author of Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic–and What We Can Do About It Jennie sent out this newsletter on March 11, 2025. It reflects my belief that what matters most about college is what you do when you’re there, not the level of selectivity or “rank” of the school. The rest of this blog reproduces Jennifer B. Wallace’s

Fifteen minutes to the beach and 15 minutes from the airport, Nova Southeastern sits in a prime location in Southeast Florida. The lush landscape clearly thrives in the Florida sun and humidity. I visited during spring break, so I didn’t get to see many students, but the ones I did see were headed to the gym (with a rock climbing

posted on LinkedIn February 2023 FAU, in tony Boca Raton, is the most diverse of all the 12 Florida State University System schools, according to Maura Flaschner, executive director admissions, who hosted a group of counselors on January 25, 2023. “We begin with the end in mind–graduation,” she said, so they look for evidence of the ability to succeed. After

Flying down to Miami from a cold winter in Maryland, I was struck by all the green–not just the green and orange of Miami’s famous U, but the green lawns, tropical foliage, and graceful banyan trees that paint the campus. It’s truly a tropical paradise, with lakes and fountains and an incredible pool that boasts multiple swimming lanes divided by

They call it Happy Valley, and Penn State fans surely seem happy—even ecstatic—as they cheer their football and basketball teams. In February, 750 people danced for 46 hours to raise money for pediatric cancer, the biggest such fundraiser in the country. A 20-campus system Most of us think of the University Park campus when we say Penn State, but the

I’m working with a student who really wants to get out of Maryland and go to college across the pond, so I registered for The UK Study Expert’s UK Admissions Academy, a two-day virtual conference for college counselors to learn about UK admissions and how to advise students to apply and earn their degree in the UK. Here’s some of

Hofstra University lies 25 miles to the east of New York City on Long Island, a 45-minute ride to the big city on the Long Island Railroad. Bryan Rothstein of Hofstra admissions gave counselors a brief overview of the “smedium”-sized school of just over 6200 undergraduate students on January 31, 2025. Campus and location Rothstein described Hofstra as “the best

I’m sharing a news brief directly from the Maryland Higher Education Commission in this blog because I applaud the benefits of spending a year in service before heading off to college. I’m currently working with a young woman who has blossomed as she teaches technology in inner-city Baltimore. You may even see her at the informational sessions! There’s a link

Yes. And no. You might think, from all the hype, that all the colleges that went test-optional during covid have gone back to requiring the SAT or ACT for admissions. Yes. It’s true that many Ivies (Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale; Cornell for 2026) and highly selective schools (MIT, Cal Tech, Georgetown) have announced they’re requiring testing. Some state university systems

I support the Baltimore Banner out of principle–it isn’t under the thumb of an individual with a political agenda or a conglomerate out to gobble up and spit out the bones of local news outlets. But it also provides lots of pertinent local news, like this one about how Maryland’s budget deficit will affect the state universities. Fortunately, the flagship