By Victoria Tillson Evans, Ph.D. There are a few challenges I expect to face with students year in and year out. First, most students will like their Reach Schools better than their Likely Schools, and some of my seniors will try to apply to zero Likely Schools (trust me, that is a no-no). Second, most..
By Adam Muri-Rosenthal, Ph.D. With the arrival of spring comes the honey-sweet smell of freshly budded cherry trees, the delight of extra daylight hours, and—for high school juniors—the stress of standardized tests, college application preparation, final exams, interviews… the list goes on! There simply is never a dull moment. And while preparing yourself for college..
By Victoria Tillson Evans, Ph.D. Everyone should do something that makes them happy at least once a day. As The Atlantic’s happiness expert, Arthur Brooks, notes, “[T]here is plenty of evidence that time spent daydreaming and enjoying non-work pursuits can lead to not just happiness but also better work performance and higher creativity.” Yet, not..
By Victoria Tillson Evans, Ph.D. As someone whose job is to help young people convey their innermost thoughts, strongest feelings, and most meaningful experiences to perfect strangers (namely admissions representatives), one question that has frequently arisen over the years is, “Should I talk about my mental health struggles?” As conversations about these topics become even..
By Nora Lessersohn, A.M. In the past few years, social, political, environmental, financial, and medical crises have made it abundantly clear that one’s race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or disability status directly affect/s their health, finances, work, education, and ability to live life itself. In response, colleges have started to ask their applicants to..
By Adam Muri-Rosenthal, Ph.D. American students are certainly no strangers to study abroad. Prior to the pandemic, nearly 350,000 US students per year chose—whether for a week, a summer, a semester, or more—to engage in academic study at institutions located outside the United States (NAFSA), primarily in Europe. The far lower number of students who..
By Victoria Tillson Evans, Ph.D. Have you ever failed at something that you were pretty confident you’d achieve? Maybe it was your sports team losing to the worst team in the league, or maybe it was not being able to figure out a server’s tip, even though you were planning to leave 20% on a..
By Adam Muri-Rosenthal, Ph.D. In early April 2021, Ivy League colleges announced their Fall admissions decisions. Continuing a now long-standing trend, they shared news of record-breaking application numbers and their stalwart companion, lower acceptance rates. Much like every year, the news leaves a select few students basking in the glow of their accomplishment, many thousands..
By Victoria Tillson Evans, Ph.D. Over a lunch of Peruvian chicken, two former clients probed me to find out what makes an accomplished student, you know, the kind that gets into the country’s most selective schools. They were curious to know what precisely the students did, what the parents did to help them, and what..
By Nora Lessersohn, A.M. We often hear from families: “It can’t hurt just to throw our hat in the ring at X school!” This is what you might call using “hope” as a strategy, ignoring data in the name of playing the lottery. While Barack Obama might disagree, hope, alone, is not at all likely..