A great article to read and reread. Let this one sink in…
“Achievement is the completion of the task imposed from outside — the reward often being a path to the next achievement.
Accomplishment is the end point of an engulfing activity we’ve chosen, whose reward is the sudden rush of fulfillment, the sense of happiness that rises uniquely from absorption in a thing outside ourselves.”
The process of applying to college feels overly-achievement oriented, when in fact, it’s applications that highlight both that tend to be the most compelling.
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For college students and soon-to-be college students based in NYC!
This intensive, two-day program will be in person in a small-group format and cover general planning, time management, study skills, reducing procrastination, accomplishing long-term assignments, routine building, self-care, and resilience. Please see the flyer below and learn more about Dr. Josephson’s practice here.
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The Rutgers Business School’s first Supply Chain Education Partnership Program aims to give local high school students a sense of supply chain management as a career.
As global economies become more connected, supply chain management (SCM) has grown in popularity as a business undergraduate major. SCM encompasses every step involved to get products made and into the hands of consumers, from finding quality suppliers of materials to making and moving products to marketing them.
Rutgers SCM professors and guest speakers from board member companies such as Schindler, Pfizer, Panasonic, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson and PSE&G covered procurement, sustainability, inventory management, logistics and planning and forecasting. These companies “represent the ‘private’ component in the partnership of the public, private and community sectors”.
Get more info here!
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Virtual National Security Language Initiative for Youth (Virtual NSLI-Y), a program of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), introduces U.S. high school students to languages critical to U.S. national security in an interactive online format. Launched in 2019, Virtual NSLI-Y is a 10-week, beginner-level foreign language and culture experience in line with the ACTFL World Readiness Standards. In addition to language learning, Virtual NSLI-Y introduces participants to the people and culture of places where the target language is spoken and fosters intercultural understanding, with program components designed in line with Asia Society’s Four Domains of Global Competence.
NSLI-Y Goals
Deadline is June 15.
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The Break into Law Conference is a free and virtual conference with a mission to help BIPOC, first-generation, and other marginalized students and professionals break into the legal field.
The conference will take place July 8 – 9, 2023, with a Law School Fair taking place on Saturday for prospective law school students and a Law Firm Career Fair taking place on Sunday for current law school students and recent graduates. Both days will also feature a Resource Fair for vendors.
In addition to the fairs, they will have 13 panels discussing topics ranging from Equity in Law School Admissions featuring Law School Admission Council Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer Angela Winfield, Financing Your Legal Education featuring representatives from Penn Carey Law, AccessLex, and UT Austin School of Law, Understanding Federal Clerkships, Corporate Litigation, IP Law, and Sports Law, to practical sessions such as Interviewing and the Job Search led by Dean Lauren Jackson, Assistant Dean of Career Services at Howard University School of Law and Dean Akua Akyea, Associate Dean for Career Services at Cornell Law School.
All students (prospective and current) who attend the conference will also be eligible to enter to win a scholarship to help defray some of their law school costs. The registration link can be found at bit.ly/break-into-law.
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Rising Seniors
Time flies, right? Hopefully, you’ve planned something interesting to explore your academic interests this summer. If not, there is still time! It might be too late for a formal summer program (a good thing, OK to skip these!) or linking up with a local faculty member to engage in research or work in their lab. Still, it is not too late to get a job and design an independent mini-project or community engagement activity.
You will also want to spend time on your college application materials, so don’t feel like you need to fill your entire summer with a laundry list of activities. Instead, it is best to do one or two things that are well-thought-out and meaningful and leave time for app work and some relaxation before senior fall because it will be an insanely busy time for you!
If you’ve finished or are nearly finished with the ACT/SAT, you might also want to consider starting your Common Application essay and completing the base data of your Common App this spring/early summer. If you are in need of essay guidance—shameless plug—grab a copy of The Complete College Essay Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing the Personal Statement and the Supplemental Essays.
Rising Juniors
A big ticket item is preparing for and completing standardized testing. Take an ACT and SAT diagnostic and meet with a tutor to determine which test might be best for you, and then put a formal plan and timeline in place to prepare for that test. Junior year is no joke academically, and you’ll likely take the ACT or SAT more than once, so starting prep this summer is a good idea.
Like rising seniors, hopefully, you’ve got something interesting planned to help you explore your academic interests. The same guidance above applies. Here’s why this is important: colleges aim to create diverse, well-balanced classes made up of students with a range of identities and academic interests. For this reason, most colleges will consider your major of interest when making admissions decisions—and you need to have coursework and extracurriculars that demonstrate your interest. For the most competitive majors (CompSci, business, engineering, pretty much anything STEM, to name a few), demonstrating a high level of understanding paired with experience gained outside of school is critical if you want to stand out as an application. This is, of course, on top of stellar grades and test scores.
If you don’t know what your academic narrative is, now’s the time to decide and work on developing it; if you’re lost on how, reach out.
