College Counseling

Les Perelman, Ph.D., recently retired after spending 26 years teaching writing at MIT. He is still affiliated with that institution, where he is now researching ways to improve students’ writing skills.
Perelman is no fan of the SAT. He believes that the test’s writing section and essay are essentially useless – completely unable to help colleges [...]

In future posts, we’ll cover strategies for writing different kinds of essays – SAT essays, essays on tests, and more. Today, we’ll cover the college application essay.
There are actually two kinds of college application essays . . .
1)      The writing sample that you include in the common application online.
2)      An essay that is required as [...]

There’s a very simple answer to the question that is posed in the title of today’s post.
The answer is no. No college coach anywhere can guarantee admission to an Ivy League school. Some of the best independent college counselors canimprove your chances of getting into an elite school. But guarantee it? It just doesn’t work that way.
There [...]

If you just started your senior year of college, congratulations! You are about to enter one of the most exciting years of your life, a time when you’ll be exploring colleges, making your final list of the schools where you will apply, applying, and finally getting accepted. Talk about change!

“Can I Get a Little Advice Here?” a study from Public Agenda, reports that there are deep troubles in the way that American high schools offer college counseling to students. To quote from the report . . .

The College Candy Blog is fun, often off-color, and chock full of irrelevant advice for college students. We like it. Plus, we really liked a recent post, “The Worst Advice Incoming Freshman Receive,” because it offers sound counsel for students who will be starting college in September.

Community colleges are playing a bigger role in many high school students’ college plans these days. It’s a good trend, because community college offers a cost-effective college option for a lot of students. But there’s a distinct possibility that high school guidance counselors are recommending community colleges to too many students these days.

So if you’re an American guidance counselor, it really is time to know about the opportunities and advantages of online college courses. It’s not just for “other” students. It’s for the students you are counseling today.