Weekly Update: October 8

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

FAIRFAX COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS VIRTUAL COLLEGE WEEK

Fairfax County Public Schools are continuing with a virtual approach to college fairs this fall. They will have live virtual sessions from Monday, October 18 - Thursday, October 21. There will be three sessions each evening, and students should take a look at the schedule to see which sessions they may be interested in attending - there are sessions available for everyone from ninth graders to high school seniors. 

COVID-19 JOB MARKET BOUNCES BACK

As you may have noticed from all of the “help wanted” signs, the job market is coming back as more people are vaccinated. While class of 2020 students graduated into a very difficult market, the class of 2021 is finding a much easier time when it comes to the job search. On campus recruiting has begun again at several schools, helping to connect these students with employers. Part-time work and internships have also been picking up.

If you are (or you know!) a local college student looking for an internship, we are hiring! Interested students should send us their resumes via email. 

FIRST VARSITY BLUES TRIAL WRAPS

Lawyers delivered the closing arguments in the first Varsity Blues trial on Wednesday, and the jury is deliberating as we write this blog. The lawyers for the two fathers facing trial argued that they did not know the methods that Rick Singer was using, and believed they were making legitimate donations. We’ll be watching closely for the outcome of this trial, which will likely set precedent for the upcoming trials of parents and others involved in the scandal.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

We liked this post from Akil Bello (featured in the Varsity Blues documentary!) a lot, and wanted to share it because it has a lot of helpful information in terms of making the decision to take a standardized test. However, there were two pieces of information from Akil that don’t align with the advice that we’d give students, so we want to also provide a clarification. Keep in mind that all advice is subjective and dependent on many factors such as geographic location, etc.! 

1. We believe that students should take their first SAT/ACT during the fall of junior year if possible, and finish testing by the end of junior year. This empowers them to make final decisions about their college list after they know their scores. Otherwise, they'd be making these decisions based on guesses about what their scores might look like. That can lead to overshooting or undershooting in terms of selectivity, and we prefer to work with actual numbers.

2. We really agreed with everything in the test prep section and found that to be very valuable. For example, the 6-8 week span and the potential for improvement. The one part we didn't agree with is about potentially making the choice NOT to prep if a student scores above the 90th percentile with no prep after the fall of 11th grade. This is accurate from a national standpoint, but not at the schools to which most of our students hope to attend. 90th percentile scores are not going to cut it at their schools of choice - even UVA's 25th-75th% range reflects the 97th-99th percentile of ACT-takers. This means that only a quarter of UVA's admitted students who sent ACT scores came in lower than the 97th percentile (depressing, right?). So don't be lulled into a false sense of test prep security if you reach the 90th percentile and hope to attend a highly selective school.

When the College Board got rid of the SAT II earlier this year, many of us speculated that AP exams would come to be more significant in the college admissions process. This article in Psychology Today explores why that may not be such a great idea for students. In fact, the way that many AP classes are taught - “to the test,” to prepare students to take the AP exam - is the exact opposite of how many actual college classes are designed. In college, it will be far more important that students learn to think critically than that they memorize facts (that they promptly forget!) in order to score well on a standardized exam. 

While we agree with much of what this article says, the fact is that for many students, AP classes are part of setting themselves up for success in the college process. And until schools stop offering them as part of the curriculum (as many private schools have!), it is important for students to take a rigorous curriculum based on what is offered by their high school. So we are sorry to say that our general advice is, take the AP class! Of course, this is also particular to the student, and there are certainly students for whom the cons outweigh the pros when it comes to managing an AP course load. 

While we like to think that the work we do is pretty important, we wouldn’t have said it was a “matter of life and death” - until this interview! Angus Deaton, a Nobel prize winner and professor emeritus at Princeton, suggests that four-year college graduates are less likely than those who did not attend college to succumb to “deaths of despair” - suicides, drug overdoses, and the like. The gap between people with a bachelor’s degree and those without when it comes to these tragedies is only growing in the United States.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

I was so honored and excited to co-host a roundtable session on “The Joys and Challenges of Being a Female Entrepreneur” today for IECA, the professional organization to which Shannon and I belong. Here’s a snapshot of some of the attendees! I’m on the top row to the left with my co-host, Dr. Pat Smith, to my right.

October is National Women’s Small Business Month, and this roundtable was a great way to celebrate. It was heartwarming to see how all of these individual consultants run very different businesses, yet we all care immensely about providing our families with the best possible experience.

Have a great weekend!

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Should I Disclose My Student's Learning Profile or Evaluation to Colleges?

After getting this question from a parent this week, we thought that other families might be wondering the same thing. It isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer, but we wanted to offer some considerations for students and parents who may also be wondering about how much to disclose.

As a general rule, we recommend against disclosing your student’s learning profile during the application process. The reason for this is that admissions officers do not typically have the training or experience to read this type of document.

This is important - without an understanding of the way these evaluations typically read, or how learning differences present themselves, the admissions officer may conclude that the student isn’t able to handle the transition to college - even when this isn’t the case at all! Parents whose children have evaluations will know that these are written in a specific way to try to make the student eligible for accommodations - they emphasize the “differences” and to an untrained eye, they can sound extreme.

Especially for selective schools with large applicant pools, they are essentially looking for reasons to say “no” - and there are many unconscious biases. While no admissions officer would intentionally discriminate against a student with a disability, there is no point in providing information that could be perceived in a negative way.

And one note here - admissions officers CANNOT ask you to disclose your student’s learning profile! This is against the law and you do not need to disclose unless you want to do so.

That said, there are some cases where you may have a reason to disclose something specific about your student’s learning differences. We recommend doing this in an essay, additional statement, or counselor recommendation letter, rather than sending a learning profile, testing report, or other more involved document.

For instance, if your student had undiagnosed dyslexia that caused his grades to plummet during ninth and tenth grade, but received a diagnosis and saw rapid improvement in eleventh grade, that would be a reason to disclose the diagnosis. 

In short, it is helpful to disclose only if the disclosure will help to explain something in the student’s transcript (like a drop in grades) or an issue elsewhere in the application.

You may also want to discuss with your student’s school counselor whether they feel that there is something specific they need to disclose in their counselor letter in order to give context for the student’s performance in high school. This is an area where it’s very important to trust the counselor’s judgment. If they believe that they need to make a disclosure in order to say something positive, there’s probably a good reason for that.

If you do decide to offer an additional statement that touches on learning differences, it is important to include the strategies that your student has used to improve or maintain classroom performance. The disclosure will be so much more compelling if your student can point to ways in which they’ve worked hard and improved. This will also increase the confidence of that admissions officer, who may not have a full understanding of the student’s abilities. Overcoming a challenge can be a really positive thing to mention in an application!

Once your student is admitted, however, you should absolutely talk with the college’s learning center about what kind of support they can expect. Every college has a learning center (Shannon came to us from the one at Boston College!) and they will all provide similar services. The most popular ones are usually notetaking assistance, extra time on tests, and distraction-reduced testing environments. Generally, learning centers are much more likely to take the time to meet with admitted students than prospective ones, so you should absolutely reach out as you try to make your final college decision! 

And if your student is currently struggling with a learning difficulty, including ADHD, academic anxiety, and executive functioning challenges, we can also provide some extra assistance through academic coaching! If you are interested in learning more about academic coaching, you can book a Meet & Greet here.

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Weekly Update: October 1

Happy October!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

THE FAFSA IS OPEN

Finally, the moment some of you have been waiting for… the FAFSA opens today! If you intend to complete the form, I encourage you to do it as soon as possible. If you are unsure whether or not you should complete the FAFSA, you can check out my earlier posts here and here to help make the best decision for you and your family. There are a lot of myths about the FAFSA that circle around every year, so if any of our current clients have questions about the process, make sure to reach out to us so we can help you make this decision.

WILL STUDENT-ATHLETES BECOME EMPLOYEES?

At the very least, they are a lot closer this week than ever before! On Wednesday, the National Labor Relations Board released a memo classifying some college athletes as employees and allowing them to petition to unionize. Some experts think that students will make the push to unionize this year, which will definitely complicate the relationship between the school and its students (now employees).

NORTHWESTERN STUDENTS PROTEST GREEK LIFE

In the wake of reports that students were drugged without their consent at fraternity parties, protestors at Northwestern are asking the school to abolish Greek life on campus. In response to the allegations, the university has suspended social events and recruitment activities at its fraternities for at least the next two weeks. 

FORENSIC SCIENCE STUDENTS AT GMU WILL USE REAL HUMAN BONES

GMU is launching a new, five-acre research center where forensic science students will learn how to find and recover human remains, using real human bones from donors to recreate actual crime scenes. Students will begin being able to use the center next semester. 

SCHULER EDUCATION FOUNDATION DONATION TO THE LIBERAL ARTS

In an effort to promote equity in the liberal arts, the Schuler Education Foundation plans to donate $500 million to 25 liberal arts colleges, including Bates, Tufts, and Union. The donations are intended to expand access for underserved students to these institutions, which the foundation selected because of their historic support for underrepresented students.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Now that it is already October, it seems that students have had to transition rapidly back to going full steam ahead at school. But after so many months off, this transition can be tough!

This New York Times article explores the effects of the pandemic on students who are now returning to the classroom, many of whom need to catch up on academics (and the college planning process!). It is sobering to read the statements from these students. And if your student is one of those seniors wondering how to move forward with college planning or how to ask teachers they barely know for recommendations, book a Meet & Greet with us and we can talk with you more about getting back on track. 

In college admissions, one of the most unpredictable movements of the year is “melt” - students who have made a deposit to the college over the summer, but for one reason or another, do not ultimately matriculate in the fall. This is the reason why some colleges will pull from waitlists as late as the first week of classes! This podcast from NPR explains more about melt and why it has been so much more difficult for colleges to calculate during the pandemic. 

U.S. News put together this helpful guide for planning college visits in the DC area. We are so lucky to live in an area with so many different (and excellent!) colleges and universities. A good strategy for current sophomores and juniors is to take day trips to nearby schools on weekends to start to figure out their preferences before they start traveling around the country. If you know the difference between the way GW and Georgetown feel, for instance, you also have a pretty good understanding of how it might feel at Boston University versus Boston College, or NYU versus Columbia, and will be able to prioritize your list for out-of-state visits. 

