March - and happy (part-time) BACK TO SCHOOL to our FCPS students! Wow - talk about the longest spring break ever :)

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

TOP 20 MOST EXPENSIVE COLLEGES

The cost of college attendance gets a lot of attention, but the fact is that many schools offer both merit- and need-based aid, so the advertised cost of attendance may only be paid by a fraction of students. A more relevant measure for most students is the average price that students pay for their education, calculated by CTAS Higher Ed Business. The University of Chicago, for example, has the highest cost of attendance at more than $80,000, but most students do not pay this full cost. The “real” most expensive school in the US? Wake Forest, with an average cost of nearly $63,000 per student. 

Three schools near the top of the list - NYU, BU, and USC - have students paying a premium for their locations in major coastal cities. NYU, benefitting from an influx of applications like so many top schools this year, may even shoot to the top of the list as we get more data. 

IECA RELEASES NEW STANDARDS

As we’ve written on the blog before, DC College Counseling may not be the right fit for every student looking to work with an independent counselor. However, if you are a student looking to work with someone outside of your school counselor, make sure you do your due diligence! Shannon and I are both members of the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA), which means that we are required to uphold certain ethical and professional standards. Anyone can call themselves a counselor - look for outside accreditation and experience so you can be confident in the person that you are trusting to help you with such an important life decision!

The IECA recently released new “We Believe” standards in the wake of the Varsity Blues scandal. We stand behind all of these standards, but our favorite has to be #2: “We believe independent educational consultants should act respectfully, honestly, compassionately, ethically, and professionally with every student.” 

OPERATION VARSITY BLUES ON NETFLIX

Speaking of Varsity Blues, we’re excited to check out the new Operation Varsity Blues movie when it premieres on Netflix on March 17. The movie recreates conversations recorded through FBI wiretaps during the investigation, and it is definitely disturbing to hear some of what went on during this scandal.

RICE INTRODUCES BUSINESS MAJOR

Rice University will be introducing an undergraduate business major this fall! This is really exciting for students who have been interested in the incredible STEM programs at Rice and want to be able to further develop their business skills. And since we have a ton of students every year looking for business programs in the South, we’re glad to have another alternative to recommend! Since the school is trying to fill the major with incoming students and current freshmen, fewer students will be eligible - meaning that a student who is interested in the new major might have a slight admissions advantage at this extremely selective institution.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

We try to help our students develop the skills they need for college as they work with us throughout the process, but we know that students need a variety of different levels of support to be successful as they move on to this next step. For parents that have been really involved in supporting their students, it can be challenging to get them ready to work on their own as college students. We found this Atlantic article to give some really helpful strategies for parents to help their students improve executive functioning skills in advance of heading to college. As an executive functioning coach, Shannon definitely agreed with all of the tips in the article! And if you want to learn more about how our process can help your student develop self-advocacy, make sure to book a Meet & Greet with us!

One of the most common questions we’ve received during the pandemic is how students can complete community service or volunteer projects while staying safely distanced. Our Summer Opportunities Database is a great resource for these types of opportunities, but for more ideas, check out this New York Times article about how teenagers managed to volunteer this year despite the new challenges. These students phone banked, organized, tutored, and completed other amazing volunteer projects this year.

Interested in a particular organization or nonprofit but not sure how to start volunteering? Our favorite tip is to reach out to the organization and ask them what their needs are right now. Then, you can create a proposal for volunteer or internship experience that meets those needs. This method demonstrates initiative and also makes the choice to take on a volunteer or intern a no-brainer for these organizations!

We know that it has been difficult for students to feel that they really got to know a college during a virtual tour. All the Zoom videos tend to blur together, and students are savvy enough to know that admissions officers are intentionally presenting an overly positive version of the student experience. This Washington Post article illuminates just one of the student-led virtual tour companies that ask real students, unaffiliated with the admissions office, to reveal their perspectives on their school. Check it out! Some of our other favorite resources for student voices are Niche and Unigo, and we always encourage you to connect with current students or alumni at schools that interest you - if you don’t know someone personally, your high school counselor may be able to connect you to a former student. 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

One of the best parts about having Shannon on board in our office is that we can be so much more available to our current clients! Starting next week, we are introducing a month-long pilot of drop-in hours, where current clients can hop into a Zoom meeting to ask Shannon a quick question or provide an update without booking an appointment. Drop-in hours will be from 11:30-1:30 on Thursdays, so parents and students can feel free to pop in during their lunch break for a quick chat with Shannon. This video will show you how to access drop-in hours:

I appeared on Newsy last Friday to discuss the Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard case and the potential implications that the reversal of affirmative action policies could have on the college admissions process. Watch the entire interview on our Facebook page.

And lastly, a really exciting opportunity for FCPS students to pursue a leadership role - serving as Student Representative to the School Board. Current 9th, 10th, and 11th grade students can apply now to represent student interests to the School Board. 

Have a great weekend! 

Staying Out of Trouble

Yes - it was still below freezing when I woke up this morning, but the first week of March means spring is just around the corner! The warmer temperatures and exciting news in the mail can always induce some senioritis, and this year we expect that the loosening coronavirus restrictions and increased vaccine availability will make it even more tempting for students to relax. 

And for the most part, that is great! In fact, we hope our seniors are able to relax a bit in the classroom and enjoy the end of the year safely.

But students should still be making good decisions throughout the spring and summer to ensure that years of hard work toward those college acceptances do not go to waste. 

This includes monitoring your social media posts carefully - keep an eye out for our guest blog next week from recruiting and hiring guru Jayana Garvey for more about making good decisions on social media.

