Tag: College Prep
The Future of Higher Education Post COVID-19
The landscape for higher education is always evolving. In recent months, the COVID-19 pandemic has catalyzed unprecedented levels of change, leaving many students and families with the same question: what will the future of college look like? Although there’s no crystal ball to use for absolute certainty, several trends have emerged that foreshadow what might be next for higher education.
Back to School Advice from an Expert Tutor
This back-to-school season, I think it's important for students to take a step back and get inspired by a few pieces of advice that have helped many students in the past and remain valuable for everyone, no matter where they are in their educational journey. Students need to focus on the things that matter most to them and give themselves permission to work as hard as they can at those things. But these do not need to be the same conclusions that each person draws.
Without Test Scores, How do Colleges Make Decisions?
The process of preparing for, taking, and responding to standardized test scores is a stressful and overwhelming one for students and families, and with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, this process has only become more stressful in recent years. One of the ways that colleges have responded to the pandemic's obstacles is to implement test-optional admissions policies to avoid disadvantaging students who have been unable to sit for an ACT or SAT. This was a sudden and drastic shift that left many students and families with questions about how it will impact their own applications.
The Myth of the Well-Rounded Student: Colleges Want Specialists
“To get into a good college, do I need to play an instrument, join a team sport, participate in community service, run for student government, win robotics and writing competitions, sing in the school musical, write for the newspaper, and design the yearbook cover?” One of the most common questions I receive as a college counselor is some version of the above. As the college admissions process becomes increasingly competitive and opaque, students feel pressured to do it all.
Staying Engaged with Language Learning Over Summer Break
For students studying a foreign language, learning doesn't have to stop just because class is no longer in session. In fact, summer break is the perfect opportunity to engage with a language more informally in order to continue to learn and develop language skills outside of the classroom. Often, after a lot of classroom learning, a language learner will start overthinking the language, or get lost in the weeds and lose touch with the fundamentals of basic comprehension and expression.
2023-24 Common Application Guide
The Common Application for the 2023-24 college application season is officially open! While there were several significant changes made to the application last year, the Common App essay prompts will remain the same for the upcoming admissions cycle. The Common Application is the most widely used application for college admissions in the U.
3 Building Blocks for Successful College Prep
Preparation for college, and even post-graduate life, starts well before students begin filling out college applications. Decades of research has identified key qualities associated with student success, and understanding these studies can enable parents to help their children develop these qualities early on and reinforce them throughout high school and the college admissions process. Success in the college admissions process starts with the student.
3 Qualities of a Great College List
Building your college list is one of the most exciting parts of the admissions process. Although creating a college list can seem big and daunting, learning about yourself and where you’re going to thrive as a student and individual can be a lot of fun. But building a college list isn’t just about filling it up with “good schools.
Ten Ways to Demonstrate Interest in Colleges Over the School Year
By Krista, IvyWise College Admissions Counselor and Former and Former Assistant Director of Admissions at Johns Hopkins University Demonstrated interest is an important part of the college application process, and there are a lot of ways for students to show their interest in colleges throughout the school year. Demonstrated interest is the amount of interaction and interest a student has shown in a particular college or university. This includes how they’ve interacted online, in person, and how they show they’ve done their research when applying (or informed interest).
3 Types of Students Who Should Consider a Liberal Arts Education
By Tasha, IvyWise College Admissions Counselor and Former Admissions Officer at the University of Southern California Have you dreamt of an intimate and intellectually rigorous college experience, one where you engage in deep classroom discussions around a single table with your professor and classmates? Seminar style classrooms, like the one described above, is the bread and butter of liberal arts colleges. The liberal arts model is all about small class size, critical thinking, inspiring classroom discussion, interdisciplinary learning and intellectual curiosity.
Standing Out in the Liberal Arts College Admissions Process
I’ve always been fond of the small but mighty group of institutions called liberal arts colleges. Maybe it’s because I began my admissions career at a liberal arts college. It might also be because, as numerous highly selective universities share that their number of applications increase by tens of thousands (and in some cases, eclipse 100,000!
Uncovering Your Passions Using the College Admissions Process
Most U.S. colleges and universities use a holistic review method when reviewing applicants for admission, considering various aspects of a student’s academic and personal record.
Applying to Art School: Understanding the Application Process
Interested in applying to visual or performing arts programs in college? The application process, while not completely different than regular undergraduate admissions, can be more nuanced and requires a lot more prep and consideration. From finding the best-fit program to putting together a portfolio, here’s what you need to know about applying to college as a fine arts student.
4 Reasons Why College Prep Can Be Fun
Who says preparing to apply to college can’t be enjoyable? Of course, college prep still involves working hard, earning the best grades possible, and achieving your target scores on standardized tests, but there’s a lot you can control about the process that can — and should — be fun. As a college admissions counselor, I’ve had students tell me that the process of applying to college helped them get to know themselves, and that they found the experience ultimately very enriching.
Crafting a Spring College Prep Plan
With all of the changes that have occurred during the 2020-2021 academic year, it’s understandable that many students may feel off track with their college prep going into the Spring semester. Even if you’re normally really good at sticking to a schedule, it can be challenging to stay accountable when there’s so much uncertainty surrounding the admissions process this fall. As a result of the ongoing disruption caused by COVID-19, some students may be delayed in beginning their college preparation.
5 College Prep Tips to Take With You to College
As college bound high school seniors anxiously await their admission decisions, the thought of actually preparing for life on campus tends to take a backseat until they learn of their acceptance. Luckily for many of these students, they already have the tools they need to succeed in college – they just need to know how to harness them. The college prep process may be over for college bound high school seniors, but there are a number of college prep tips that can carry students into their freshman year and throughout their college experience.
5 Easy Goals to Help You Begin Your College Prep
When I first meet freshmen, sophomores, or juniors who are just beginning to think about college and the application process, they often say that they are most worried about “getting in somewhere” and “getting all the work done.” Accomplishing these two things seems overwhelming to students – and understandably so. One way that students can get a head start on the process without feeling totally overwhelmed is to set some easy goals for themselves.
5 Questions to Help Students Prioritize Passions and Interests
Passion. People die for it, poets write about it, colleges look for it. Yet, it’s so easy for passion to get lost in the flurry of assignments and deadlines.
5 Things to Avoid When Building A Balanced College List
The balanced college list is arguably one of the most important college prep tasks that students will complete within the college admissions process. The college list not only guides where students will apply, but it also factors into students’ application strategy — which can help maximize their admission chances to their top-choice schools. Building a balanced college list, however, is not as simple as creating a laundry list of familiar schools to which a student will apply.
5 Ways Students Sabotage Their College Prep Without Realizing It
Preparing for college (and indeed for life!) requires steady effort throughout high school. However, even the most prepared of students can inadvertently hurt their college chances by making simple mistakes that are easily avoidable!
6 Things College-Bound Juniors Need to Do Now
Summer break is just around the corner and soon current high school juniors will be rising seniors starting the college application process! There’s a lot that college-bound juniors can do between now and summer break to ensure they’re ready to apply to college this fall. Junior year is the most critical college prep time, as it’s the last full year of grades that colleges will see, and the last chance students have to prepare for the college app process before they’re actually applying.