This expose on sexual assault at Moody Bible Institute is a difficult, but important, read. Moody is the most prestigious evangelical bible college in the country, and eleven alumnae who were assaulted at Moody have recently decided to speak up about their experiences. The pressure on women to stay “pure” in the evangelical tradition often translates to school administrators placing blame on the women who were assaulted rather than the perpetrators. 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We’re so excited that local events are (slowly) coming back for our students to attend! On Monday, the deans of admission from the University of Chicago, Vanderbilt University, and Brown University will be holding an information session on the admissions process at highly selective institutions. Interested students can register here. 

Shannon really enjoyed presenting as part of Illuminos Academic Coaching & Tutoring’s “Less Stress Parenting” webinar series this week - if anyone knows the stress that the college application process can bring for parents and families, it’s us! Shannon is currently booking presentations for school and community groups for the rest of the school year and can speak on a variety of topics, including:

• Finding the Best College Fit for Your Child

• Top Tips to Avoid Parenting Stress during the Admissions Process

• Academic Planning for Middle School Students

• Demystifying College Admissions

• College Selection

Shannon can also tailor a presentation specifically for your school or organization. If you are interested in getting on our calendar for this school year, reach out to her directly at shannon@dccollegecounseling.com. These presentations are completely free to organizers as a service to the community, and your organization can either charge a modest fee for attendance and use the profits as you see fit, or offer an event to participants at no charge.

And after some heavy news and articles this week, if you need a laugh, check out this Daily Princetonian article!

Have a great weekend - I hope everyone has a chance to get outside and enjoy the weather!

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Weekly Update: September 24

The official start of fall is here - hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful weather!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

LIVESTREAM LEARNING BEGINS FOR FCPS STUDENTS

Students in Fairfax County Public Schools will be able to stay on top of their coursework even when they are quarantined or exposed to COVID-19. Students who can’t make it to class will be offered livestream instruction (via Zoom or Google Meet) and interactive check-ins with teachers during the period in which they are out of the classroom. 

COLLEGE RANKINGS FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

As we always say, it is good to take college rankings with a grain of salt - and one way to do that is to look at a variety of different rankings systems (there are many out there beyond U.S. News!). We’ve already shared on the blog the rankings from Forbes and our personal favorite, the Princeton Review rankings. 

Different ranking systems use different criteria, and the most important factor for the WSJ is one we think is super important too- career outcomes and ROI! This ranking measures where they work, how much they earn, and how much debt they have. So it's not shocking to learn which schools topped the list: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Yale, and Duke. Keep scrolling down, though - there are some surprises. For example, Carleton College is #35 while UVA is #55.

COLLEGES ADD NEW PROGRAMS IN RESPONSE TO COVID-19

As the workplace shifts, so do college programs, and many schools have added new programs in response to the major changes brought by the pandemic. New offerings include options in health communications and health law, for obvious reasons, and those in e-sports and cybersecurity respond to our increased time in the virtual space. NYU has also added a masters’ program in health law & strategy. 

PENN CHANGES RECOMMENDATION LETTER REQUIREMENTS

The University of Pennsylvania announced this week that they will be changing their requirements when it comes to letters of recommendation - starting this cycle! In the past, Penn has required a counselor letter and two teacher letters of recommendation. Now, they will continue to require letters from counselors and one teacher, but the third letter can be from any adult you choose: it might be a teacher, but may also be a coach, employer, mentor, or even just an adult who knows you well. If you are a student who has already applied to Penn, don’t panic! Two teacher letters are still perfectly acceptable, and in fact that is still our strong recommendation.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

The Wall Street Journal published a great article this week about how Rick Singer’s “side door” worked - examining the Varsity Blues scandal in depth as trials continue this week. USC’s assistant dean of undergraduate admissions testified that the eleven students who were admitted after using Rick Singer’s services would not have been accepted without their (fabricated!) athletic experience. At USC, the admissions rate for recruited athletes is 85-90% - compare that to just 15% for all applicants! In the wake of Varsity Blues, USC plans to audit team rosters and to implement increased scrutiny in reviews of academic credentials. 

Our colleagues at College Kickstart released some of their latest admissions data in a private session for members that Shannon attended yesterday. To recap, some of the major trends we noticed last cycle were:

• An 11% increase in applications across the board (Virginia Tech, for example, saw a 39% increase! 😬)

• Schools relying more on early decision to fill their classes

• Smaller schools (like Williams and Dartmouth) having the inability to absorb gap year deferrals and admitting smaller classes as a result.

These factors combined to make for a very competitive admissions cycle, particularly for regular decision applicants!

This cycle, we are probably going to continue to see these elevated application volumes, as well as a widening gap between ED and RD acceptance rates. That means that schools like Colgate and BC, which would have been targets for many of our students a few years ago, are now reaches; same goes for flagship public schools like UGA and UC system schools, which are becoming more competitive. We always encourage our students to take advantage of early decision options where possible, and that just became easier thanks to the new ED II plans available at Carnegie Mellon, Emerson, and Loyola Marymount. 

Finally, we are still encouraging our students to take a standardized test if it is available to them - but talk to us before sending the scores, because we can’t emphasize enough that this is a very individual decision. Some schools, like Georgetown and all of the Georgia public universities, are back to requiring tests this cycle, but even for those that don’t, testing still seems to make a positive difference for most (not all!!) applicants. At very selective schools, applicants were nearly two times more likely to be admitted with test scores than without! At Emory, for example, students who submitted test scores were 2.3 times more likely to be admitted. Colgate and Boston University showed similar results. Meanwhile at other schools, like Boston College, Vanderbilt, and Harvey Mudd, there were very slight difference in admissions rates between those with test scores and those without. 

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Shannon will be presenting at a free event next Wednesday at 12:00 pm as part of the Less Stress Parenting webinar series. Great concept, right? We are all about less stress parenting here! If you feel overwhelmed by the college admissions process, you can register here to check out the event!

I was so surprised and excited to be featured in the Tysons Reporter this week by the amazing Realtor Laura Schwartz (alongside Emily of Tangible Designs - she did all of our branding and logos a few years ago and was so great to work with)!

And yes - I’m transitioning back to my maiden name! (From one hard-to-spell name to another, but at least this one is mine 😀)

Lastly, our earlier blog covered a variety of virtual info session options this fall, but we are so excited that there are also some in-person events coming to our area! Notre Dame will be coming to the Tysons Corner Marriott on Wednesday, October 6 - this is an excellent way to learn more about the school and to demonstrate interest. Students can register here to attend!

Have a great weekend!

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Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: Pre-Med Edition

When a high school student applies for undergraduate admission, there’s no question that they will be able to go to college.

It’s not about “getting into college” - anyone can get into college. There are many 4-year schools around the country with acceptance rates that are close to 100%. Whether students are interested in those particular schools is a different conversation altogether - but everyone has options, even if they may not like their options.

The medical school admissions process is very different. Everyone is just trying to get in somewhere and if you have the luxury of a couple of choices, that’s amazing. Around 55-57% of applicants to medical school in any given year simply do not get in anywhere.

Can you imagine?! And this is after going through an excruciating application process.

Given this, it’s only natural that students and parents are interested in the medical school placement statistics for each college or university under consideration. It seems obvious that if you ultimately want to go to med school, you should select an undergraduate program with a high medical school placement rate. It’s only natural to assume they must be doing something right if nearly all of their applicants are admitted!

Have you ever heard of Berry College?

It’s a small private school in Georgia with an undergraduate acceptance rate around 40% and a four-year graduation rate around 65%. I am sure it is a fine place, but it is not one that I would imagine would attract a whole lot of out-of-state applicants with super-high test scores and grades. In fact, I would bet that none of our current students have ever even heard of the place.

But wait! Check out this screen shot from their website:

Screen shot taken from Berry College website

Wow! A 98% acceptance rate to med school. That’s amazing. Remember, the national average is around 43-45%.

Let’s check out other schools for comparison’s sake. Here’s UVA:

Screen shot taken from University of Virginia website

What in the world?

Let’s find another school to compare. Here’s UC Berkeley:

Screen shot taken from UC Berkeley website

If you scroll up and re-read the text above the Berry statistics, it explains that private school costs more, but when you consider the quality of education, mentorship and post-graduation outcomes… hard to argue with that, right? Is Berry the next big thing? Should we all fly down to Georgia to visit?

Probably not.

Here’s what’s happening:

A lot of colleges and universities advertise very high pre-med acceptance rates that don’t actually represent all of the students who wanted to apply to medical school.

Instead, the acceptance rates represent a select group of top students that the institution hasn’t already weeded out.

These schools require a pre-application process to internal committees that will make a decision about whether or not their institution will support each individual student’s medical school applications. If the committee deems the student worthy, it will then provide what is called a “committee letter” to send along with their medical school applications.

If a student attends a school that has a committee, but does not have a committee letter, they can technically still apply - but at that point they’ve essentially been blackballed and have an extremely low chance of admission.

This would be like applying to college and having your school counselor refuse to write a rec letter on your behalf - except worse.

So it turns out we aren’t going to fly down to Berry after all. As you can see, it’s really easy for a school to manipulate their students’ medical school acceptance rate - all they have to do is restrict the applicants they support!

In reality, we have no clue how many students tried to initiate a medical school application from Berry. Maybe 10% of the original group actually got to med school at the end of the day, or maybe 90% did. We just don’t know. But what we do know is that 98% of their hand-picked group of top students was admitted - definitely less impressive when you look at it that way.

And I will stop picking on Berry now, because most colleges and universities throughout the United States do the exact same thing, from ones you’ve never heard of all the way to the Ivy League.

Many do it for law schools too, but it’s not nearly as cutthroat. There are many lower-ranked law schools out there with high acceptance rates, so colleges and universities feel more confident about the chances of at least one acceptance.

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Interested in looking up this information for schools on your own list?

• If you search for "pre-med committee" on google you can typically pull up each school's policy. As I mentioned, there are a lot of schools that do this, so I’m not suggesting excluding them from consideration. There’s also the relevant factor that if you weren’t strong enough to be accepted by the internal committee, you probably aren’t strong enough to get into medical school either. But I sure wouldn’t want to be one of those borderline students!