Before you post or message, ask yourself, “Would I be okay with explaining this to my college of choice?” If the answer is no, don’t put it online!

Last year, more than a dozen colleges, including Clemson, the University of Richmond, and the University of Florida rescinded offers of admission to students based on their social media posts. And in 2017, Harvard rescinded offers to ten students who wrote offensive posts in a private Facebook group (yes, even in a closed group, this can happen!). In the last three years, 14% of private schools and 4% of public schools have rescinded admissions offers based on social media activity from incoming students. Whether schools should have the right to do so is up for debate, but as things stand now, it is much better to never find yourself having to make the argument. 

Remember, perception is reality, so try to avoid situations where others are behaving inappropriately or breaking the law. Yes, even if you are not doing it with them. Ask yourself, “If a video of this was posted on social media, would I be okay with that?” If not, do your best to get out of the situation before it becomes a larger issue. 

Of course, the most common reasons that offers of admissions are revoked are academic in nature.

As a general rule of thumb, if your grades slip in one or two classes, it shouldn’t pose a problem - especially if the classes aren’t related to your major. If you are typically an A student, a grade of C or below may raise red flags, and you will likely be asked to explain your downwards trend in academic performance to the colleges.

You don’t want to change your senior year schedule, either. Dropping some AP classes may seem like an easy way to relax a bit during senior year, but colleges will notice. If you have a true conflict and need to make an adjustment, contact the schools on your list in advance of making the change. This is not the type of situation where you should act now and beg forgiveness later - far from it.

More serious academic issues include plagiarism or cheating - don’t do this! Violations of academic integrity are likely to result in revoked admission. 

That said, this might be the most important thing we say in this post: don’t lie! If you do have a major disciplinary or legal issue, report it to your colleges.

For current clients, we can help you do this, and you may also want to consult a lawyer - especially for cases involving criminal misconduct. On the other hand, if colleges find out that you lied or withheld information, they will not be willing to work with you. It is much better to get any issues out in the open and control how they are presented instead of having your college find out through the grapevine from someone else.

(And don’t think that doesn’t happen - your classmate Johnny down the street was waitlisted at your school of choice, and his mom could not have been more excited to learn about your suspension. She’s going to place an anonymous call to the admissions office first thing tomorrow morning to make sure they know!)

We don’t say any of this to scare you - we want our students to enjoy their senior year! But make sure to stay safe, stay productive, and stay out of trouble. If you have questions about anything we’ve covered here, please let us know and we are happy to help! 

Weekly Update: February 26

It may be late February but it has felt more like April this week. SUCH a nice treat to have this beautiful weather - we hope all of you were able to get outside and enjoy it!!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

HARVARD ADMISSIONS LAWSUIT REACHES THE SUPREME COURT

Back in 2019, Judge Allison D. Borroughs rejected the argument presented by the “Students for Fair Admissions,” stating that while the Harvard’s admissions process is “not perfect,” the university did meet the constitutional standard for considering race.  She argued that universities need to consider race in college admissions so that they can foster greater diversity, “tolerance, acceptance and understanding that will ultimately make race-conscious admissions obsolete.” The group brought their case to the Supreme Court yesterday.

It’s important to recognize that back in 2003, Sandra Day O’Conner wrote in the majority opinion for Grutter v. Bollinger that race-base admissions was not meant to be permanent:

The Court takes the Law School at its word that it would like nothing better than to find a race-neutral admissions formula and will terminate its use of racial preferences as soon as practicable. The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.

Well, it’s been almost 18 years, so this will be interesting - it has the potential to shake up college admissions in a very big way. Stay tuned for more as we watch it closely!

VIRGINIA TECH EARLY ACTION DECISIONS RELEASED

After we posted our Friday blog last week, Virginia Tech released early action decisions. They had a 35% year over year increase in early action applicants (nearly 30,000 this cycle compared to just over 20,000 last cycle), and decisions revealed that this was a significantly more difficult cycle than we have seen in the past. We also suspect that demonstrated interest may have played a larger role at VT this year, as it appears anecdotally that they may have tried to fill the class with students most likely to attend. Congratulations to all of our seniors who received good news last week!

INFLUX OF APPLICATIONS AT TOP COLLEGES

This pandemic admissions cycle has felt particularly long for many of our students - and for us as well! But one thing that we’ve increasingly noticed as more data is released (and written about again and again) -is that while college applications across the country have dropped, applications at top universities and big state schools have gone way up. That means that most of our students will be experiencing the most competitive admissions cycle in history (not exactly a claim to fame you want, right?). But it also means that smaller mid-tier colleges may be struggling to fill their classes and suffering budget shortfalls.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

The Varsity Blues scandal illuminated some of the ethical issues with athletic recruitment at top colleges. This article further considers that relationship, digging into the relationship between Sean Hannity and the tennis coach at Wake Forest, where his son is a senior and varsity tennis player. Though an investigation did not find any illegal actions in this case (unlike Varsity Blues), it still raises some ethical questions and is a great read to help think about where the lines are drawn for NCAA recruitment.

Not exactly an article, but I recommend this Twitter thread for anyone looking to understand a bit more about the trends we’ve been seeing in applications this year, and how school officials are thinking about this admissions cycle.

