BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK
COLLEGE WHISPERER DOCU-SERIES COMING SOON
With Operation Varsity Blues dominating headlines, the independent educational consulting profession has gotten a lot of scrutiny in the last few years! The College Whisperer is being advertised as the antidote to that. The new series will follow Perry Kalmus, a consultant in Alaska who was featured in the Operation Varsity Blues documentary on Netflix, as he counsels eight students through the process. The goal of the series is to show what it looks like to work with ethical independent consultants and the ups and downs inherent to an honest admissions process. Fun fact: I was contacted by a film crew to do the same thing about six years ago. I turned it down because I was pretty confident that none of my clients would be up for having their confidential information shared on national TV :)
VACCINE REQUIREMENTS ARE MORE DIFFICULT FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
We’ve been following the lengthening list of schools that are requiring vaccines for the upcoming school year. These requirements will not pose a problem for most of our students, who have easy access to vaccines this summer. However, it is a different scenario for international students, many of whom may not have access to WHO-approved vaccines.
One Columbia student who received the Covavaxin shot in India has been told that she will need to be re-vaccinated with an US-approved vaccine once she arrives on campus - a potential health risk that has not been explored. India sends the second-largest number of international college students to the US (after China), so this issue is not an isolated one - we are likely to see many students who have received Covavaxin struggling with US vaccine requirements.
WILBERFORCE UNIVERSITY ERASES GRADUATES’ STUDENT DEBT
Wilberforce, an HBCU in Ohio, forgave all student debt for students in the classes of 2020 and 2021 in a surprise graduation announcement on Saturday. The funding to erase the debt was secured through various nonprofit organizations. Students were excited for the fresh start that they received from the university.
WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY WILL KEEP ITS NAME
The Board of Trustees at Washington and Lee voted today in favor of the university maintaining its name, after nearly a year of investigation into the name, symbols, and other issues related to the university’s history. The board decided that it will expand diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in addition to retaining the name. The college, originally called Augusta Academy, adopted the current name in 1870.
BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK
This is an important article from the New Yorker that gets to the heart of why students and families experience so much stress from the college admissions process - the feeling that colleges are judging applicants, in a fair environment, and finding the “best” ones. But we want to remind students and families - a college admission or rejection is NOT a personal judgment!! We do our absolute best to help colleges get to know you, but at the end of the day, there are a TON of factors that affect admissions that are completely out of your control. At the end of the day, where you go to college is part of your story, but not a value judgment on you as an individual.
We shared our recommended summer reading for high school students last week. It is super important for high schoolers to be able to talk about books, articles, and current events that interest them, especially for admissions essays and interviews! Students who don’t yet read the news regularly may be interested in participating in the New York Times’ Summer Reading Contest - where 13-19 year olds can enter to win prizes by reading an article every week this summer.
If you are a current client looking for some good reads, don’t forget to check out our Summer 2021 Reading Guide in the Membership Vault!
OFFICE HAPPENINGS
Shannon attended a testing update webinar this week to get some more information on this cycle of standardized testing! We learned that there is a good reason the College Board decided to drop SAT Subject Tests in favor of AP tests - students who took APs over the last few weeks probably won’t be surprised to learn that revenue from the AP test accounts for 60% of the company’s revenue.
Despite all of the anticipation for digital versions of the SAT and ACT, we are unlikely to see digital versions of either test until 2022. The ACT is also putting plans on hold to let students retake individual sections to incorporate into their superscore - though we are hopeful that this will happen sometime in the next few years! Students using the ACT superscore should be aware, though, that schools will also receive their highest composite from a single test date along with the superscore.
Over 4 million students have taken standardized tests this year - about half have taken the ACT and half the SAT, so as we always tell students, take the test that works for you! Colleges truly do not have a preference. And for those still waiting on a test date, keep an eye out in July for registration to open again for both tests.
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While this won’t apply to families, I know that there are a lot of other educational consultants who read our blog, and I wanted to provide an update on the videos I mentioned from a few weeks back:
It can be challenging to stay on top of all the key components necessary for developing and operating an independent educational consulting business. To provide peer-to-peer training and share expertise, the IECA Business Practices Committee has created a new pilot series of videos to help you learn from fellow IECA members about topics that have been core to the growth of their practice. The video topics include: Networking 101, Project Management 101, Accounting Systems, Email Newsletters, Budgeting 101, Sales: Part of Your IEC Toolkit, Time Tracking 101, and Using Evernote. Learn more and watch the videos here (scroll down to IECA Business Training Videos icon).
Have a great weekend!
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