• The AAMC website also offers helpful information about the number of applicants per undergraduate institution. This provides some level of context (keep in mind these schools vary in size tremendously - of course UCLA is going to have more applicants coming from their school than Villanova! We also don’t know which were successful and which were not.

• You can also feel free to ask this question at an admissions information session if the school starts bragging about their medical school acceptance rates - obviously, be polite in tone, but you can ask if the percentage shared represents a restricted group or every student wanting to apply.

Lastly, know that you need to take all college admissions statistics with a grain of salt. Everything can be manipulated and often is!

Weekly Update: September 17

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

OPERATION VARSITY BLUES TRIALS BEGIN

The first trial for parents implicated in the college admissions scandal began on Monday. In opening statements, their lawyers blamed not only Rick Singer for duping the parents, but also the college admissions process as a whole for being susceptible to this type of manipulation. 

In other Varsity Blues updates, Georgetown’s former tennis coach was the latest to plead guilty on Wednesday, in advance of his scheduled trial in November. 

WANT TO START A 529? GO TO SCHOOL IN NYC

Starting this fall, every public school kindergartner in New York City will receive $100 in a 529 account. The new initiative is aimed at closing the wealth gap in NYC. In addition to the initial deposit, students will have the opportunity to earn up to $200 in rewards. With the initial deposit as well as rewards and donations, the program is expected to yield $3,500 per student on average by the time the children reach 12th grade. 

While New York is the largest public school system, it isn’t the first to start this type of initiative - in 2011, San Francisco began opening accounts with $50 for every student entering the public school system. 

Though these amounts may not seem like much, studies show that students with at least $500 in a savings account are three times more likely to enroll in college and four times more likely to graduate than students with no savings

WHAT IS THE BEST COLLEGE TOWN IN AMERICA?

ESPN’s new bracket hopes to determine America’s best college football town! Vote every Wednesday for your favorite team, current college, or (hopefully!) future college town as they work to determine the winner this fall.

And if you’re attending a game in a college town, you might want to avoid staying at an Airbnb! This Wall Street Journal article shared information from a study showing that Airbnb hosts “jack up their prices” for their biggest rival teams because of “affiliation bias”—in other words, the hosts just can’t stand the visiting team’s fans.” And many of the units end up going unrented, which ultimately hurts the owners because they lose money - but at least they know they were loyal!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

I loved this article from the New York Times about raising resilient children. If the past year and a half has taught us anything, it is that resilience is key! As we know firsthand, resilient kids are more likely to bounce back and even to thrive when they are faced with disappointment (like a waitlist decision from their dream school!), and this article lays out some actionable steps that parents can take to increase their children’s resistance. I know that I’ll take advantage of these tips, and I encourage every parent to think about how they can model resilience for their kids.

The Wall St. Journal article we covered last week about the widening gender gap in higher education has received a lot of attention in the past few weeks, spawning several response articles. This one from The Atlantic explores the history of this gap, and the role of ideas about masculinity in discouraging boys from seriously pursuing higher education. Not only do boys enroll in college at lower rates than girls, but in middle and high school, girls tend to spend more time studying, get in trouble less often, and get better grades across all subjects. The article suggests that the answer to this issue doesn’t happen in college admissions - instead, we need to address the gap that appears in early adolescence to control the ripple effect for higher education.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Shannon attended a networking event this week with so many amazing professionals from the DC area! We love being able to make connections and refer our students to people that we trust for tutoring, testing, evaluation, and more. Stay tuned for some collaborations and events that we have in the works!

We are busy with so many virtual tours and information sessions. We had hoped for some in-person tours this year, but you can’t beat the convenience of the virtual options! For a list of upcoming virtual fairs, tours, and information sessions for students and parents, see our latest post, and bookmark it for later - we’ll add new events as the dates are released. Let us know what you think of these virtual events!

Enjoy the weekend!

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Fall 2021 Virtual College Fairs, Tours and Information Sessions

We always stress with our clients that it is SO important to demonstrate interest for the schools on your list! Especially now that so many schools have virtual offerings, there is really no excuse for not checking out all of the colleges that interest you.

Check out some of the events on this list and make sure to bookmark this page, because we’ll continue to update as we hear about more events!

Discovering U Virtual Group Sessions

Event Description:

Join Columbia University, the University of Chicago, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Michigan, and Yale University for this online info session. This is a great opportunity for students to hear from several highly selective schools at once. 

When:

The next session is being offered on September 30 at 7:00 pm EDT. However, Discovering U is also offering several special sessions that are worth checking out, including a Session with the Deans on October 20. 

Learn more and register for Discovering U here.

UCLA’s Annual Fall Open House

Event Description:

UCLA has made their annual event virtual for the past few years, which is a great opportunity for students on the East Coast who may not have been able to attend an in-person event on campus. There will be sessions on admissions, financial aid, housing, academic programs, and student life, among others. 

When:

Saturday, September 25 through Thursday, September 30. The sessions will be a little late for those of us in the DC area, running from 8:00 to 10:00 pm EDT on weekdays, but the Saturday session will be in the afternoon from 1:00 to 6:00 pm EDT. 

Learn more and register for UCLA’s Fall Open House here.

NACAC Virtual College Fairs

Event Description:

NACAC is offering a variety of virtual fairs this fall, with several that focus on particular regions. Their virtual experience lets you put together a schedule so you can catch the Zoom presentations from the colleges you are most interested in, as well as set up one-on-one meetings with admissions officers. 

When:

The next fair on September 28 focuses on colleges in the Northeast, including Boston University, Drexel University, and Northeastern University. 

Learn more and register for a Virtual College Fair here.

National CCAA Virtual College Fair

Event Description:

The Catholic College Admission Association is offering several virtual fairs this fall. Over 100 Catholic colleges and universities will be in attendance, and the fair will involve one-on-one chats with admissions officers from many of these schools.

When:

Wednesday, October 6, Tuesday October 19, or Thursday October 21 from 6:00 to 8:45 pm EDT

Learn more and register for a Virtual College Fair here.

Greater Atlanta Area Colleges Virtual Exploration

Event Description:

Nine Atlanta-area schools, including Emory, Georgia Tech, and UGA, will host sessions and presentations at this two-day virtual fair, with typical Admissions sessions as well as specific events like “Why Atlanta?” to help students explore schools in the area.

When:

Wednesday, September 29 - Thursday, September 30, with sessions in the afternoons and evenings.

Learn more and register for a Virtual College Fair here.

Six Colleges Events

Event Description:

Amherst, Bowdoin, Carleton, Pomona, Swarthmore, and Williams have joined together to put on these virtual events throughout the fall. Students can register for individual events, but there is also a single form that students can fill out to receive information about each school and all of the upcoming sessions.

When:

There are several sessions scheduled, including an Academic Experience session on Tuesday, September 21 at 8:00 pm EDT and a “Real Talk” session with students on Monday, October 18 at 8:00 pm EDT.

Learn more and register for a Six Colleges event here.

Explore Maryland Day

Event Description:

This full day of live sessions from the University of Maryland provides students with the opportunity to learn about the various colleges within the university, hear from current students, and learn more about resources on campus. Students can choose to attend just one session or the full day.

When:

Saturday, October 16, 10:45 am - 4:00 pm EDT

Learn more and register for Explore Maryland Day here.

Baylor Premiere

Event Description:

This is another full-day open house, with breakout sessions for academic programs, a live Zoom tour, a parent Q&A session, and other options throughout the day.

When:

Saturday, October 2, 11:00 am - 4:00 pm EDT

Learn more and register for the Baylor Premiere here.

Behind the Curtain

Event Description:

Bates, Claremont McKenna, Lehigh, and UChicago are teaming up to offer this information session where they let students see “behind the curtain” of the admissions process and hear from admissions directors.

When:

There are three events - the soonest is on Sunday, September 26 at 4:00 pm ET

Learn more and register for Behind the Curtain here.

Exploring Educational Excellence

Event Description:

Brown, UChicago, Columbia, Cornell, and Rice are offering this joint session that will include a brief overview from each school and the opportunity to ask questions of the admissions officers. A great way to learn about five highly selective schools at once!

When:

There are four remaining sessions - the soonest is on Tuesday, September 28 at 9:00 pm ET

Learn more and register for Exploring Educational Excellence here.

Weekly Update: September 10

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

UC BERKELEY IN NUMBER ONE SPOT ON FORBES’ COLLEGE RANKINGS

Forbes released its college rankings this week, with Berkeley as number one! Berkeley is the first-ever public school to top the list. Forbes cites the world-class education that Berkeley students receive, many of them at a fraction of the cost of top private schools, as the reason for the UC school’s number one ranking. The new rankings represent a change in Forbes’ criteria - they now consider schools that “educate the greatest number of students from the broadest range of backgrounds” - something that large schools like the UCs can do more effectively than schools like Harvard, which dropped to number seven on the Forbes list. 

HARVARD DROPS FOSSIL FUELS FROM ITS ENDOWMENT

Harvard is not the first campus to divest from fossil fuels, many thanks to the pressure from students and faculty. But with the largest endowment of any school in the U.S., Harvard's withdrawal may have a big impact for activists. The student activist group that pushed for this decision was Divest Harvard, which in 2019 staged a protest by interrupting the Harvard-Yale football game. Yale has also recently adopted what it calls “ethical investing principles,” in which several major oil and gas companies are considered ineligible for investment by the institution. 

AMAZON COVERS COLLEGE TUITION FOR US EMPLOYEES

In a newly competitive market for hourly employees, large companies like Amazon have been working to provide more incentives for employee retention. Amazon recently announced that it will pay 100% of college tuition, including books and fees, for hourly employees beginning in January 2022. Employees can begin to take advantage of this benefit 90 days after employment.

HOWARD UNIVERSITY CLASSES CANCELLED AFTER RANSOMWARE ATTACK

On Friday, officials at Howard University discovered a ransomware cyberattack that took the school offline for the entire holiday weekend, with online and hybrid classes cancelled on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Students headed to nearby stores and restaurants off-campus in order to access wifi during the week. Without internet, professors have also been confused about how much work to assign and what to expect from their students. The university is still trying to figure out whether student data was accessed during the attack.  