This article from the Chronicle of Higher Education digs into the CSS Profile, one of the most frustrating forms for students and families to submit during the admissions process. About 300 colleges and universities require this form in addition to the FAFSA for students seeking financial aid. For many students and families, this extensive (and confusing!) form can be a serious barrier to entry for institutional grants from top colleges and the article honestly broke my heart to read! The CSS Profile is just one example of the challenges that low-income students have to overcome when applying to college. The pandemic has only exacerbated this challenge, and led to a decrease in applications overall from low-income and first-generation students. If you are struggling with this form, don’t forget that College Access Fairfax provides great free resources and can help!

High Point University is definitely a school that has recently come into the consciousness of many students and families due to its luxury amenities, including a concierge, multiple swimming pools, and an on-campus steakhouse. This article explores some of the wildest amenities at elite colleges, and how schools use luxury as a way to attract wealthy applicants.

Speaking of luxury, there’s no walking on the High Point tour - your tour guide drives you around on a cushy golf cart! I was six months pregnant in the photo above and THRILLED for a break after trudging around Duke, UNC, Wake, and Elon during a very hot July week!

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

February has flown by and we are so excited to start reading student essays as they work through the Wow Writing Workshop with our essay coaches. Hearing students’ personal stories is one of the best parts of our job! If you are a Class of 2022 student who has not yet booked your essay coaching meetings, make sure you begin the process by reviewing what’s ahead and scheduling your meetings! (And don’t forget to share your thoughts on in-person services with us!)

Interested in medicine? Check out this STEM workshop tomorrow morning! The office of Rep. Jennifer Wexton is hosting a workshop for high school students from 10:00-11:15 am tomorrow to allow students to hear from medical professionals, researchers, and health policy experts about how the healthcare field has transformed during COVID-19. 

Have a great weekend!

Weekly Update: February 19

Hope everyone is staying safe and warm this week!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

ACADEMIC INFLUENCE RANKINGS

A self-described “team of academics and data scientists" at an organization called Academic Influence recently released a brand-new set of rankings that they deem wholly objective and free from outside bias. What are the rankings based on? Influence. The researchers divided the number of influential alumni by the school’s undergraduate population to come up with a term called “Concentrated Influence.”

The rankings allow you to examine a school’s overall influence or even sort by field, which is pretty cool. I thought it was very interesting that they separate alumni field from area of academic study, acknowledging that people are often influential in fields in which they did not earn their degree. Love that! It’s so true. They use the example of Princeton, explaining that it has produced some very influential alumni in the legal field without having a law school.

If you are wondering how a person is deemed to be influential, you are not alone - I was wondering the same thing, but they seem to have a pretty sophisticated process that uses AI.

Check out the rankings here. Most won’t be surprising, but I did find the order to be interesting. For example, NYU is ranked #11 in concentrated influence while Penn is ranked #15 and Caltech is ranked #23. University of Wisconsin-Madison (which I might have called under-rated a few years ago, but I think everyone in our area has caught on by now) comes in at #27 just after Carnegie Mellon at #26, but UVa is #35 and Georgetown is #39. My alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis, was ranked #61. Ouch!!

NCAA DEAD PERIOD EXTENDED THROUGH 5/31

Ughhh - again?! I feel so badly for high school athletes going through the recruiting process right now. The NCAA Division I Council announced yet another extension on the in-person recruiting ban that has been in place since last March. Word on the street is that this will be the last extension, but who really knows. It is insane to think by the time this is over, we will be looking at a minimum of fourteen months without official campus visits. I was sharing observations with a few counselors this morning about how coaches really seem to be prioritizing transfers as a result of this extended dead period.

RELEASE OF 2021-2022 COMMON APP ® ESSAY PROMPTS

We covered this earlier in the week, but the Common Application ® finally released the prompts for current juniors (Class of 2022). I’m not a fan of the changes, as I explained, but our whole team is really excited to start the process with our juniors. All current clients should have received an email last night with instructions to begin, followed up by their Wow Writing Workshop login information this morning!

Staci is our Student Success Coach and manages the essay process for each of our students! She’s AMAZING!

Speaking of essays, we have some exciting news to share! One of our all-time favorite coaches, McClain, is going to come back this summer! YAY! We are so excited. She wrote a great guest blog a few years ago about maximizing the high school experience - check it out here. McClain is able to leverage her experience as a teacher, coach, and member of an independent school admission team into her essay coaching, and we’re so fortunate to have her back.

SHAKESPEARE’S BEEN CANCELLED

Boy would this have been welcome news in my life twenty years ago - I hated the mandatory Shakespeare class I had to take as an English major! In any case, some teachers are now refusing to teach Shakespeare or encouraging their students to view his work through a different lens. They are making these decisions on the basis that his work is anti-semitic, misogynistic, homophobic and more. Others are offended by the idea that his work is “universal.” After reading the article, I do vaguely remember writing a paper in college on anti-semitism in The Merchant of Venice. It will be interesting to see if this catches on.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

A New York nonprofit, the National Education Equity Lab, has offered thousands of underprivileged students the opportunity to take for-credit coursework at Ivy League schools during high school. The program began with a 300-student pilot, and has shown that 89% of participants are able to pass the courses, which are graded at the same level as coursework for traditional undergraduates.

