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

BIGGEST NEWS OF THE WEEK

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

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

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

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

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

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

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

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

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

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

This has been such a hard secret to keep!

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

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