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

We posted on social media earlier this week about this Wall Street Journal article, which illuminates a widening education gap between men and women across the country. We’ve talked before about the decline in college enrollment over the past five years, but this article highlights that men have been responsible for 71% of that decline. Women now make up nearly 60% of the college-age population in the U.S.

That 60-40 split is a scary line for colleges - it usually marks the point at which both women and men are reluctant to attend a school with an imbalanced population. But given that women are more likely to apply to college, more likely to complete their applications, and more likely to enroll and stay enrolled, it is becoming increasingly difficult for colleges to maintain close to a 50-50 split. 

The efforts to do so mean that men are more likely to receive offers of admission than women, which the article calls a “tacit affirmative action for boys.” There are definitely schools, both public and private, where we see this happen - and often have to remind young women with whom we work that there is this additional chip stacked against them - one which is usually not discussed. The article suggests that people aren’t talking about this difficulty because it is unpopular to work toward support for men in higher education - particularly white men.

The New York Times also published a response this week, noting that despite the fact that women have outnumbered men with college degrees since the 1970s, men are still more likely to have leadership roles and to make more money in the corporate world. Rather than asking about why boys aren’t enrolling in college, this article asks us to consider why girls need additional education to get the same jobs that boys are getting without attending college. 

College disability services offices are contending with a new population of students this year: COVID-19 long-haulers. There are still a lot of questions about long-haul COVID, but we know that many sufferers experience physical symptoms of dizziness or difficulty breathing, as well as brain fog and difficulties with memory and concentration. President Biden announced in July that long-haul COVID cases could qualify as a disability, and colleges will need to continue to consider how their disability services can assist these students. An increase in accommodation request may illuminate existing challenges and lack of resources that colleges face when it comes to accommodating students with disabilities.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We’ve found out about a lot of cool student opportunities this week and are excited to share them with you!

The Girl Scouts are partnering with PepCo to offer a panel of early career women professionals in STEM careers, particularly in the energy industry. This event takes place next Tuesday and is open to all Girl Scouts - it could be a great opportunity to hear about young women’s experiences in STEM! 

Next, the Daughters of the American Revolution are launching a High School Essay Contest. Students are asked to write about a person, famous or unknown, who contributed to the founding of the nation, and to use primary source material. DAR will be providing first, second, and third place awards. This is exactly the type of award that looks fantastic in the Honors section of the Common Application. 

And finally, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society has another really great opportunity for local high school students. SOY is a seven-week fundraising challenge focused on helping 9th-12th graders develop their communication, project management, and presentation skills while raising funds and awareness for LLS’s mission of curing blood cancers. So for everyone who complains about how they can’t find activities because of Covid - here is your chance to add some leadership to your resume :) One of our client dads is hoping to find five more potential candidates to participate, so please let us know if you are interested (whether you work with us or not) and we’ll send you his way!

• Hear from Past SOY Candidates & Parents

• How SOY Impacts Your College Application

• SOY Behind the Scenes

Have a great weekend! 

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Tips for Building Your College List

As we transition over to the active stage of the application process with all of our Class of 2023 juniors this fall, we’re working hard to help them build their college lists! We’d love to share some tips to consider as you work toward building a balanced list (and if you are visiting colleges now as a senior, don’t forget to check out our tips for choosing your college for more help with those visits!). 

One major source of anxiety that we hear about from students and families all the time is not having options. Students are nervous that come decision time, they will feel “stuck” with a choice that they don’t love. The problem is usually that the student has a list of only super-selective schools. And while every student should absolutely apply to one or more of what we call “dream reaches,” there are often dozens of schools where the student could be equally (or more!) happy and successful. 

The other common mistake that students make is having just one “safety” school - that they would never want to attend! Yes, it is important to have less selective options, usually more than one, but that doesn’t mean that you should throw a school on there just to have one. With just a bit of extra research (or help from a counselor), you can find safety schools that actually meet your criteria, where you’d be excited to attend! The goal is that every school on your list is there for a reason beyond, “Well, I could probably get in.”

So if you are looking to build a list of colleges that makes you feel like you’ve got a TON of great opportunities, follow these tips:

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1. Start early

Now really is the time to start building a list - we’ll start brainstorming with our class of 2023 students in a few weeks! When you start early, the process becomes a lot more fun and a lot less stressful. You can also capitalize on fall and winter breaks at school to visit campuses, and make sure that you don’t miss any important info sessions or college visits to your high school. 

2. Get to know yourself

During our first brainstorming meeting with students, we ask a TON of questions! We want to get to know exactly what our clients are looking for in their schools - from academics, to extracurriculars, to community experience. There are so many different areas of consideration when choosing a college, and it is helpful to have a sense of what you are looking for, and what is an absolute deal-breaker. 

Secondly, make sure you know how important those characteristics are. We put different aspects in four categories: Must Have, No Way, Would Be Nice, and Don’t Love. That way, we know exactly how important each characteristic is to a particular student. One student might prefer a suburban environment, but be willing to attend a rural school if it has a specific program or major. For another student, a city school is a Must Have - if it’s rural, they’re not going! Make sure you know what your priorities are so that you can build your list accordingly.

3. Do your research

Once you have some idea of the type of school that interests you, you can begin research. There are websites and free resources online that can be very helpful (we particularly like the Princeton Review), as well as paid resources like the Fiske Guide that you may also be able to borrow from your school counselor or local library. 

But of course, nothing beats a visit to the school! Some campuses are open now for in-person visits, while others are remaining virtual. Whether you do a tour in person or online, taking the time to really learn about the campus and community is the best way to figure out whether it matches your criteria. Also, in-person visits are the number one place that we see students’ criteria change - you may think you want a mid-size school, but realize after a few visits that a smaller campus is the best fit for you.

4. Check your balance

We recommend at least two likely/safety schools and at least three target schools to make up the base of your list. Once you have this foundation, you can build on some reach or “dream reach” schools. But without that core of likelies and targets, you are putting unnecessary pressure on yourself - if your mindset is “If I don’t get in, I’ll be miserable!” it is a lot harder to enjoy the process.

5. Check your own time!

Careful not to go too far with the list - be mindful of your time and other commitments. Again, the earlier you start, the easier this will be, but keep in mind that some schools can have six or more supplemental essays, and they add up quickly! We try for a list of 8-10 schools with our students, though of course there is always some range depending on the individual student’s needs. Just keep in mind that if you are planning on applying to 20 different schools, you will need to be prepared to complete the work. 

Building your college list should be a fun part of the process, not a stressful one. Follow these tips and you’ll be well on your way to a list that makes you feel happy and excited about the rest of the process! If you’d like to learn more about how we can help, book a Meet & Greet to discuss our brainstorming process in more depth. 

Weekly Update: September 3

A bit of a chill in the air when we came into the office this morning, kids back at school, and seniors submitting applications almost every day - happy September!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

TULANE EXPERIENCES BACKLASH FOR IDA RESPONSE

Early on Tuesday, Tulane University began evacuating students to Houston in response to Hurricane Ida. Students won’t be permitted to return to campus until October, and classes will continue online, so many are headed home while others will stay with faculty in New Orleans. 

Tulane blamed faulty forecasts for the late evacuation, and people on Twitter became ANGRY! Criticisms of the university’s response went viral, demonstrating that the path of the hurricane had been predicted to hit New Orleans several days in advance of the evacuation. We touched base earlier this week with a current freshman we have at Tulane and were glad to hear that she is safe and doing well, but really sad that she won’t be able to return to campus for six weeks. 

(Side note: Despite the sometimes unpredictable weather, Tulane is growing increasingly popular with students - their acceptance rate dropped from 30% a few years ago to 9.73% this past year! The class of 2025 at Tulane set records for diversity as well as academic excellence.)

BUT THE AMHERST COVID BACKLASH IS WAY WORSE

I have always been on the more conservative side with Covid - just this week I kept one of my kids home from school for days as a precaution because kids in other classes there were testing positive and I didn’t want to risk exposure. So I do understand being cautious and in general applaud that.

But what is Amherst thinking? They are taking their Covid restrictions way too far, in my opinion, and students are furious. This piece from the New York Post made me laugh - “Students, all of whom were already required to be vaccinated, will spend non-class time in their dorm rooms and may leave campus only in a handful of defined emergency situations. One of these is apparently going to the bank, though what a bunch of would-be rowdy undergraduates who can’t hit up the local dive bars or have a coffee will need money for is a mystery.” Sounds fun, right? I really like Amherst, but yikes.

COVID-19 OUTBREAK AT LIBERTY UNIVERSITY

On the other end of the spectrum, Liberty University switched abruptly to remote learning this week following a coronavirus outbreak on campus. Their numbers tripled within the last week and they now have 4x as many students with Covid as UVA, JMU, VCU and Virginia Tech COMBINED!!! To put this into perspective, their student population is about 15,000, and the combined student population at those four schools is about 115,000. Time to start getting vaccinated, guys! With limited ICU space at the only local hospital, the university had to pivot to protect its students. Liberty is just one of several schools, including Rice and Duke, that have made changes in the last few weeks in response to the Delta variant. 

One week ago at Liberty. Seriously???

COLLEGE FOOTBALL KICKOFF

College football started this week, with fans eagerly awaiting yesterday’s top-25 matchup between Ohio State and Minnesota. As universities struggle with the Delta variant, it is up to the colleges to manage COVID-19 during these travel games. Some football teams, including Ole Miss, Arizona, and Boston College, have 100% vaccination rates headed into the season.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

My favorite college rankings were released this week! I look forward to the Princeton Review’s rankings every year, and we often recommend them to our clients. Instead of ranking the colleges from best to worst in a general sense like many other guides, Princeton Review identifies the characteristics that students seek in an undergraduate education and identifies the top 25 schools that best fit each one. They are called "Great Lists" and range from "Great College Dorms" to "Great Career Services" to "Great Professors" and more. 

I also really like the write-ups in the Princeton Review rankings - they give a "School Says" and a "Students Say" section for each aspect of the school. This gives you a more realistic sense of what's happening on campus. For example, the "School Says" part about Wash U's campus life reads: "Washington University offers a nurturing, yet intellectually rigorous, environment where students from all identities and backgrounds thrive." But what do the students say? "WashU is ‘the package deal. Great academics, amazing extracurricular activities, and the best people.’ There’s ‘always funding for student groups, student initiatives, university-run activities, research, and the infrastructure is unmatched’: ’Dorms are five-star hotels, food is delicious with tons of variety, [and] the buildings are gorgeous.’ (I agree!). 