This sounds like a fantastic program, and I agree that graded coursework from an Ivy League institution will offer these students another data point in their application materials. But this line from the article made me laugh: “the students’ success has raised questions about how elite university gatekeepers determine college prospects.” Really? Their success raised questions? I think we’ve all had questions on this topic for a little while now :)

On the flip side, and I actually had to read this a few times to make sure I was understanding properly because it sounded so wildly discriminatory to me, the Faculty Senate at Stanford just voted to adopt two policies to de-emphasize wealth in the undergraduate admissions process. It seems like one of the main goals is to help prevent Varsity Blues-type situations with rogue admissions consultants, and I would support that. As the article states, though, close to 70% of students use college admissions counselors - it’s not a service limited to the wealthy. And “surveys to track the distribution of income and wealth levels for parents and undergraduates” seems highly inappropriate in my opinion. I’m honestly shocked that Stanford is publicly sharing their plans to do this. Anyway, it’s yet another reason to skip filling out that FAFSA if you know you won’t qualify for financial aid.

This won’t surprise most of us, but 18-to-29 year olds are having a particularly difficult time struggling with the isolation we’re all experiencing as a result of Covid. I get it - it’s so hard and it’s sad to think about years lost from their lives that they won’t get back. It’s actually my au pair’s 22nd birthday today and when I was writing her card earlier this morning, I was thinking about how most of the time she was 21 - a milestone year - basically disappeared. It is really sad!

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Shannon took a much-needed vacation this week and let’s just say I cannot wait for her to come back! :) We are finishing up a number of transfer and grad school applications, in addition to helping some undergraduate clients with honors program applications at their respective schools, and things were very busy!

If you are a current junior client, please don’t forget to take our in-person services questionnaire to help us understand your priorities as we move forward with plans for the spring and summer.

Have a great weekend and stay warm!

2021-2022 Common Application ® Essay Prompts Released for the Class of 2022

It’s about time!

This year’s Common Application ® essay prompts were released much later than in years past, and it sounds like a lot of thought went into them- two committees were involved, and experts in psychology and gratitude were consulted.

That said, there were ultimately only two shifts from last year:

Shift #1: The long-standing “problem-solving” prompt was phased out.

Describe a problem you've solved or a problem you'd like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma—anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.

Shift #2: A new prompt, meant to “validate the importance of gratitude and kindness,” was added.

Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

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I think the new prompt is adorable… for a social media post, conversation with friends, or maybe a therapy session. But not a college essay!

It’s cute, and would be fun to write - especially during such a depressing year.

Our friends at the Common App ® wrote that the experts who helped develop the new prompt “believe the new choice will generate stories that students are inspired to write and that colleges are excited to read.”

They continued: “An essay prompt can’t erase the loss and anxiety of the last 12 months, but it can validate the importance of gratitude and kindness. We hope students see the new prompt for what it is intended to be: an invitation to bring some joy into their application experience.”

Totally fair. In fact, I actually could not agree more.

An essay on this topic would be inspiring to write and exciting to read, and who wouldn’t feel a little more positive after spending time brainstorming examples of nice things that other people have done to make them happy or thankful?! I certainly agree that writing this essay would be enjoyable.

I think that the gratitude experts may have missed a critical piece of information here, though - we don’t write college essays for the enjoyment. We write them for a purpose.

That’s not to say that we don’t want the experience to be enjoyable, too; we definitely do. We make it as fun as we can - but the two don’t need to be mutually exclusive. And let’s be honest, people don’t come to us for entertainment purposes.

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Revisiting the Purpose of a College Essay

The first thing our juniors do in the essay writing process is learn about the purpose of a college essay, which I covered at length last year in a blog post on the topic:

Focus on the message, not the story. The #1 concern I hear from students and parents is that they just don’t know what to write about. This is especially the case from students in Northern Virginia, who have often just lived a normal, suburban lifestyle - no huge tragedies or adversity to overcome. The good news is that with a few exceptions (we’ll get to those), it honestly doesn’t matter what you write about. I swear. An amazing topic is not what makes an amazing essay.

What will make an amazing essay will be an authentic snapshot into your personality - a characteristic that you can share about yourself that really captures who you are. Maybe it’s a cool way you think, an odd quirk, or an interesting habit you have. If you are working on this alone without our help, talk to your parents, siblings, friends, and teachers about characteristics that make you unique. What are you “known for”? It doesn’t have to be fancy or impressive!

Once you have something in mind, back into a story that clearly showcases the characteristic. Again, it’s not really about the story itself (caveat to come!); instead, it’s about how well the story showcases the characteristic… how authentic it sounds!

That said, try as hard as you can to try to avoid cliche, overused, and/or inappropriate topics. If you feel like you HAVE to write about a cliche story, write about one that is loosely related to it (so you are able to reference or mention whatever it is without having your whole essay revolve around it).

End by considering how you will be able to apply that characteristic in the short-term and/or long-term future, to be able to make a difference in a positive way.

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Revisiting What the Purpose of a College Essay is NOT

• A way to bring joy into a student’s application experience

• A way to validate gratitude and kindness from others

• A way to appreciate what may have been overlooked in a student’s life

• A way to inspire students to write

Don’t get me wrong. These are all great things, and they’d make great journal entries, conversations with friends, or topics to cover in therapy. And if a student can emerge from the application process as a more joyful or grateful person (or feel more validated), no one would be happier than me. Truly.

But we’ve got to keep our priorities straight here! Even if the essay turns out to be very exciting for an admissions officer to read, that doesn’t mean that the admissions officer learned anything new about the candidate or that the candidate is more likely to be accepted.

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With that said, here’s the full list of 2021-2022 Common Application ® Essay prompts

1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

4. Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

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Pro Tips on Prompt Selection

• As I keep reiterating, the purpose of the essay is to share a message. Go with the prompt that offers the best way to get that message across - whether it’s the new prompt or an old prompt! That being said, I’ve been doing this for a while and I don’t think it’s going to be easy to accomplish this goal with the new prompt, even if it provides a more enjoyable essay writing experience.

