Guest post by Monica Matthews One of the greatest skills that scholarship judges look for the applicants is leadership. Unfortunately, many students don’t believe that they are leadership material or have any leadership experience. This is where it pays to dig deep and examine what a student has done in school and out of it [...]
Who Needs Recommendation Letters? Letters of recommendation fall into two categories—required and optional. Schools requiring letters will specify what they want, often one counselor letter and one or more teacher letters. Letters are optional for all other schools, but can often help reinforce a student’s strengths. Recommendations are almost essential in the following situations: A [...]
College Interview Basics: The Opportunity Some colleges will offer the opportunity to interview on campus or close to your home. Admissions officers or graduates of the university may do these interviews which are a great way to make a personal impression and learn more about each university in the process. Students should understand college interview [...]
This week I was driving with my two kids in the car. My six-year-old son turns to his big sister out of the blue and says, “I have more points that you could ever have on Disney games!” This sounded like the start of a fight. They’ve been home all summer and are beginning to [...]
How many colleges should I apply to? This is an issue of debate in our house. The number of schools a student applies to depends in part on the student, his or her interests, and the competitive nature of the schools to which he or she is going to apply. For the sake of practicality I [...]
My son is applying to a bunch of state schools in Texas, but Texas A&M is his top choice. He is not in the top 10%, so won’t be automatically admitted. He wants to apply to engineering, but it is so competitive at A&M. Would he be better off listing his first choice major [...]
Colleges want to know how students spent their free time outside of school. Do they stay involved with activities of interest or go home, sit on the couch, talk on the phone, and watch TV? Involved students have spent time pursuing and developing their strengths and interests. They have experiences and skills that will help [...]
I’m just curious. Why would a student want to work with you on their college essay? I don’t mean this in a negative way, but our high school has students do their essays in Senior English class. Isn’t that enough? I just don’t understand why the application would be that difficult. For those of us [...]
