Boy, do we like Jay Mathews, Education Columnist for the Washington Post and author of one of our favorite admissions books, Harvard Schmarvard. And his most recent column, "Ten Ways to Reduce College Application Stress" reminds us why.
Some of the tips actually suggest ways the colleges could do more to ease the stress on kids, like tip #3, "Make the super selective colleges tell all potential applicants that their admissions processes are often irrational and that getting accepted is akin to winning a lottery."
I like tip #9 the best–"Repeat this phrase every day: In America, people succeed because of the quality of their character, not the notoriety of their college."
And as usual, he's got great data to back it up.
Thanks Jay!