• I actually found the “retired” prompt about problem solving to be a great way to demonstrate some very positive characteristics - critical thinking skills, creativity, and so forth. That was probably my second-favorite prompt and I’m pretty bummed that it’s not going to be an option anymore.

• The prompt that is my all-time favorite, though, is still here: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. Remember, what’s right for one student is not going to be right for another, so I’m not suggesting that this is a good choice for everyone. But for most students, this prompt offers the easiest way to share a unique characteristic in the context of an interesting story while also looking forward to the future by showing growth.

• I also really like this one: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? That said, you need to be careful. Writing about overcoming a “failure” that shows persistence, creativity, or out-of-the box thinking is awesome - but writing about what you learned from the time you got in trouble for smoking pot in the parking lot of your high school? Not so much.

• My least favorite is the last one: Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design. Never say never, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a response to this one that I liked. Essays that respond to this prompt are typically sort of direction-less and don’t share a clear message.

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Our Class of 2022 students will begin their essay writing process later this week or next week, and almost all of them will wrap up right around spring break. Like we always say, it’s going to feel so amazing to have that done and out of the way with very little stress. Our juniors will then be able to shift their focus to working with us to prepare information for their teacher and counselor recommendations, along with writing supplemental essay material.

If your family isn’t working with us yet, sign up for a no-obligation Meet & Greet to learn how we can help your student - and why an amazing college essay and an enjoyable writing experience do not have to be mutually exclusive! We make the process as easy as possible for our families while still keeping the right priorities at the forefront!

Weekly Update: February 12

A quick note that we will be closed on Monday for Presidents Day. We hope everyone has a great holiday weekend!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATIONS AND DEADLINES

We’ve written before about the need- and merit-based aid processes for schools, but there are a variety of scholarships available for students from outside organizations, and it is important to be on the lookout for options like these (Shannon once applied for a college scholarship granted to tall students!). 

Scholarships that have been announced this week include the National Catholic College Admission Association scholarship, which is awarded to 16 randomly selected students who are attending National CCAA member colleges like Boston College, Villanova, or Notre Dame. 

The Cameron Impact Scholars application is also now open - the early deadline for the Class of 2022 to apply for this full-tuition merit scholarship is May 21.

JILL BIDEN PROMISES FREE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Dr. Biden said on Tuesday that she would work to ensure free access to community colleges and training programs for all students. Those who are local to Northern Virginia are very fortunate to have guaranteed admissions agreements in place between Northern Virginia Community College and over 40 colleges and universities, including William & Mary, GW, Virginia Tech, UVA, and JMU. All students who graduate from NOVA and meet the requirements of the agreement are guaranteed admission to the college of their choice - a great deal for Virginia students! Dr. Biden is an instructor at NOVA.

CHANGES FOR THE CLASS OF 2022

We wrote last week about some of the changes we are seeing to the AP exams, and expect to see even more changes going forward now that the College Board has done away with subject tests. The College Board is offering three administrations of AP tests: the first wave in early May will be in-school only, while the late May and early June test dates will be available in school and at home. Schools, not students, will make the decisions about exam dates and administration methods, so check in with your school for information.

Changes have also been made this cycle to the citizenship section of the Common App. The question about citizenship will now offer different options for international students and undocumented/DACA students. All questions related to geography will now be optional, as will questions about parents and family. Questions about student visas have also been changed. In general, we recommend that students include as much information as possible, even for optional questions, but we encourage clients to reach out to us if you have any questions about your particular situation!

Here’s how the new visa questions will look for international students this cycle.

STUDENTS PROTEST SEXUAL ASSAULT ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES ACROSS THE US

College students at Boston University, Minnesota State, Gettysburg College, and more participated in socially-distanced demonstrations to support survivors and raise awareness of sexual assault on campus. Students argue that schools have deprioritized sexual assault issues amidst the focus on the COVID-19 pandemic.  

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

We had hoped that with more college students back on campus this spring, lessons learned from the fall semester would improve safety. But with the new coronavirus variants now spreading, there are already outbreaks at many schools around the country, including Michigan, Berkeley, and Tulane. Some of these outbreaks are linked to the new variants, while others arose because students did not follow quarantine rules upon the return to campus. As we’ve said before, it is not worth the trouble of a disciplinary violation to flout COVID restrictions on campus - you will set yourself up for success by following the rules as closely as you can!

Though we don’t necessarily agree with every single point made in this article from the Wall Street Journal, there were parts of it that definitely resonated with us as interesting as food for thought with the new changes to the SAT and the admissions process this cycle. The author argues that by focusing less on merit and data like grades and test scores in the admissions process, colleges shift their focus from excellence to “mediocrity.” Definitely makes us think about how schools and colleges (and the rest of us!) define excellence for ourselves and our students. 

If you need a feel-good story to counteract all the negative news lately, check out this Washington Post article. It profiles a Houston high school senior who used the money she had saved to attend Barnard College in the fall to pay her family’s rent after her mother lost her job due to the pandemic. This particular story has a happy ending - the student was able to raise the money after her story was featured on Good Morning America - but it is a reminder that during this difficult time, there are a lot of students forced to make challenging financial decisions. 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We have been busy discussing how we might reopen in person in our office - we miss seeing all of you! Given the current Phase 3 restrictions for small businesses in Virginia, this would look very different than it has in the past. Of course, students who want to remain fully virtual would still have this option! If you are a Class of 2022 student or family, please fill out our in-person services questionnaire to help us understand your priorities as we move forward. We really want to serve our clients in person, but we also want this to be safe and successful for everyone - it is a tricky balance!