Create a free account on review.com to check out all of the rankings and write-ups, or buy the brand-new "Best 387 Colleges" book, which contains the same information all in one place.

Tulane and Penn State joined together this week for a webinar on “Making the Most of Your Common App.” If you missed the event, you can check out this recap. There are some common sense tips from each school, but our biggest takeaway is the importance of demonstrated interest at Tulane. As we mentioned above, their acceptance rate has dropped into the single digits, and Tulane is a school that takes demonstrated interest seriously! Students who are applying this cycle should make sure to prioritize visits, optional essays, and interview opportunities to maximize their admissions strategy. 

Lastly, the WSJ published a fascinating piece that I know would strike a chord with MANY of our readers here in Northern Virginia. It explores the increasingly problematic issue of public universities rejecting their own state’s students in order to accept more out-of-state applicants. Why is this happening, you ask? Because the out-of-state students pay a whole lot more in tuition. Texas and North Carolina were identified as two schools that are bucking this trend, which is why it’s next to impossible to get into UT Austin or UNC Chapel Hill from out of state. According to the article, the other “48 out of 50 flagship universities increased their share of out-of-state freshmen from 2002 to 2018. The average increase was 55%, although some … increased by more than 150%.” So basically everyone just pays extra to go to their neighboring state’s universities since they can’t get into their own, which brings the states more revenue but also increases student debt.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

As I have mentioned before, we are continuing to transition from working primarily with our original Class of 2022 cohort to kicking off the application process with our juniors and spending more time with our Late Start Seniors and grad students. And we’re hearing from our Class of 2021 students as many of them finish up their first week of classes, which is so fun!

One of our 2021 students sent us this absolutely adorable plant a few weeks ago (the picture doesn’t do it justice). I’m considering kidnapping it for my home office instead because I like the color so much ;)

Remember, if you just started senior year and are feeling overwhelmed - it’s NOT too late for help! Seniors who book a Meet & Greet within the next several weeks will likely be able to finish their applications by November 1. It never fails to amaze me how we can completely dig these families out of a bad situation and put them on a path to success in a matter of days, and it’s really gratifying because they are always so thankful and appreciative. A mom told me the other day that working with us was like taking a magic pill and losing ten pounds overnight. I wasn’t sure where she was going with that (haha) but then she explained that while it’s always better in retrospect to do things the right way (I.e. diet and exercise, or spending a year on the college application process), sometimes you really just need a quick fix and that’s exactly what we gave her! :) I can appreciate that!!

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SAT Score Submissions: All You Need to Know!

Every year around this time, as our seniors finish up, we try to think about the tasks students can do at home with their parents if they are running out of hours.

I have posted before about how it’s really hard to mess up application submission (AFTER the entire application has been throughly proofread, of course - just talking about the act of clicking submit and paying for the application fee, etc). It’s so straightforward that it would be next to impossible to submit by mistake.

What I do fine to be pretty tricky, though, is the process of submitting official copies of SAT scores through the College Board website (ACT score submissions are easy).

Keep reading about the submission process to learn the SAT misstep a lot of families make by accident!

Getting Started

After students sign into their College Board account and select the option to submit a score report, the website instructs them to add their colleges to the list.

This isn’t too difficult - just confirm that you have the correct school names (one year we had someone submit her SAT score to American University of Paris instead of American University, but we caught it after reviewing the confirmation email!).

Score Recipients

The next screen takes you to a list entitled “My Score Recipients.” This is where things go wrong: So. Many. People quickly proceed to the next page after reviewing the list of schools.

What they don’t realize is that the list defaults to sending ALL scores to each school. You have to manually change this option for every single school in order to be able to choose to send your best scores!

In the screen shot above, do you see the yellow arrow next to SMU, pointing to “All Scores”? The entire column looked like this before we began working our way down the list school by school.

We started with Boston College at the top of the list, and clicked the “Choose Scores” link next to each school to manually change our selection from the “All Scores” default.

See how the orange arrow shows that Princeton is set to receive “Selected Scores,” along with the three schools above it? You want the entire list to look like this before you proceed to the next step in the score submission process.

Selecting Scores for Submission

But first, let’s look at what happens after clicking “Choose Scores.” You will be taken to a page where all of your scores are laid out for you.

Assuming the school practices score choice and allows you to submit your best scores, you should figure out which test date, or combination of test dates, results in the best Evidence-Based Reading and Writing and Math scores. That’s what you want to send. The others should be toggled to “No.”

In this particular case, the student had a 760 in math each time she took the test (she is so smart!). But we do not want to send her December 2020 or March 2021 test date, because she did better in Evidence-Based Reading and Writing on the May 2021 test date. In this case, we would toggle the December and March test dates to “no” and the May 2021 test date to “yes.” Then we would proceed ahead and repeat for the next school.

Don’t Forget to Double Check!

After making all of these selections, when all of the schools are set to “Selected Scores,” you can proceed to the next screen. At this point, click the plus sign next to each school just to confirm that you actually selected what you intended to select. We clicked through each one here to make sure that it listed the May 2021 test date ONLY!

Pay and Finish Up!

Whew! The hard part is done. At this point, you can proceed to the next screen and enter your credit card information. Don’t forget to wait for the confirmation that shows that the scores were successfully submitted before clicking out.

Common Questions

Is it better to send the scores before or after application submission?

The truth is, it doesn’t matter at all. If you already know that you are done testing, and you already know your college list, you may as well go ahead and send the scores to get this step out of the way. But I would highly recommend waiting until after your list is 100% set, or this can become confusing.

Is it a good idea to rush scores?

No! Never! Because scores are now sent electronically, the rushed (i.e. sent through FedEx or similar) score reports will almost always arrive slower than ones sent normally. Strange, I know, but trust me on this and don’t rush your scores.

Is it necessary to send score reports if self-reporting scores on the application?

For some schools, no, it is not. For example, UVa is very clear about the fact that you can just self-report your scores on the application and follow up with the official score report if you enroll there, for fact-checking purposes. And this will save you some money, as the score reports cost $12 per school. But many other schools DO require official reports, and there’s a lot of conflicting information out there in terms of who does and who doesn’t. After a lot of back and forth last year with inaccurate information, my preference is for students to just go ahead and send official reports everywhere.

Is it necessary to send scores to test-blind schools?

Technically, no, as they don’t consider them in the review process. But human nature is human nature, right? If there is any remote chance that someone will see their high scores, even if they aren’t technically considered, I’d rather a student pay the $12 to send them and hope for the best. That’s why I had this student send her scores to UCLA.

You’ve sent the scores.. great! But one last step - don’t forget to monitor your application status portals to confirm that the schools received your scores!

Weekly Update: August 27

Happy back-to-school week! With a few exceptions, most of our students are back to the grind (and the seniors are really glad they worked so hard over the summer on their applications)!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

VIRGINIA SOL SCORES RELEASED

The Virginia SOL results were released for the 2020-2021 school year and we find them very concerning (although not all that surprising, I suppose). The navy column on the left represents Fairfax County's performance in 2018-2019, and the navy column on the right represents Fairfax County's performance in 2020-2021.

Note that these results only measure students who participated in the SOL exams, and many students opted out. In addition, these were only available for students attending in-person school. I read on one site that the results only reflect about 80% of the FCPS population, although I do not know if that is true or not.

The reason that this is such an issue is because coursework builds on itself, especially in areas like math, science, and foreign language. You can't perform well in AP Calculus until you master concepts from Pre-Calculus. You can’t do well in Spanish 3 if you have gaps from Spanish 2. You get the picture.. and now we have confirmation that many students really did miss key concepts last year.

We recommend that parents stay on top of this and take a very proactive approach, particularly if their students were enrolled in courses like the ones I just mentioned. I am less worried about courses like Geometry, which isn’t all that relevant for the next course in the math sequence, Algebra 2. Or World History, which is good to know in general but won’t impact most students’ performance in U.S. History, the next course in the history sequence. But for the those who are enrolled in courses that build on previous years’ material, it’s never too early to start with a tutor!

EARLY ADMISSION PLAN CHANGES

We love the lists on the College Kickstart blog! This past week they shared a list of schools with changes to their EA, ED, and ED II plans for the upcoming 2021-2022 admissions season, and it’s worth a look. Some standouts: Princeton reinstated SCEA, Carnegie Mellon added ED II, Syracuse removed EDII, and Loyola Marymount added EDII. Remember that we may still see some additional changes in the next month or two, as well!

COVID’S FALL SEMESTER IMPACT MAY VARY WIDELY FROM SCHOOL TO SCHOOL

It looks like Covid’s impact on undergraduate education during the fall semester will vary greatly from school to school, according to this Washington Post article. The University of Michigan’s chief health officer is optimistic and excited for the semester to begin, believing that we’ve turned a corner, and the president of Wellesley College agrees that this year will be different because of the vaccine. But not at the schools without mandates! At Florida A&M University, one out of every four students living in a residence hall has not been vaccinated. That does not bode well…

GETTING BANG FOR YOUR BUCK

If you’re on the fence about which major to pursue, we liked this research showing the best ROI for three different types of programs: bachelor’s degrees, associate’s degrees, and certificates. This is a smart way to look at it, because the type of degree obviously impacts earnings and there may be certain fields that are better for students to pursue if they know from the get-go that they don’t want a four-year degree. I actually thought there would be more variation than the study showed - nursing for the win!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

We saw this graphic from Binghamton University that we LOVED! This is hard for a lot of parents, including me. You should have seen the “tell me about your child” worksheet I filled out for my daughter’s teacher the other night! I had a lot to say :)

So I get it - we want to fix their problems, or even better, we want to prevent their problems in the first place. But it’s so important to recognize the message under the “Roll” graphic - we are HELPING our children by letting them problem-solve on their own. Yes, we can be there for support and we should. But they need these skills, even if they are a little painful to learn at times. If you aren’t convinced, pick up a copy of Grit!

