BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

VARSITY BLUES

A tell-all on the Varsity Blues scandal just came out - and I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty excited to read it. Order it from our favorite local bookstore here! PSA: If your dad tells you to get in the pool wearing water polo gear when you don’t play water polo, that’s probably a tip off that something weird is happening. You can’t even make this up, can you?!

THE HOTTEST RESERVATION OF THE SUMMER

If I had a dollar for every client, neighbor, blog reader, or friend-of-a-friend who has emailed me in desperation to try to find an ACT or SAT test site in the last 48 hours… well, I wouldn’t get rich but I could buy myself a nice bottle of wine.

Many students at private schools are taking the ACT and SAT on their own campuses this September, because the schools have registered as closed, unlisted test sites. The ACT will be offered on Saturday, September 12 and the SAT will be offered on Wednesday, September 23.

I can’t say with absolute certainty that every single school had this option, but I did hear secondhand from a very reliable source that every school did. If your child attends an independent school and you want them to take the test, I feel pretty confident that the school had (has?) the option to offer it. Now is probably the time to speak up.

It’s awesome that the private schools are doing this. They should be, and if I were a parent at one of these schools I would absolutely want my child to have that option! But at the same time I also feel like it’s silly that people are still acting like there are no equity issues impacting FCPS students.

FINDING A TEST SITE

If you are reading this and your school has not offered a closed, unlisted testing opportunity, I have decided that South Carolina may be the best option - better than West Virginia at this point. This is only because the governor seems to be 100% determined on opening schools. In particular, I am targeting Northwestern High School in Rock Hill, SC (I realize this sounds oddly specific, but hear me out). They had spots available for both tests as of yesterday, and it’s in a suburb of Charlotte so might be a little closer geographically than the rest of the state.

Honestly, it’s such a crapshoot that who knows - things change by the day. I was targeting NJ earlier in the week, except that nearly every test center was full. I had a few families refreshing constantly to look for openings, but now that’s totally out because VA and MD were put on the NY/NJ/CT quarantine list mid-week. This is definitely a moving target.

TEST-OPTIONAL SCHOOLS

Some more to add to the list this week: UMass Amherst, University of Tennessee and the UNC System, including UNC Chapel Hill and NC State.

AP SCORES

Ok, this really should have gone in my last update post, but I’ll put it here anyway - I cannot stress enough that the decision to report scores should be made in the context of each individual student’s candidacy and overall academic profile.

The old “always report scores of 3, 4, or 5” was never a good strategy and it’s especially not a good strategy this year with a zillion mitigating circumstances. I know that there have been a number of other blog posts floating around with clear guidance on what to do.. but it’s just not that simple. To borrow my favorite admissions terminology, this is truly a holistic decision. I will be making this decision with each one of our students during our early August meetings.

Oh and one last thing - this is not the same as the ACT or SAT, where “test optional” means that the college or university does not know that you took the test in the first place. If you have an AP class or your transcript, don’t kid yourself - they know you took the test. That said, reporting a poor (or average) score is not necessarily the way to go either. You have to find the right balance.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE LAST TWO WEEKS

The Black Lives Matter protests have spurred new interest in historically black colleges and universities from athletic recruits - this is a good read especially in the context of the article I posted last time about the basketball coaches.

What do you know.. colleges are now changing their reopening plans because of COVID. Didn’t see this coming! Check out this piece from NPR with the details.

I missed this one during the last post, but it’s quite a story, that’s for sure - read all about “the heartthrob prince of Qatar” and his - shall we say - unusual college experience - in the LA Times.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

So - I have some REALLY exciting news to share and that may be the only reason why I haven’t left the office yet and am writing this post so late... with our Late Start Waitlist just about exploding, we persuaded one of our favorite essay coaches ever to come back!

Yes - it’s Jennifer (along with adorable baby Isla!). YAY! Those of you with older students in college now will remember that Jennifer was my right hand lady for quite a while!

Our rising seniors would only have worked with her on summer program essays on interview prep, because she left almost a year ago after Isla was born and then relocated to the UK.

We were so sad to lose her, but since we’re all on Zoom anyway these days - she’s back and we are incredibly grateful!

If you would like to book a session with her, you can do so here.

Have a great weekend, everyone!