Have you checked out our Summer 2021 Internships Database recently? If not, you might be missing out on some great opportunities! We update this page every week with local and virtual internships and college courses. You can also see information about registration for the virtual Fairfax County teen job fairs coming up next month on March 13 and March 20. Now is the time to get your plans set for this summer! If you are an employer with an internship or job opportunity for high school students, let us know - we would love to feature your posting on our page. 

Enjoy the long weekend!

In-Person College Visits During COVID-19

Whether we’re meeting with Class of 2021 seniors who are making their final decisions, Class of 2022 juniors who are hoping to squeeze in some visits before finalizing their lists in June, or Class of 2023 sophomores who don’t know where to start with their college search during such a strange time, everyone’s asking the same question:

When WILL SCHOOLS OPEN FOR IN-PERSON VISITS AGAIN?

We don’t have a crystal ball, so the answer for many colleges and universities is that we simply don’t know. But there are a number of institutions that have reopened for prospective students already - yes, you could theoretically tour one of these schools this weekend if you felt like it!

That said, the offerings vary greatly from school to school - and many won’t be the typical campus tours of years past. Keep reading to learn more about what’s being offered right now and how to make the best out of each opportunity!

1. Traditional Campus Tours

Some schools are offering relatively traditional visit opportunities. In general, these tours are offered through one of two approaches.

The first, at schools like Tulane, American, the University of Alabama and Loyola University Maryland, are small-group tours. These are very similar to pre-COVID tours, except that the schools typically require advance registration and the use of face coverings. Some schools doing small-group tours will also limit the number of guests that the student can bring, and others may limit the scope of the tour (Tulane will only take tour groups through outdoor areas of campus, for example). 

The second option is an individual tour and meeting with an admissions representative. Smaller schools, like the University of New England, will allow students to register for a visit that consists of a one-on-one meeting with an admissions counselor as well as a private tour for the student and family. These events typically also require face coverings, limit the number of guests, and may take extra precautions such as requiring visitors to fill out COVID-19 symptom questionnaires. 

Pro Tips:

• If you do your research and find out that the school you want to see is offering tours, try to book sooner rather than later! You will get the best sense of the campus while school is in session, so you can see what the day-to-day really looks like. On many campuses, you will see a very different school after May begins, and this is even more true during an already unusual time! 

• Even if you are able to snag a tour reservation, take your own “unofficial” tour to see even more of the campus (mostly, the parts that the tour doesn’t show off!). See the section below on informal tours for more tips. 

• Finally, take notes! Just like virtual tours, in-person tours will blur together after a while, and you want to make sure that you write down your thoughts and feelings about the school during and soon after your visit. And make sure that you send an email afterward to thank your regional admissions representative for the experience. Clients who want more help on the thank-you email should reach out to us and we can provide a template!

2. Hybrid Campus Tours

Other schools offer opportunities for students to come to campus in some form, but with elements of self-guided or virtual tours to supplement a safe visit.

The University of Richmond, for example, offers both a self-guided walking tour and a self-guided driving tour of campus. They provide students with a map, written descriptions of the buildings on campus, and driving directions, in addition to audio about each building that you can play from your car! This is a great option for local students to take a day trip and see the campus. 

And while you’re driving, head on down to Virginia Tech - they also offer a driving tour map and audio to help you get to know the campus safely. GW, right in our backyard, has a self-guided walking tour brochure that you can pair with audio from their student-run podcast tour as you walk around campus. William & Mary has a walking tour brochure as well that will allow students to read along - keep in mind that masks are required at all times while on campus! 

Pro Tips:

• Maximize your walking or driving tour by arranging an outdoor lunch or coffee with a friend who attends that school. Don’t know anyone personally? Ask your school counselor if there are any alumni there who would be comfortable meeting with you. Make sure you check out the local area as well, and track down a Starbucks, community park, beach, or whatever is important for you to have nearby. 

• You’ll notice that all of the examples in this section are local to DC-area residents. If you are unable to travel to see the school of your dreams, you can still develop an understanding of the type of school you are looking for from our many excellent Virginia schools. For example, you know how Georgetown is a green campus near the city, while GW is in the city? Same goes for University of Richmond (green and suburban) vs. VCU (extremely urban), even though both schools are in Richmond. Once you have an understanding of the differences, you might be able to form an educated opinion on whether Columbia or NYU is more your speed - even if you can’t make it to New York! 

3. Informal Walk Through Campus

Other schools, like Johns Hopkins or UVA, are not offering tours at all. There are a few ways you can combat this if you really want to get a better sense of a school by visiting in person. One is to show up on campus for an informal walk or drive. This is an especially good solution for nearby schools that do not require a lot of travel. 

Again, this is also a great time to reach out to friends or other contacts at the school to see if they’ll meet you for a socially-distanced conversation about their experience. 

Pro Tips:

• Make sure to check university regulations to confirm that you will not be breaking any rules by visiting campus and walking around or driving through. Some schools are not open to visitors at this time, and you can reach out to the Public Safety department to inquire.

• While you won’t likely have access to dorms or academic buildings on an informal walk, pay attention to everything you see outside - do students hang out on the quad? Is there a popular dining hall or coffee shop? Do you see flyers or posters hanging up around campus for events that interest or excite you? Remember that even if you are not able to step foot on campus itself, you can still look online to find an off-campus spot that’s popular with students. For example, grab bagels at Bodo’s!