…Or just read this WSJ article, “Lessons From the Parents Who Raised the World’s Top Soccer Sisters.” It was published earlier this summer, but we just saw it and thought it was worth spotlighting. Pretty amazing that two sisters made the same Olympic team! Their parents made sure that the girls were the ones driving their soccer training as young children - particularly when it involved missing school for camps and making up a ton of work. “Every single time they went, they were taking responsibility and commitment to say they wanted to do it,” their mom explained.

While most of our students complained about online learning this past year, we have a few for whom it was a very positive experience. They are not the only ones! The New York Times published a piece on the positive impact of remote learning for students with disabilities, and it brings up some very interesting points. I wouldn’t have thought this before reading the article, but it looks like there may be some legitimate legal reasons for colleges to offer virtual or hybrid options to students who need it.

Lastly, check out this Philadelphia Magazine article about the broken nature of the college admissions process. I know, I know, we’ve read about twenty of these so far this year, and I almost skipped right over it because of that. But this was a good article that’s worth a read, particularly for parents of sophomores or juniors who are about to start the process in earnest.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We still have a few stragglers whose private schools haven’t opened yet, but our whole team enjoyed having a few minutes during the school day to breathe this week since most of our students were back at school. Of course, this just means that afternoons are busier than ever!

Hope everyone had a great first week! My two are very happy to be back at their respective schools and I’m crossing my fingers that ALL of our kids are able to attend in-person school all year long!!

And if you are getting back into the swing of things and already at home Sunday afternoon working on homework, check out the NWHE Virtual Information Session featuring Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins, Wash U and Emory. Don’t forget to sign up in advance!

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Introducing: Our Pro Bono Program!

A few weeks ago, we announced our pro bono program in partnership with the Fieldstone Foundation. We are so excited to be able to serve more students through this program, and we wanted to take some time today to tell you more about our new project and answer your questions!

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What is the Pro Bono program?

As you know if you are a client or regular reader of the blog, we at DC College Counseling specialize in helping students who need one-on-one assistance with the college process. However, there are many students out there who need some extra support, but don’t have the ability to pay. While we love helping students, we know that there are ongoing issues of equity in educational consulting and in the college process as a whole. We are so excited to be able to help in a small way by providing one-on-one college counseling services to economically disadvantaged students, completely free of charge for the student and family!

What is the Fieldstone Foundation?

The reason that we are able to make this happen! One of our favorite clients and an active FCPS parent, Heather Hawa, founded the Fieldstone Foundation and is providing generous support that will allow us to do this work without passing on any of the costs to the student. In Heather’s own words: 

“I AM SO INSPIRED BY THE SERVICES DC COLLEGE COUNSELING HAS PROVIDED MY FAMILY. I AM A FIRST GENERATION COLLEGE GRAD SO I APPRECIATE THE VALUE OF A COLLEGE DEGREE. I WANT TO MAKE THE SAME SUCCESS POSSIBLE FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF COLLEGE STUDENTS.”

Who is eligible?

Students who are enrolled in grades 10, 11, or 12 for the 2021-2022 academic year who reside in Fairfax County and receive free or reduced price lunch at school are eligible to apply. 

We hope that students who are interested in this program are eager to maximize their application strategy and demonstrate their commitment and desire to succeed in the college process and beyond.

How are students selected for the program?

Students interested in the pro bono program can fill out our application. If we receive more applications from students than we have spots in the program, we’ll evaluate them based on their essays, passion, and determination when it comes to being successful in the college process. 

We will review applications on a rolling basis, so apply as soon as possible! In order to ensure that we can provide dedicated time and assistance to each student, we will not accept applications once all slots are filled.

Are pro bono students treated differently from full-pay students?

No! While pro Bono students will have a different package that provides a more standardized set of services and meetings, they will receive access to all of the resources that we use with our full-pay students. These include a customized college plan through College Kickstart, a paid subscription to the Wow Writing Workshop college essay curriculum, access to weekly drop-in hours for ongoing assistance, and reminders and support to keep track of tasks and provide accountability, as well as strategy sessions and meetings with our essay coaches. 

If there are any needs that we are not able to meet, we can provide recommendations and referrals to other resources, such as College Access Fairfax.

What can I do to help?

Spread the word! We are currently accepting applications for our first class of pro bono students, so if you know anyone who may be interested (or want to pass on the opportunity to your own school counselor), please let them know and send them to our website: http://www.dccollegecounseling.com/probono.

How can I learn more about the program?

If you can’t find the information that you need on our website or in this post, email Shannon or give us a call at (703) 66-ADMIT ((703) 662-3648).

Weekly Update: August 20

We made it!!!! The weeks between August 1 and the start of the school year for FCPS are always the craziest of the year for our office.. but we reached the finish line and have so many students finished as a result. Because of this, we just took a few students off our Late Start Waitlist this past week- don’t hesitate to reach out if you are a rising senior family that needs some last-minute help!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

FACULTY PROTEST LAX COVID-19 REQUIREMENTS, AND STUDENTS SEEK TO SPREAD INFORMATION

Tensions are on high this week as students have returned to campus and cases have risen. At Duke, more then 100 mostly-vaccinated students tested positive, which is very alarming. As a result, faculty at many colleges and universities are protesting the lack of strict COVID-19 precautions on campus. At Penn State, the faculty senate passed a vote of no confidence in the administration’s plan to allow unvaccinated students to return to campus. And students heading to Clemson may be in for a surprise - faculty are planning a walkout on the first day of classes to protest the lack of a mask mandate. 

Yet the faculty aren’t the only ones concerned! Students at 40 different colleges and universities across the country have joined the Covid Campus Coalition, an organization founded by a Cornell student, and are working on TikTok and Instagram campaigns to educate their peers with science-backed information.

DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH COLLEGE REALLY COSTS?

Turns out, many students and families underestimate the cost of attending college. On average, parents of high school students expect to pay $22,000 annually, even when asked to include room and board, books, and fees. In actuality, this number isn’t too far off for students who attend in-state public colleges, but students interested in private schools can expect to pay more than double: $51,000 per year on average. And keep in mind - that’s an average that encompasses many types of private institutions. The more selective private colleges that many of our students put on their lists cost right around $80,000, all in.

VACCINE REQUIREMENT RULING SETS A PRECEDENT

Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s denial of the lawsuit against Indiana University, which we covered on the blog a few weeks back, may have set a precedent about what colleges and other organizations are allowed to require of their students. It sets up a way, for instance, for the NCAA to require that student-athletes be vaccinated - something that hasn’t occurred yet, but that we’ll be watching closely as the Delta variant continues to spread. 

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

We know that parents are getting nervous about sending kids off to school, and I LOVED the advice in this guide for parents of new college students and thought that so much of this was spot on - except the frequency of contact part. To the contrary, I actually think it would be almost strange for an 18 year old NOT to be in touch with a parent once per day or so via text to say hi. I am 36 and I still text with my mom most days! These don't need to be long conversations but just a way to stay in touch. Also, if you have a student at UVa, there was exactly one spot left in the author’s class as of earlier this morning!

On a more somber note, this article is definitely worth reading for the parents of any (soon-to-be) freshman boys (and though the article is specific to boys, a lot of the advice could help parents of girls too!). But generally, boys tend to share less with close friends and family, and so may need a more watchful eye to make sure that they are staying healthy and taking care of themselves when they’re away from home. 

This interview with University of Maryland president Darryll Pines is a much-needed shot of hope in a time that has been so tumultuous for higher education. Despite the crises in his first year as president (a global pandemic and a nationwide racial reckoning), he turned these challenges into opportunities for UMD to change and move forward.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Good luck to all of the FCPS students heading back to school next week! And a special congratulations to our rising seniors, who have been putting in serious work on essays and applications and are on the final stretch.

If your student is heading back to school, now is the perfect time to check out academic coaching. Many students and families don’t think they need a coach when the workload hasn’t started up yet, but really, this can be the most effective time to start working with a coach! Shannon can help your student go through their syllabus, plan out major projects and assignments, and work on figuring out what organizational systems and study skills work best for them - before things get too crazy later in the semester. Book an academic coaching Meet & Greet to talk more with her about how we can help your student succeed. Trust me, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and you don’t want to be scrambling to bring up grades and complete late work during finals week! 

And for students who struggled with finding productive opportunities for enrichment this summer, you’re in luck! Cornell is offering their pre-college program online this fall, including some little-known language courses and an Introduction to Evolution and Diversity. A great way for a student interested in biology or environmental science to get some helpful experience this fall. 

Lastly, we can’t sign off without mentioning that we can't get the situation in Afghanistan out of our minds this week. If anyone knows of any refugee families in the DC area who need help with anything relating to education as they are resettling, please let us know. It’s so hard to watch this without being able to help in some way, and it would make us feel good to be able to do something useful for them - whether helping to get their children placed in the right classes at school, finding ESL courses, or anything else related to secondary, higher, or even elementary education. Let us know if there is a need and we will either take care of it ourselves or find someone who can. You can email me (Colleen) directly here.

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Tips for Organizing Your College Applications (and a Cautionary Tale!)

Our students are starting to submit their applications - yay! Unfortunately, the process doesn’t end just because they click “review and submit.” In many ways, that’s when they really need to start paying attention to details!

Each school has different requirements for applications (recommendations, test scores, transcripts, etc.) and will keep track of those requirements in different ways, in different status portals, with different login information and passwords… you get the idea.

It is incredibly important for every applicant to make sure that they find a way to keep their application components organized. Otherwise, you could have a nightmare scenario (stay tuned) where an admissions committee is unable to review your application because you’re missing important documents and aren’t aware of the problem in time to fix it.

We already do this with all of our clients as part of our regular service offerings. No missing materials on our watch, that’s for sure! But if you are a non-client blog reader, you will need to find a way to monitor components that works for you. Here are some of our favorite ways to keep track of all the elements you need:

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Asana

In our office, we use Asana to keep track of all our students’ applications. The best way I can describe it is that it’s similar to an electronic version of a list, with a lot of really cool functions like reminders, messaging, project-sharing and more.

