Now that I’m a parent, too, I’m keenly aware that nobody has found the one right way to raise kids. But the founders of Challenge Success, Madeline Levine (psychologist and author of Teach Your Children Well: Why Values and Coping Skills Matter More than Grades, Trophies, or ‘Fat Envelopes’) and Denise Pope (senior lecturer at Stanford […]
Read More >Expect great things
The Pygmalion Effect says that what one person expects from another often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Research has shown that when teachers have high expectations for students, those students perform better. The same is true with managers and employees. And yes, it’s also true for parents and their kids. The more you trust your kids, […]
Read More >Skin in the game
I’ve written before about how important it is for families to get college planning advice from the right sources. Your high school counselor, admissions reps, reputable private counselors—those sources are almost always more reliable than your friends and neighbors who may be quick to offer up advice about what colleges are looking for, how you […]
Read More >No wild swings
Seniors, if you’re thinking about starting a club on your high school campus this fall because you’re excited about it, because your school needs it, because you want to bring together like-minded students to do something interesting, or any other reason that doesn’t have to do with college admissions, well then, go forth and start […]
Read More >Kurt Vonnegut’s (college essay) advice
Kurt Vonnegut offers up eight tips for writing great short stories, seven of which are perfectly aligned with college essays, too. His portions are in bold. 1. “Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.” College essays don’t need a moral or […]
Read More >Failure as a recipe for success
One of my favorite stories to share at Collegewise seminars is that of my former student from many years ago, Meg, who wrote her college essay about the fact that she’d lost every election she had ever entered in high school (and there were lots). These were lopsided losses, too. But she was the first […]
Read More >The simple formula for getting things done
I’m heading off on vacation for the next ten days, with ten days’ worth of blog posts queued up and ready to post. Like most worker bees, I had plenty to do in preparation for my time off. But I got these blogs written the same way I’d advise a high school student to make […]
Read More >Is there more to be done where you are?
Before you add more activities to your after-school docket in the hopes of improving your college admissions odds, is there anything else to be done in or around what you’re already involved in? Could you take on more responsibility? Could you learn a related skill that might help you and/or the group? Could you initiate […]
Read More >Don’t worry
I’ve seen plenty of students and parents who spent the college admissions process in a constant state of worry. Worried about test scores. Worried about impressing prestigious colleges. Worried about whether or not their dream school will say yes. But I can’t recall a single time where any of that worrying actually changed the outcome […]
Read More >Not perfect, but not arbitrary
A recent op-ed piece by the mother of a college applicant (which I’m not sharing here because I think it will feed the flames of fear for some families) described the admissions process of certain selective colleges as “arbitrary,” much to the dismay of many admissions officers and high school counselors who expressed their disappointment […]
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