• Finally, don’t be afraid to wander “off the beaten path” to find the less desirable parts of campus - if the gym is outdated or the math building is really far away (and you’re a math major!), you want to find out sooner rather than later.

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Whether you choose to visit in person or virtually, take careful notes and do a gut check by envisioning yourself on campus. Not sure where to begin with your visits? Current clients should reach out to us for more tips, or leave a question in the comments and we’ll answer it in a future post!

Note: DC College Counseling does not encourage or advise students to visit campuses in person during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each family needs to make the decision for themselves about whether or not this is safe based on current conditions, vaccination status, and individual comfort level. If you are not planning to visit schools in person just yet, take a look at our blog post about virtual visits to make the most out of your virtual experience!

Weekly Update: February 5

Happy February - we hope everyone enjoyed the snow this week, and it sounds like there’s more ahead!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

UVA EARLY ACTION DECISIONS RELEASED TONIGHT

So many of our Class of 2021 students are on the edge of their seats waiting for UVA early action decisions to come out tonight. Dean J already published the statistics, so you can check those out now - and don’t forget to let us know the results after you check your applicant portals this evening. Here are our initial observations when compared to last year’s statistics:

• The number of EA applications increased, but the year-over-year jump was nowhere near as high as some other peer schools have experienced - it was only about 13% (although I believe it’s closer to 20% when looking at their overall numbers, i.e. not just EA). The percentage of applicants that increased increases were about the same from Virginians and those applying out-of-state.

• On top of the increased number of in-state applicants, less in-state students were accepted this year than last year. This resulted in an acceptance rate drop from 35% to 30% for that applicant group (remember, this reflects the entire state of Virginia and is not meant to be representative of Northern Virginia).

• Interestingly, more out-of-state students were accepted than last year - about 40% more, if my math is correct! Wow. Even after accounting for the increase in applications, the out-of-state EA acceptance rate increased from 15% to 18%.

• Overall, the spread between in-state and out-of-state acceptance rates narrowed substantially, from 20 percentage points to 12. I know the cynics will say that this was an intentional decision meant to increase revenue, but I wonder if it’s more about the fact that UVA is predicting a bigger spread between in-state and out-of-state yields this year than last year? If I had to guess, I would say that’s probably it.

FCPS RETURN TO SCHOOL AND REDISTRICTING ANNOUNCEMENTS

Yes, you’ve read this before, but FCPS began to implement the return to school plan this week, with priority groups returning to school buildings. If the plan continues as scheduled, high school students will be returning to classrooms in early March.  Not five days per week, but something is better than nothing, right?

In other FCPS news, the school board voted last night to redistrict sections of the McLean HS boundary to Langley HS. My neighborhood was one of the ones impacted and I’m really happy about this! While I actually like McLean HS a lot and would have been very happy to send my children there for a variety of reasons, I think split feeders are so hard on the kids and I’m very glad that Colvin Run won’t be one anymore. Split feeder elementary schools, for those who don’t know, are ones that split the class among different middle and/or high schools.

MID-YEAR REPORTS

Our own seniors have already heard from us twice this week on the topic, but it’s important for all seniors to understand that they are responsible for ensuring that their mid-year grades (also known as “senior grades” or “mid-year reports”) reach all colleges on their list with applications still in play. In other words: unless you have been denied from a school, turned the school down, or were specifically informed that the school does not require mid-year grades, you need to make sure that the grades are submitted. Some schools want students to submit these, and most want counselors to submit them. Please check your individual school portals for more information about the individual school requirements and modes of submission, and then contact your school counselor as appropriate.

And if you are one of the unlucky students whose counselor quit this week (no, we aren’t going to name your school, but there’s a bunch of you…) we suggest reaching out to the Director of Student Services at your school until you are re-assigned a new counselor.

COLLEGE BOARD ANNOUNCES NEW AP EXAM FORMAT

After the struggles that many students had last year with the hastily-assembled digital AP exams, it is no surprise that the College Board has reworked the digital exam for this year. Some changes include security features that block students from returning to a question they have already answered or from toggling back and forth between questions. This is very different from the paper AP exam, and important for students to keep in mind as they prepare! 

GOVERNOR NORTHAM RELEASES EXPECTATIONS FOR VIRGINIA SCHOOLS

Governor Northam announced during a press briefing this morning that Virginia schools will be expected to have in-person learning options for students in place by March 15. He also announced a mandate for in-person summer learning options. Summer programs will not be required, but schools are expected to have them in place this summer for students who want to take advantage of them.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

The Virginia House passed a bill yesterday that requires public universities, including UVA and William & Mary, to identify and memorialize enslaved people who worked on institutional property. The bill also requires that the schools establish scholarships or economic development programs for individuals or communities with historic connections to slavery. Schools cannot use state funding for these projects, but must use private funds. This process has already begun at many Virginia schools, with William & Mary’s Lemon Project and UVA’s recently completed Memorial to Enslaved Laborers. 

An Indiana University professor wrote in The Atlantic this week about IU’s largely successful response to the coronavirus pandemic. While we’ve heard a lot of news (and featured it here) about the negative impacts of students returning to campus during COVID-19, this article shows how some schools were able to bring students back to campus successfully. IU’s example may offer insights for other schools as well as cities and towns across the country about how to manage the pandemic safely. Other schools, like UC Davis, have also provided important services to keep their communities safe.

This NBC News report provides a lot of useful information about how the merit aid system works at many colleges and universities. Keep in mind that super-selective schools, like Harvard and Stanford, will not offer merit aid at all. But for mid-tier schools, merit aid is an important enrollment management tool, and families should know how the process works.  

