cutting back on stress AND getting admitted

I was presenting to parents of high school juniors last night at Yorktown High School in Arlington, VA. They were a great crowd (meaning, they laughed at my jokes – clearly a mark of an intelligent and discerning group), but MAN were they STRESSED. I closed with my favorite two pieces of advice about the [...]

Advice on filling out the FAFSA

Some good advice on completing the financial forms from the Los Angeles Times at http://www.latimes.com/business/investing/la-fi-perfin20jan20,1,2625171.column?coll=la-utilities-business-money&ctrack=1&cset=true.

Dealing with denial

Here’s an article from the Bend Bulletin (from Bend, Oregon – what, you don’t already read that paper every day?) that’s pretty good on the subject of handling rejection in the admissions process http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080118/FEAT01/801180351/1002&nav_category=. I also think articles like this do a bit of overhyping about the competition and overlook the many schools, like terrific [...]

College admissions reality: stress and parents

Interesting article from the Dean of Admissions at Cooper Union http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/01/18/lipton.  As some of the comments note, I think that admissions officers have to accept most of the blame for a process and marketing that creates most of the stress in this process.  I’m also not a fan of the whole “helicopter parent” tag, which [...]

Shameless Plug: Another basketball brag!

One of Mason’s players set an NCAA record last night.  http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3205047

Exceptional Extra-curriculars: Eagle Scouts

If I haven’t already, I’ll spend some time soon talking about all the confusion around extra-curricular involvment in the admissions process. I’m usually on the side of reminding applicants that admissions committees are unlikely to know what any particular award, group, or activity entails – whether you needed to spend every waking moment devoting every [...]

Shameless Plug: Our speech teacher is better than yours

I’ve bragged before about our amazing forensics team.  For those who are confused, that has nothing to do with CSI (although one of our past student body presidents, Archie Kao, has a regular role on the series, and was named among People’s hottest bachelors, was one of the Power Rangers, has his own Wikipedia page  [...]

deadlines, file reading, and web sites, oh my!

Sorry to be gone for such an extended absence. My only excuse is the INCREDIBLE volume of applications Mason is receiving which has me buried. A few things I noticed as I read: 1) Despite my best advice, very embarrassing email addresses continue to be in evidence. And yes, we pass them around the office. [...]

Shameless Plug: Mason named in top 100 values

How convenient that, while I’m in the midst of a series of posts on financial issues, Kiplinger Personal Finance magazine singles Mason out as one of the best higher education values.  Some readers may think I planned this out – and they have my thanks for attributing that much forethought to my periodic ramblings.  In [...]

How to pay for college, Part II

A couple of days ago I gave a broad overview of how most scholarships work at colleges and universities.  There are a few more that are a little harder to find, and they tend to come in two flavors: talent and donors. Talent scholarships that aren’t part of the admissions process are usually awarded by [...]