If you like lists and you appreciate efficiency, it’s hard not to fall in love like I did. While we have a version of Asana that is meant for businesses, they also offer a free version that can work well for keeping track of personal tasks too! This is the one I make the other members of my household use so that we can link our accounts and collaborate together :)

Here is an example of a status chart for one of our students in Asana: 

But once students apply, we’re keeping track of different materials, to ensure that their file is complete:

Note that any form of organization that you use should contain this basic information: how you access the status portal, your login information, the materials the college has already received, and the materials that are currently missing as of given dates. We also like Asana because there is an app with push notifications, so our students can keep track of everything on their phones!

Trello

Trello is another service with a free level that can help students to keep everything organized, and it has an app too. We actually used Trello in our office for one admissions cycle back when we caught the project management bug and hadn’t discovered Asana yet. While we like Asana better, we still appreciate Trello, and it’s particularly great for people who are more visual and like a high-level overview without seeing all of the details.

The nice thing about these online services is that the student, parents, and anyone else helping with the application can all access the information and mark things off in real time. That way, parents don’t have to worry that the spreadsheet they have is no longer up to date, and students will know any changes parents make to the application. You can opt in for notifications every time someone else makes a change, too.

Trello uses kanban boards to help the user sort components into different categories:

You can also add checklists to individual tasks within a board, which helps to break some of the big tasks down into their smaller parts (and make sure you don’t forget anything!):

Google Sheets

You can also use free software like Google Sheets (or something similar, such as an Excel spreadsheet), which is perhaps not quite as fun but will get the job done. This type of system is probably best for a student who doesn’t need a lot of reminders, as it is much harder to set up automatic notifications in this system than in some of the others we mentioned. Or for parents who aren’t comfortable with learning new technology and like to keep things old-school.

The reason we prefer Google Sheets to Excel is that the file lives on a cloud. This makes it easy to share with parents and anyone else that needs to be able to keep track of applications in real time, and it’s also easy for students to update at any time without needing to be at their personal computer.

No, it’s not as pretty, but it’s functional:

P.S. - this is Shannon’s actual application spreadsheet from when she was applying to college! She’s learned a few new tools since then, but still stays just as organized :)

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If you’re not bought in yet, I’ll leave you with a true story that resulted in a major change for us here at DC College Counseling:

Long ago, we let families decide how involved they’d like us to be after application submission.

Many decided that they didn’t need professional help at this point and opted to take care of tracking components themselves with varying degrees of success (although a lot of times we’d hear back a few weeks later asking for our help after all!).

One winter morning, I woke up to a panicked email from one of my favorite students who had repeatedly assured us he had taken care of all the tracking.

Great kid, super smart, Mr. Personality - he was really a lot of fun to work with. For all of his positive qualities, he was not so amazing at checking email or just following through on tasks in general. Not to stereotype, but I am sure we all know a number of young men who would fit in this category :)

But this student was very confused because he did not receive an admissions decision from one of his top schools on their decision release date the way his peers did. Weird, right?

Several months earlier, he had asked his mom to send his ACT scores to all of his schools, and so she did. She forgot that one of his schools required the ACT with Writing (at the time - not anymore). Unfortunately, she did not send his ACT with Writing score - she sent a different score from an administration without the writing component.

This was such an easy mistake to make. Anyone could have done this, and the mistake itself was not the issue. The issue was the fact that we were not aware of the mistake.

The school emailed him a few reminders to set up and monitor his post-application status portal, but he missed the emails. Most schools don’t even send email reminders, by the way. They just expect that students are taking care of post-submission tracking on their own.

As soon as I got involved and learned that he’d never set up his portal, I knew that his lack of decision notification wasn’t because the mailman was late that day, and that we were likely not going to be happy with the outcome. I helped him find the emails and set up portal access.

We immediately discovered that the Portal showed he had not fulfilled the test score submission requirement, so his application remained incomplete for months, and they ultimately withdrew him from consideration without his knowledge.

This would have literally taken all of five minutes to fix if we had known about it when it occurred. But we just never knew! So all of his hard work - three supplemental essays, a visit there, that extraordinarily time-consuming business school portfolio (if you know, you know!).. it was all for nothing. We are talking about 10+ hours of work literally thrown away. The school never even read the application.

At that point, I decided that we were going to start keeping track of application components whether our families believe they need our help or not!

It all goes back to one of my favorite sayings, “if you don’t know, you don’t know,” and many people just don’t understand what a big deal application component tracking is. I feel a professional responsibility to make sure things like this don’t happen on my watch!

We then modified our packages to include specific hours dedicated to administrative work, including those ever-popular ongoing reminders from Donna as well as the application status tracking this post explains. These are the same packages we have today.

And because we have access to every single portal, nothing like this could ever happen again, and it never has, despite the process becoming so much more complicated all these years later.

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Moral of the story? Whether you go with Asana, Trello, Google Sheets or something else entirely, the important thing is that you have all of the information you need in one place both during the application process and well after submission.

Moreover, you need to monitor your portal carefully until all materials are accounted for and the application file is considered complete. Only then can you breathe a sign of relief and put everything aside until decision day!

Want more about the ins and outs of applications? Check out these posts!

Weekly Update: August 13

Another busy August week, another late weekly update :)

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

AND IT BEGINS.. (OR NOT?)

Ughhhhh. The University of Florida is planning to switch back to virtual learning for the first three weeks of classes during the fall semester. I wonder if this is going to be the first of many such decisions? Closer to the home front, FCPS is holding a “Return to School Town Hall” next week and they appear to be optimistic about sending kids back for five days. Fingers crossed!

Edited 8/14: Looks like UF reversed course on this after all! There was a lot of backlash last night, and the school sent out another email to the campus community less than 24 hours later.

COLLEGES AND VACCINES

Another week with a huge amount of news about colleges and vaccine requirements (or lack thereof). The issue of vaccines for colleges has gone beyond the campuses themselves, with state and local lawmakers weighing in on vaccinations. While Texas public colleges are not allowed to require vaccines (and UT Austin plans to start its school year online for this reason), the city of Philadelphia has issued a vaccine requirement for colleges. 

Vaccine requirements are likely to stand, at least for now - the Supreme Court recently rejected a case that students brought against Indiana University’s requirement. But if you are thinking about faking your vaccination status to attend school next year, don’t! This wouldn’t only lead to disciplinary action from the school, but is also a federal crime. Not to mention, you certainly don’t want to be the cause of a campus outbreak.  

P.S. If you’re headed to Tennessee State in the fall, get your vaccine on campus before August 27 and receive a $100 gift card!

SMALL COLLEGES CHARGE “COVID FEE”

In one example of an extreme vaccine incentive, West Virginia Wesleyan College has announced its intention to charge unvaccinated students a $750 “COVID fee” to cover the costs for testing on campus. So though the college does not mandate the vaccine, there is certainly a cost to not receiving one.

Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama implemented a similar fee, charging unvaccinated students $500 in lieu of a vaccination mandate. So don’t be fooled by the article in the Onion - these COVID fees are a real thing!

ELITE COLLEGES REQUIRE COVID-19 TESTING

This week, Stanford joined Brown, Harvard, and Princeton in requiring mandatory weekly COVID tests for all students, even those who have already been vaccinated. Students will also be required to wear face masks on campus. This is a shift in the university’s previous policy, which allowed vaccinated students to skip weekly testing.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Jeff Levy and Jennie Kent are two educational consultants who take the time every year to compile data on RD and ED decision rates - and I always look forward to it! They put it together based on the Common Data Set information, which is really the most updated and the only truly accurate information available online.

We highly recommend that students and families check out the CDS data for themselves - it is easy to find if you Google the school’s name and “Common Data Set,” because most schools make the data publicly available - they just don’t advertise it! But knowing this information is really key to educating yourself on the difference between ED and RD acceptance rates.

Here are some standouts from this year:

On a lighter note, we always love to check out dorm room decor, which has gotten more and more elaborate in recent years! According to a study from Deloitte, Americans will spend nearly $7 billion on dorm room appliances, furniture, and decor. This article covers many of the retailers and online spaces where parents and students are discussing and purchasing their dorm room decor for next year.

Can you believe those are DORM ROOMS? Incredible. And speaking of dorm rooms, this was a sweet blog post on Grown & Flown about taking time to grieve after dropping your kids off at college.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Hard to believe we are halfway through August already! We have been starting to submit applications with several of our seniors, and even more of them are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as they finish up their essays. We had MULTIPLE students who completed 8-10 essays in this past week alone - their hard work is so impressive and inspiring for all of us.

Despite some power outages last week (for us and for our clients), we still managed to have over 100 hours of client meetings this week - and that doesn’t include all the post-meeting follow-up! Shannon or I do an additional review of every single supplemental essay, so there’s a lot of behind the scenes work.. not to mention Donna tracking every single document, appointment, you name it for every single kid (she is a saint)!

Have a great weekend!

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Interview Series 3 - Make a Good Impression

If you’ve read our previous interview series posts, you’ve signed up for the interview and prepared some questions to ask your interviewer. Now the day is here, and while you know you’ve got the content prepared, you’re worried about making an impression. Well, you’ve come to the right place! Read on for our tips to put your best foot forward during your interview - before you even say a word.

Lay out your outfit the night before.

Choosing what to wear (and making sure it’s clean!) the day before your interview will eliminate a lot of stress for you in the morning. Sometimes, the school will provide guidelines about attire in your interview invitation or confirmation email, so make sure to read those carefully. If you’re still not sure, err on the side of dressing more formally: a shirt and jacket for boys and a nice blouse and skirt or slacks for girls are usually appropriate! Business casual should be your default, even in a more informal informational interview - remember, every time you interact with the admissions office, you’re making an impression. 

(Note - If you’re wondering what to wear for a campus visit that does NOT involve an interview, check out our blog post on the subject here).

Avoid fidgeting!

Especially when you’re nervous, it’s natural to get a bit fidgety. You might not even notice you’re doing it! So eliminating anything that you’re tempted to play with is a good idea. That means avoiding necklaces, bracelets, watches, or earrings that you’ll be tempted to toy with, and even pinning or slicking back the front of your hair so that you don’t feel the need to push it out of your face. And if you are interviewing on Zoom, avoid sitting in an office chair that spins - that spinning will be very tempting during the interview!

Pay attention to your introduction.