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Shannon presented this week at William & Mary’s Center for Gifted Education annual conference. In addition to a session on finding the right college fit, she also spoke with middle school students about academic planning for high school and beyond. We’ve said before that the best money you’ll ever spend on the college admissions process is our one-hour strategy session for 8th grade students - and we stand by it! Starting off on the right foot will ensure that you ultimately begin the active stage of the admissions process in a position of strength, because you won’t be frantically trying to make up for mistakes you didn’t even know you were making.

I discovered Clubhouse this week and got to sit in on part of a session yesterday afternoon between meetings (thanks for hosting, Bob!). I am obsessed! It’s sort of like a cross between twitter, slack, and a podcast, and I love it so far, although I’m still figuring out how the clubs work vs. the chats. Either way, it’s fun to listen in while working at my desk and I highly recommend it!

Enjoy the Super Bowl this weekend!

Breaking Down School Counselor & Independent Counselor Differences (and Misconceptions!)

We <3 School Counselors

Did you know that this is national school counseling week? Here at DC College Counseling, we love school counselors and try to collaborate with them as much as we can! We also enjoy providing consulting services for counseling staff at private and public schools. 

We get this question all the time - what will you do for my daughter that her school counselor won’t? Or, from some of our clients, why doesn’t my son’s school counselor do what you do?

The answer is that being a school counselor is a very different job from being an independent consultant, with very different responsibilities. Luckily, both can work together to make sure families have maximum support during the admissions and application process!

In fact, we believe that the best outcomes are more likely to occur for any student when that student’s parents, school counselor, and independent counselor(s) approach the process together as a unified “Team Student” front - along with any other supplemental service providers such as therapists, tutors, or academic coaches!

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My Daughter’s School Counselor is Lazy

I hear this a lot and cringe every time. While there are of course bad apples in every profession, most school counselors aren’t lazy at all - they are just busy! In Fairfax County, for example, the average school counselor is responsible for over two hundred students. TWO HUNDRED! And that’s actually considered to be a great ratio - nationally, there’s an average ratio of five hundred students per counselor.

And they do a lot more than just college counseling - often, that’s just a very small part of their job. Public school counselors are typically responsible for ensuring students’ academic, personal, and social growth, and are usually assigned to students with a wide variety of needs, sometimes across multiple grade levels.

Due to the scope of their roles, most public school counselors report spending only 20% of their time on college admissions and the application process. This makes sense when you consider that less than half of high schools in the US have dedicated college counselors!

The landscape is very different at private schools (and particularly independent schools) where school counselors have much smaller caseloads that usually consist of between 30 and 40 students. These school communities often do have a dedicated college counseling team that is fully separate from the “personal counseling” team. With fewer competing job duties and many fewer students, there’s no question that private school counselors are able to provide much more one-on-one assistance for their students than their public school counterparts.

Still, it’s a misconception that private school counselors can do everything. They can’t!

Did you know that Colleen spent eight years working as an independent school college counselor after working in college admissions? Here she is with her co-counselor Whitney on Twin Day during their former school’s spirit week!

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Sometimes our public school families are surprised to learn that a majority of our students actually attend private schools. However, it’s not a coincidence that so many of these private school families come to us for the first time with their second child, after realizing the first time around that they needed more help than their school counselor could reasonably provide! In total, our staff will spend an average of 70 work hours per student - on top of the school counselor’s work!

The reason we have time to do this is that we only engage with a maximum of 20 students per counselor; moreover, our students are also supported by our amazing team of essay coaches and administrative staff. We are able to allocate resources ourselves to be fully focused on the process for each individual student, whereas school counselors answer to school boards, trustees, and other individuals with a stake in the college counseling process. Lastly, we don’t spend our time writing recommendation letters or sending transcripts, so we’re able to spend more of our day in a student-facing capacity.

How will the admissions process look with each type of counselor?

In addition to our standard services, we also provide what we like to call “professional nagging” - following up with students to ensure that they are completing everything to the best of their ability well before the deadline. 

This is one of the main reasons why we are so popular with families with second children - first-time parents often do not realize that this process is much more complex than it initially appears. Even the most amazing, experienced school counselors are not able to take on the role of managing and facilitating every aspect of the process for students and families. 

They just don’t have the time to do this type of personalized project management, which is why working with both a school counselor and independent consultant might be the best choice for families that need help each step of the way. It can also be a great option for families with students who are not likely to self-advocate and seek out help from a busy school counselor. No one is able to hide when working with our team. When students don’t respond to us, we seek them out! On the other hand, most school counselors have students lining up who are need immediate help - it’s not realistic to expect them to bypass students with immediate needs to track down unresponsive ones.

There are a few major takeaways here:

• A student’s school counselor plays an essential role in the college admissions process. An independent counselor can by no means replace a school counselor’s value in this process, from the letter of recommendation to advocacy calls and everything in between.

• An independent counselor’s role is not essential to the process, but can certainly make it much easier on everyone involved. However, a dedicated and knowledgeable parent with a lot of free time to commit to college admissions-related tasks can substantially lessen the value add of an independent counselor.

• It’s very important for families to manage their expectations of school counselors. They simply cannot provide the same level of support that a paid independent consultant can, and it’s not right to suggest that they are bad at their jobs because family expectations are off base.

• While school counselors and independent counselors have different roles, they can work together to provide students with the dedicated support they need to put their best foot forward in the admissions process!

Don’t forget to say thank you to your school counselor this week!