Without Annoying Them As a former teacher of AP English Language and Composition at a large public high school, I was frequently asked to write college recommendations for students who had taken AP Lang with me as juniors. Students applying to the U.S. military academies had to have a recommendation from their junior-year English teacher, and many of our students

An ethos of service The really brief version: Stetson University is a small liberal arts and sciences school between Orlando and Daytona Beach, Florida. The most striking thing about it to me is its public service ethos, which comes across in the school’s literature and in Fiske, but which I found to be even more pronounced when I visited, possibly

Pros: Because small colleges usually have few or even no graduate programs, the focus is squarely on the undergraduates. Teachers are more student-oriented than research-oriented, and classes are taught by professors, not TAs. Class sizes will be smaller, even in the basic core courses, so if you dread huge lecture halls and like discussion-based classes, a smaller college might be for

The pros and cons of taking a year off between high school and college, a.k.a. “taking a gap year” Pros: If done intentionally and with clear purpose, taking a gap year can be a year of growth and fulfillment. You can take a break from the study-test-repeat cycle of school and experience a different kind of education: traveling and learning about

Frederick, Maryland Students who go to Hood College, with 1,100 undergraduates and 1,000 graduates, get the personal touch that only a small school can give. Admissions counselor Ryan DiGirolamo, a former newspaper student of mine, found his place in Frederick, first as a Hood Blazer, and later in admissions. This small liberal arts and sciences college is test optional; in

Here are the schools I’ve visited: In Florida: Eckerd College University of South Florida, St. Petersburg Rollins College New College of Florida Flagler College Ringling College of Art and Design University of Tampa Stetson University In Maryland: University of Maryland, College Park Hood College McDaniel College Stevenson College In New Jersey: Princeton University The College of New Jersey Caldwell University

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You may have heard about the SAT’s new “adversity score.” College Board calls it the Environmental Context Dashboard, and it does not affect the student’s actual SAT score. It’s an attempt to contextualize a student’s score by providing colleges with information about the student’s school and neighborhood. They use 31 measures, none of which includes race or ethnicity. Check out

Based on a comprehensive survey of independent educational consultants, here are the key factors that can make or break your college application: Academic Excellence Personal Character & Growth Beyond the Numbers Practical Considerations See the Results Note: Each institution weighs these factors differently based on their specific mission and needs.

Did you apply early and get deferred? If you applied early action or early decision to your top-choice college, you hoped that your future–at least the fall of 2019–would be clear. But at most schools, the majority of early applicants get deferred to the regular decision pool. That isn’t a bad sign; it usually means that the school wants to