Some research shows that it takes as little as a tenth of a second for someone to make an impression of who you are - so it definitely doesn’t hurt to make sure those first few seconds of the interview leave a positive impression on the interviewer. When you meet them, introduce yourself warmly, smile, and make eye contact. If you need to wait for the interviewer in a waiting room or Zoom room, sit and look around or read brochures about the school if they are provided - you don’t want the interviewer to walk in/log on and see you looking at your phone.

Arriving ten minutes early is a great way to calm your nerves. You could even find a private place to take some deep breaths or even strike a power pose, and walk into the interview feeling confident. 

But don’t arrive too early - when I worked in admissions, it would always drive me a little crazy when kids showed up 30-60+ minutes in advance - and a huge number actually did this. I’m sure they thought that showing up earlier would make them look better, but this was not the case at all.

Instead, I would feel unspoken pressure in these situations to start before our scheduled time if I wasn’t in a different meeting. This would in turn disrupt my schedule and often meant that I had to cut my lunch short! And you don’t want your interviewer to start off the interview annoyed and hungry, trust me :)

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Interviews can be nerve-wracking, but this is really an exciting opportunity - you get to show the admissions office who you are and help them put a face and a personality to the words on your application! You are meeting with someone who wants you to be successful, because that’s how they’ll get to know you better.

Follow these tips and walk into the interview with confidence, and you’ll be ready for a valuable conversation! If you need more help, though, you can always book an interview preparation session to work on these tips with one of our coaches. 

Want more about essays and interviews? Check out these posts!

Weekly Update: August 7

August is here, and we are busy!

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

DC SCHOOLS GRAPPLE WITH COVID-19 LAWSUITS

American, Georgetown, George Washington, Howard, Catholic, George Mason, and the University of Maryland are among many other universities around the country that have been sued by current or former students for partial refunds of tuition fees. The students argue that they paid tuition expecting an in-person education, and the online schooling during COVID-19 is a breach of contract. There doesn’t seem to be a consensus yet on whether these suits have merit - the cases against Georgetown, George Washington, and American have been dismissed, while those against Howard, Catholic, and George Mason have been allowed to proceed. 

CALLING ALL DC AREA FUTURE LEADERS!

ABC and McDonald’s are seeking nominations for high school and college-age students with strong leadership skills and experience to be featured on the evening news’ “Future Leaders” segment. If you know a student whose leadership and service is an inspiration to the community, complete the form to nominate them!

DISABILITY ACCOMMODATIONS AT FCPS

If your student receives accommodations from school, unfortunately they do not carry over to the PSAT or SAT (though luckily, the ACT recently announced that it will give students accommodations from their IEP or 504 plan!). If you are an FCPS student planning to take a test on the October 13 test date this fall, you will need to submit an accommodation request by August 10 (this Tuesday!) to receive accommodations for the exams. 

Speaking of accommodations, FCPS students seeking them for dual enrollment classes will also need to submit an accommodation request through the college or university where they are taking the class, as well as through their high school. Submit your requests sooner rather than later to make sure that you receive the accommodations you need!

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

A few weeks ago, we featured an article about students taking out loans for graduate school that they were unable to pay back. Some of you may have read that article thinking, “Well yeah, of course, if you go to graduate school for art or film, you’ll graduate with a lot of debt!” But even the graduate schools that were once considered “sure bets” may no longer be the best financial choice. With the job market so uncertain during COVID-19, law schools too have seen a big increase in applications, but law students are already graduating with high levels of debt. 

We often tell undergraduate students to pay less attention to the school rankings - fit is much more important at the undergraduate level, and the rankings usually do not accurately reflect the student experience (for example, the number of books in the library is a big factor for US News, but usually NOT a factor at all in whether someone enjoys their four years at college!). When it comes to graduate schools, though, rankings do matter, and it is usually students at top-tier law schools that find high-paying jobs after graduation. But salaries for most legal jobs are not rising at the same pace as tuition, and students graduating from lower-ranked schools may find themselves with a lot of debt and no way to pay it off. And this will only increase in the next few years, as more students than ever graduate from law school and the job market becomes more saturated!

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

Week 1 of August is done! Many of our students have rolled over their Common ApplicationⓇ, our essay coaches continue to work through supplemental essays, and we are so impressed with how hard our students are working! For many of them, this is the final stretch - and they will definitely see their hard work pay off this fall! 

Finishing up with our current seniors this month also means that we will have space opening up in the fall for Late-Start Seniors. If you are interested in working with us this fall, check out our Late Start Waitlist page for more information!

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Meet Sarah!

Our newest essay coach, Sarah, is guest blogging with an introduction today!

Many of you have already met her in essay coaching meetings, and we hope this post helps you get to know her a little better.

Hi, everyone! My name is Sarah Zentner and I am so excited to be joining the DC College Counseling team as a new essay coach.  

My own common app essay consisted of the life lessons I’d learned from the scraps that I was always appalled to find under the lunch tables in first grade -- and while it has yet to be required reading for any college philosophy class (I’m still holding out hope!), it was a blast to write. 

With that essay, I applied to a number of small (primarily West Coast) liberal arts colleges and ultimately decided on the University of San Diego. Only a six hour drive down I-15 from my childhood home in Las Vegas, and decked out in gorgeous Spanish-Renaissance-style architecture, the setting was ideal. But the small class sizes, strong sense of campus community, and proximity to the Pacific (with ocean views from campus!) sealed the deal.

I declared an English major during my sophomore year, thanks to an incredible Intro to Shakespeare class and my new job in the campus writing center. Both of these experiences showed me how much I love working with words and writers, and that’s a passion that has energized me to this day! After graduating from USD, I went on to pursue my M.A. in English at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and now I’m here in D.C., earning my Ph.D. in English at Catholic University. When I’m not studying, you can find me scoping out the best chai latte in D.C., wandering in a bookstore or museum, or indulging in all things “hygge.” 

I connected with DC College Counseling earlier this spring, and I am so grateful to be a part of a team that’s committed to de-mystifying the college applications process and making it as stress-free as possible. Essay writing can be an intimidating part of that process, but I want you to feel encouraged and supported every step of the way.

There’s something deeply fulfilling to me about helping others write clear and engaging content -- especially when it’s serving a goal as important and defining as helping you attend the college of your dreams! As we work together in the coming months, I’m looking forward to hearing more about your experiences and interests, your college plans, and your long-term hopes for the future. I’m excited to meet you!

Want to meet with Sarah?

You can book a session right here!

Wondering who our other essay coaches are?

• Here’s Alan, with Top Tips for Success as a College Freshman (a.k.a. Read the Syllabus)

• Here’s McClain, with Maximizing the High School Experience: A Teacher’s Perspective

• Here’s Staci, our student success coach!

Weekly Update: July 30

Hard to believe this is already our final July blog post! We are working hard to gear up for August :)

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

COMMON APPLICATION® RELEASE

The 2021-2022 Common Application® will be released Sunday, August 1, after a several-day shutdown period.  We’re excited! We will be hard at work updating all of our application guides, and our clients and membership vault subscribers will have access early next week!

SUNI LEE HEADED TO AUBURN UNIVERSITY

Suni Lee, the American gymnast who just won gold in the all-around gymnastics competition, has big plans for after her return: she’ll be reporting to Auburn University just a week after returning from Tokyo for her freshman year. She’ll be attending the university on a gymnastics scholarship, and said she looks forward to a more fun, less highly competitive experience. 

WALMART PAYS COLLEGE TUITION FOR EMPLOYEES

Walmart announced Tuesday that it will be doing away with the $1 a day fee that employees formerly paid for college, and now pay for 100% college tuition. They will also pay for books. The program allows employees to choose from ten different academic partners, including the University of Arizona and Southern New Hampshire University. Walmart is the country’s largest employer, with 1.5 million employees. 

UPENN ADDS BITCOIN TO PORTFOLIO

After receiving a $5 million donation in bitcoin earlier this year, the University of Pennsylvania confirmed that it still holds some of the funding in the cryptocurrency. Penn typically immediately liquidates these types of donations as per university policy, but in this case the anonymous donor wanted the university to hold onto some of the donation (it did liquidate a portion).

COLLEGES PROVIDE VACCINATION INCENTIVES FOR STUDENTS

While many colleges have announced that they will be requiring students to get vaccinated, some have gone beyond the requirement to provide incentives to vaccinated students. Auburn University, for example, is giving prizes like $1,000 scholarships, meal plan upgrades, and prime parking spots to vaccinated students. The University of Alabama is offering all vaccinated students $20 in Bama Cash to spend at restaurants and stores around Tuscaloosa. Rider University in New Jersey and Ohio Wesleyan University are taking it a step further - Rider will choose three vaccinated students at random to win a year of free tuition, and Ohio Wesleyan has opened up fifty additional spots for incoming vaccinated first-year or transfer students. Each of these fifty students will be eligible to receive a $25,000 scholarship as long as they meet basic admissions criteria. Pretty good!

“Currently, only a handful of colleges in Ohio are requiring all students to be vaccinated,” said Stefanie Niles, Ed.D., Ohio Wesleyan’s vice president for enrollment and communications. “We know that many students out there would prefer to live and learn on a campus where they feel safe and where they know they won’t have to experience another year of mask-wearing and social distancing.”

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

COVID-19 is continuing to impact college enrollment. After record low levels of enrollment last year, many schools were hoping to recoup tuition dollars and see a more typical campus environment in the fall. But with the spread of the Delta variant, over one-third of college-age students are reconsidering their college plans. Some will go to college closer to home, or attend a community college to save money. Others won’t go to college at all. 

The impact on students who did continue their education during the pandemic exists as well. While the college Class of 2021 will likely have an easier time with the job search than the Class of 2020, this is still a strange year, with many students still looking for full-time employment. If you are searching for your first post-grad job, check out this article with tips to stand out during the hiring process.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We are completely full for Class of 2022 students in our initial cohort, but have spots on our Late Start Waitlist for students who still need assistance beginning in late August/early September. Check out our Late Start Waitlist page if you’re wondering how it works, and fill out this form to be added to the list!

In other news, Common App® is rolling over from the 2020-2021 version to the 2021-2022 version this weekend, and we will hit the ground running on Monday with our Class of 2022 students as we help them navigate this rollover process. Check out our June 11 weekly update for a quick refresher of what that entails!

August is our busiest month of the year, but we love seeing our students’ hard work all come together!

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