Blog – College Dollars and Sense – Page 3

Focus on Your… Flaws?

Distinctive College Consulting
Admissions
623 views

By Adam Muri-Rosenthal, Ph.D. Unlike the rest of your application—which is about telling colleges what you’ve done—the personal statement for the Common App is about telling them who you are. That’s…

Achievement Unlocked: How to Power-Up an Extracurricular Activity

Distinctive College Consulting
Admissions
631 views

By Adam Muri-Rosenthal, Ph.D. Having read the title of this post, you probably believe that it will give you all of the information you need to ensure your extracurricular activities will impress even…

Passion Projects Are the New Community Service

Distinctive College Consulting
Activities
946 views

By Victoria Tillson Evans, Ph.D. In a recent conversation with a student, something bothered me about her ideas for community service. It also bothered me that something about wanting to help others was…

Waitlisted? Now What?

Distinctive College Consulting
Admissions
810 views

By Victoria Tillson Evans, Ph.D. For many students, landing on a college waitlist hurts. Some even (wrongly) perceive it as a failure (trust me, it’s not). They might even question what they didn’t…

What Do You Really Care About?

Distinctive College Consulting
Admissions
720 views

By Adam Muri-Rosenthal, Ph.D. No college information session would be complete without a colorful Powerpoint peppered with grandiose value statements. Diversity! Sustainability! Intellectual excellence…

Could ChatGPT Write Your College Essays?

Distinctive College Consulting
Essays
1,214 views

By Victoria Tillson Evans, Ph.D. Perhaps you’ve heard of ChatGPT. Introduced in November 2022, it has been one of the greatest disruptions to our sense of selves as human beings in history. Its ability…

Big Fish or Little Fish? The Conundrum of Attending a Magnet School

Distinctive College Consulting
Admissions
880 views

By Victoria Tillson Evans, Ph.D. In one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons, “Bart vs. Lisa vs. the Third Grade,” Bart and Lisa are both moved into the third grade. Bart moves down from fourth…

Admissions Is in the Details

Distinctive College Consulting
Admissions
752 views

By Dr. Adam Muri-Rosenthal, Ph.D. Allow me to begin this post with a vast understatement completely belying its content: writing college essays is hard. As I repeatedly find myself telling students, the…

Strategies to Manage Colleges’ Low Acceptance Rates

Distinctive College Consulting
Admissions
993 views

By Victoria Tillson Evans, Ph.D. Many people sent me a copy of the Wall Street Journal article, “To Get into the Ivy League, ‘Extraordinary’ Isn’t Always Enough,” the day it came out. I obviously…

Hidden in Plain Sight: How to Use Social Media to Bolster Your College Application Process

Distinctive College Consulting
Admissions
835 views

By Adam Muri-Rosenthal, Ph.D. Social media is no less ubiquitous in the college application process than everywhere else in our daily lives. Just as a potential employer may search for your name on Google…