First, to be perfectly clear, this is NOT a political piece… AT ALL. In fact, as I write this, the ultimate make up of the next Congress remain unsettled, while the winner of the presidential election is settled, even if some will dispute that. And I will absolutely leave the analysis of all that to those […]

Happy Friday! Not gonna sugar coat it, This. Was. A. Very. Long. Week! If you’re an educator, administrator, college-bound teen, current college student (or a parent who loves them), there’s a very good chance that you’re in a ‘code-yellow’ state of emergency right now, extremely anxious about how this is all gonna shake out next Fall. […]

Right before we got married, Jill and I went skiing. Jill was just learning, and while on our first lift, we looked down and saw a couple fighting — loudly. One of them screamed, “if you go that way, we’re getting a divorce!” At that exact moment, another skier (probably an instructor) shouted back, “Save Your […]

My son in an 11th grader and my daughter is in her 3rd year of a 5-year program at Drexel University in Pennsylvania. I share this now because I want you to understand that I don’t just professionally empathize with your concerns, I’m living them. And, I want you to know that I’m doing everything I can (in both […]

Here’s what we learned this week: First, several more schools (including many deemed ‘highly selective’) announced that they would be dropping the SAT/ACT requirement for admission. In just the past two weeks, Tufts University (my alma mater), Case Western Reserve University, Boston University, and all of the University of California (UC) schools have decided to move to […]

In an extraordinary time of need for so many, I wanted to take just a moment today to celebrate the many 12th graders in our program, and across the country, who learned where they were admitted to college this past weekend. The Class of 2020 will likely be deprived of many of the regular, Spring […]

We spend so much time around here helping students find their way to college that sometimes we look past a fundamental question: Should you even go to college? And if the answer is yes, then all college-bound students should ask this important question: WHY do you want to go to college? For many students (and […]

I’ve lived in South Florida nearly my entire life, and in those years I’ve noticed a curious pattern. Beginning in September, everyone (me included) seems to become a meteorologist.  Today especially, nearly everyone I’ve run into seems to have an opinion on which direction Hurricane Dorian will travel. Mind you, not a single person I met […]

I am often asked what it takes to get admitted to a top college. For the 13+ years I’ve been working in private practice in higher education, my answer has remained essentially the same. And no, it has never been to bribe, cheat or otherwise game your child’s way in. That said, I’m a parent […]

I’m good for at least one rant a year… and here’s a doozy. We learned yesterday that the College Board (maker and financial beneficiary of the SAT) has both developed and then secretly ‘tested’ (pun intended) a new grading curve known as the ‘Adversity Score’. We now know that at least 50 colleges (including FSU) utilized this new index to re-calibrate the SAT scores […]