Rising Sophomores and Freshmen
Summers are for exploring! You could attend a pre-college program on a college campus, get a job, read, take free classes online, and volunteer. The key is to do something, or preferably, a few things! Get out there and get some experience and exposure—it’s how you figure things out. Make sure to write down everything you get involved. You’ll need a resume or activity sheet for college, and you can start it now. If you are fairly certain what you might want to study in college, pursue an opportunity this summer that helps tell that story.
The school year can be a grind, and your “job” is getting the best grades you can while balancing the limited time you have to spend on extracurriculars with homework…and hopefully some sleep. No matter what year you are in high school, think of summer as a time to explore, recharge, and dip into (or dig deeper into!) what you might not have time for from September through May.
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In case you missed it, Common App announced that the 2023-2024 essay prompts will remain the same. Past research shows that overall satisfaction with the prompts remains high among students, counselors, and member colleges.
They hope that by sharing the prompts now, students will have the time they need to reflect on their own personal stories and begin thinking about what they want to share with colleges. Now is a fantastic time to begin brainstorming for the Common App essay (aka the personal statement), especially if you have completed standardized testing or will be applying test optional.
We’ll be posting plenty of essay tips and related content in the coming months, so stay tuned! You can also check out The Complete College Essay Handbook.
If you would like a complimentary copy for your school library or counseling office (or for yourself) please write to us.
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We must keep it real: most students are not admitted from the WL at highly selective schools.
Our primary advice? Get excited about where you have been accepted! Applying to college is hard; when a college says YES, that means something. Lean into those schools—you won’t think twice about where you were waitlisted a year from now.
Before implementing any waitlist strategies, it is important to deposit at a school where you have been admitted. Take advantage of admitted student days and other events that connect you with potential future classmates, including joining “Class of 2027” social media groups. These forums are often very informative, and fun, and can help you take your mind off the waitlist waiting game. Again, try to get excited—college is simply awesome. Where you go is not nearly as important or impactful as what you do once you get there to make it all that it can be. It can be everything you want it to be; it’s up to you to make that happen no matter where you go.
If you do want to stay engaged with your WL options, first get familiar with the WL data from past years. How many students are offered spots on the WL? How many accept their spot, and more importantly, how many does school X ultimately admit? Some of these numbers are dismal, but it is best to know what you are up against. Look at the Common Data Set first (http://www.commondataset.org/). A few other sites to review:
Once you have accepted a spot on the WL, deposited elsewhere, and familiarized yourself with the waitlist data, consider the strategies below. Not all of them are novel, but without much to lose, why not do all you can so you can look back without any what-ifs?
Additional strategies…
You don’t need to…
More questions about the WL? Email us!
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Colleges are starting to outline potential next steps if affirmative action is overturned and race can no longer be explicitly used as a factor in the admissions process.
A recent article in the Brown Daily Herald noted:
Associate Provost for Enrollment Logan Powell says essays would focus on race as one part of identity, describes ‘structured meetings’ of Brown officials to prepare for rulings
And today, Penn’s DP posted about how Penn may respond if affirmative action is overturned. The DP also noted diversity statements (aka essays)
Half of The Complete College Essay Handbook is dedicated to supplemental essays, which are the essays schools can request in addition to the Common App essay (aka the personal statement). Once you know the story you’re conveying in your personal statement, you can use the supplements to “round out” your application, whether by elaborating on an extracurricular, conveying your interest in an area of study, or even focusing on meaningful aspects of your identity or a community to which you belong.
Community and Identity is one of the four types of supplements we discuss in the book, and it’s this category of essay Provost Powell is referencing. If race-conscious admission is eliminated, more essays of this type should emerge on applications and become even more critical in the efforts of colleges to build well-rounded, diverse classes.
Through Community and Identity essays, admissions officers hope to get a sense of not only who you are and what shapes you but also how you interact with others in a group setting—a skill needed in college and your career. Often, Community and Identity essays are just as personal as the personal statement, though many are much shorter in length, averaging between 250 and 450 words.
The types of communities you belong to might include but are not limited to:
You might have noticed that many of these communities speak to diversity in some way. Diversity is something admissions officers want, and now more than ever before might need, to learn about when they ask you to discuss your communities and identity. Diversity encompasses a wide range of other aspects of identity. Diversity is whatever experience or aspect of your identity makes you unique. The communities we belong to often help determine and define this difference. Community, identity, and diversity are all closely intertwined.
Reflection is also an important component of many Community and Identity essays. When considering your identity in relation to a community, you will need to reflect on your role within that community, consider what it means to you, and examine what you have learned as a member. This means you can’t simply describe or celebrate the community or simply list all the accomplishments you’ve had as a member; you should take the time to reflect on the difficulties (and joys) of being a part of that community and how that community has helped make you who you are today.
For sample Community and Identity essays and a deeper discussion of how to approach writing this type of essay, grab a copy of The Complete College Essay Handbook. If you would like a complimentary copy for your school library or counseling office, or if cost is a barrier, please write to us.
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