For seniors on the wait list at one or more of your chosen colleges, don’t miss this recent advice from Jay Mathews from the Washington Post (and author of Harvard, Schmarvard).

The new blog layout is up and running, but we’ve had a few technical hiccups. If you’re a subscriber, or if you follow the blog on Twitter or Facebook, many of you did not receive yesterday’s post. We’re still getting the subscriber functionality to work well, but in the interim, you can always visit the blog directly at www.wiselikeus.com. Thanks for reading and for being patient while we iron out the kinks.

We remind all of our Collegewise families to celebrate every offer of admission, whether it’s a reach school, a slam-dunk safety or somewhere in between. Here’s an example of a family who’s doing this right:

This student’s mother bought a pennant for every college that accepted him. They’re not reserving their celebration for the dream schools. Having college options is worth celebrating, no matter what name appears in the acceptance letter or on the pennant. While he’s deciding which school to attend, I can’t imagine he has any doubt as to whether or not his parents are proud of him.  I’m sharing the photo here with their permission.

Parents, whether or not your student is happy with a particular acceptance, celebrate anyway. Lead by example and your kids will follow (even if they feign teenage embarrassment).

I always find it jarring when a blog or website I visit regularly gets a dramatic overnight makeover. So I wanted to give readers a heads up that while the writing and the writer (me) will be staying the same, over the next few days, the look of my blog will be changing.

The current blog layout has stayed pretty much the same since 2007. Collegewise has a new logo now.  We have new colors.  And it’s not “College admissions advice from the counselors at Collegewise” anymore.  It’s been nearly five years of college admissions advice from one person—me—the original counselor at Collegewise.  It’s my blog, but I write it as an extension of Collegewise. It needs to more accurately reflect both of us.

At Collegewise, we’re always telling our students that they should be their authentic selves in their college applications.  These changes are just my way of following our advice. Thanks, as always, for reading.

The Ebook version of If the U Fits will be released on April 29. You can pre-order at:

One of the surest ways to inject stress and uncertainty into the college admissions process is to fixate too much on things you can’t control, like outcomes.  Will your dream college say yes?  Will you break 2000 on the SAT?  Will you be named MVP, lead in the school play or shift manager at your part-time job?

You can and should do everything you can to influence those outcomes. But control is a different story.  And one of the most powerful tools of influence you have, and one which is entirely in your control, is your effort.

In his book, Mark Cuban, self-made billionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, describes the role of effort in his own success:

“In sports, the only thing a player can truly control is effort. The same applies to business. The only thing any entrepreneur, salesperson or anyone in any position can control is their effort… And finally, I had to make sure I wasn’t lying to myself about how hard I was working. It would have been easy to judge effort by how many hours a day passed while I was at work. That’s the worst way to measure effort.”

That’s good advice for any age, no matter what your definition of success is.

If you want to have a more successful, less stressful college admissions journey, relentlessly focus on those things that are in your control, like effort. And parents, reinforce this by acknowledging your student’s effort rather than the outcomes alone.

Few counselors have the luxury of unlimited time to meet with students. So it’s important to make every meeting count.  One way to make sure you address the most important issues for a student is to just ask:

“Before we start, what are the three most important things you’d like to discuss today?”

Now, the counselor can decide the order of operations.  Which issue needs to be addressed first?  Which needs the most time?  Is one issue solved by addressing a different one first?

A teenager may not order the agenda in the way that allots the right time to each topic.  But a counselor has the ability and the training to do it.

Rather than allowing the student to dive into the first item, set the agenda first.  It takes less than one minute to do it, but just might help make the rest of the meeting that much more valuable for both parties.

Many college applications ask if you’ve ever been subject to a disciplinary action while in high school.  And as I’ve written before, the strongest responses to those questions come when a student takes responsibility for the infraction, expresses remorse, and describes what he or she has learned from the experience.

But those expressions of remorse will carry a lot more weight if you’ve taken responsibility and apologized long before you had to describe the incident on a college application.

If you’ve been disciplined at school, express your remorse now—to your teacher, counselor, principal, or whoever else had to do the disciplining. It will give more weight to your promise to the college that you feel badly about what you did and that you’ve learned something from the experience.