There was a time when the college interview was as much a staple of the application process as taking SATs and writing essays. As colleges work to attract bigger, more national and international applicant pools, though, interviewing prospective students has become increasingly costly and logistically challenging. Still, many colleges value direct, personal interaction with prospective students and include interviews as part of the process. As a result, colleges employ a wide range of different approaches to interviews for prospective students. Continue reading “The Inside Scoop on College Admissions Interviews”
Category: Applying to College
The Early Decision Decision
With autumn rapidly spinning by, the college application process is ramping up for high school seniors. Most of you are finalizing your college lists, completing application forms, and fine tuning essays. And, with November fast approaching many of you are trying to decide whether or not to apply early decision to your top choice school.
There is a lot of information out in the ether about early decision that can be both confusing and anxiety producing. So let me offer a few thoughts that may help to illuminate the salient issues regarding early decision for you. Continue reading “The Early Decision Decision”
Wit, Candor, and a Free Toothbrush: Thoughts on Writing a Great College Admissions Essay
Alright high school seniors, it’s time to get serious about your college admissions essay.
Yes, the dreaded college admissions essay:
- The most important writing assignment you will ever have.
- The 250-plus words that will determine your college fate and dictate the course of your entire life.
- Your opportunity to wow admissions committees with wit and candor and a vocabulary of Olympian proportions.
- Get it right and you will be on the path to health, happiness, and a future full success and riches beyond your wildest imagination. Get it wrong and… well, let’s not even go there.
Getting a Little Testy: A Few Thoughts about Standardized Tests
Have you seen the blog post circulating on Facebook (FB) with the headline: Our son got accepted at Stanford? It’s written by a tech blogger whose son got into Stanford after increasing his SAT scores 720 points using an online SAT prep course. It seems to appear in my FB news feed three times a day so I’m guessing many of you have seen it somewhere along the way as well. Continue reading “Getting a Little Testy: A Few Thoughts about Standardized Tests”
Road Trip: Everything You Need to Know About Campus Visits – Part 2
It’s time. You’ve been talking about getting serious about the upcoming college search for months and as you look at the commitments on your calendar – summer jobs, soccer camp, house guests coming in August, etc. – you realize that you need to plan a trip to visit colleges soon. Otherwise the whole summer will have passed you by and you’ll be left scrambling to squeeze one in after the school year has begun.
If your house is anything like mine, talking about trips is one thing and actually making them happen is another. For us this means that Marnie, my wife, starts saying things like, “When do you want to go on vacation next summer?” in oh, let’s say November, and I either grunt or say something along the lines of, “How the hell do I know?” in response. This goes on for several months until Marnie gets tired of asking, takes matters into her own hands, and organizes the whole thing. And the truth is, as irritating as it is for her, this generally works out. She gets to make the big decisions and knows how to tend to the details with greater efficiency than the rest of us – myself and our two sons – and everyone gets a nice trip in the end. So it’s all good. Continue reading “Road Trip: Everything You Need to Know About Campus Visits – Part 2”
Why College Matters: The World Needs You
Note to MCW readers: In light of the terror attack in Nice, France last night I want briefly to step away from my primary focus on offering information, insights, and advice about the college experience. Instead, today I offer the essay below as one way of understanding why college matters.
Here we are again. Another act of terror. Another staggering body count and extraordinary number of innocent men, women, and children – children – dead or lying in hospital beds battered and bandaged. Another community reeling, devastated by unimaginable brutality and incomprehensible loss. Another city – Nice – whose name will always be linked to tragedy – Dallas, Orlando, Paris, San Bernardino, Brussels, Istanbul, Charleston…the list goes on and on. To say nothing of Baton Rouge or Falcon Heights or Ferguson, or Chicago.
The totality of the violence and cruelty and death gets to be overwhelming. It is frightening and unsettling and disorienting. The realization that evil exists and its relentless intrusions into our daily lives shake us to the core and leave us confused and uncertain. And so we recoil. We despair. We grow defensive. We assign blame. We seek retribution. Or we change the subject and try to tune it out because it all feels too complex and fraught and hopeless.
This space is about helping you to navigate and understand and succeed in college. And more often than not it will focus on relatively narrow topics and issues – writing a good application essay, the relative importance of standardized tests, dealing with roommate issues, etc. But today, in the all too fresh aftermath of Nice and Dallas and Orlando and the rest, I want to speak to why college matters. Continue reading “Why College Matters: The World Needs You”
Road Trip: Everything You Need to Know About Campus Visits – Part 1
(Note: This is the first of two posts regarding prospective visit campus visits. The second installment will follow later this week.)
Let’s talk about summer vacation. For students ranging from kindergarten through college, and their parents and families, summer vacation is that simultaneously blessed and cursed stretch of time between the last day of school in the spring – Whoooo! – and the first day back in the fall – Really? Do I have to? (It’s worth acknowledging that many parents do their whooping in the fall and their whining in the spring, but that is a topic for another day.) And for students heading into their final year of high school, and their parents and families, summer vacation is the time to visit colleges.
Awesome!
Traveling to and from campus visits will provide a wonderful opportunity for family bonding while blissfully critiquing the tour guides and engaging in thoughtful, pithy conversation about the range of course offerings, internships, and study abroad opportunities at each of the institutions you see. For students, it’s an important step on the path to independence as you take responsibility for planning each visit, scheduling interviews, and mapping out rest stops and places to eat. For parents, it’s a chance to spend large chunks of uninterrupted quality time with your burgeoning scholars, and to bask in the pride of watching them dazzle student interviewers and admissions officers with their charm and effortless repartee. And, if you are so fortunate as to make multiple college visits strung together over two or more consecutive days, the experience can be even more enriching as you will be together in confined spaces 24/7 over the entire duration of the trip. Continue reading “Road Trip: Everything You Need to Know About Campus Visits – Part 1”