Kevin McMullin

College admissions advice for students, parents, and counselors

Two events for San Francisco Bay Area families

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This month, Collegewise vice president and counselor extraordinaire, Arun Ponnusamy, will be speaking at two events in the San Francisco Bay Area. “Harvard, Berkeley, or Bust!” Featuring Arun Ponnusamy Wednesday, March 18 from 6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m. Santa Clara University Benson Memorial Center-California Mission Room 500 El Camino Real Santa Clara, CA 95050 Have […]

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The Collegewise Summer Planning Guide is here

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Collegewise counselors Tom Barry, Colleen Boucher, Sara Kratzok, and Liz Marx have written the Collegewise Summer Planning Guide. It’s full of great advice and suggestions for everything from formal programs, to part-time jobs, to experiences you design yourself. Best of all, it’s free to download (and share). This summer, I hope high school kids will also […]

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Reality isn’t a choice

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I preach often here that a sure path to college admissions stress is to obsess about the parts of the process that you can’t control. Far better to focus your energy on the things you can control, like your effort, interest in learning, character, etc.  And the ability to respond productively to an outcome you didn’t choose is an […]

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Steve Jobs on great work

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A follow-up to yesterday’s post about doing great work wherever you are.  From this Business Insider article about Steve Jobs: Jobs’s perspective (at least, as interpreted by Isaacson) frees you from a self-centered obsession with figuring out exactly what you want out of your job. This type of thinking almost always creates anxiety and confusion […]

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Focus on the work first

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This college student wants “the perfect unpaid internship”–a governmental summer fellowship. According to the article, she’s got reason to be stressed because, “summer internships are the new Harvard: prestigious, costly, insanely competitive and the presumed key to all future success.” I’m not sure what she’s so worried about. I’m all for college kids showing initiative and using their […]

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When the teacher is great

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Some students make excuses for under-performing in a class by blaming the teacher. “I only work hard if I like the teacher.” “The teacher and I had a personality conflict.” “It’s because the teacher didn’t like me.” I’ve written before about whether or not colleges accept those excuses (they don’t).  Great students find a way […]

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For counselors: combating confirmation bias

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Confirmation bias is the tendency to continuously find reasons to believe what you want to be true, no matter what argument or evidence is presented to contradict that desire. We all do it from time to time. But it can be particularly rampant in college admissions. I’ve met families who spent their student’s entire high […]

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What should a college admissions consultant do?

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From a recent blog post by Parke Muth, current admissions consultant and former Associate Dean of Admission at the University of Virginia: “I think anyone looking for a consultant should understand that there is not magic to the process. Consultants cannot get a less than great kid into an elite school…The most important things consultants do is to […]

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Just ask them

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Collegewise is now 37 full-timers strong, spread out over 23 offices in 11 states. One of the advantages of having such a large team is that we can always turn to our hive mind when we need help. No single counselor could anticipate everything we might face counseling students, working with families, and growing our offices. But with 37 Collegewisers […]

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