College News

January 4, 2018
college anxiety

What High Schools Can Do to Lessen Anxiety about Getting into College

Last month, I wrote about what parents can do to help lessen the anxiety about applying to college. This is the portion of a recent article by Leah Shaffer from the Harvard Graduate School of Education that talks about […]
November 24, 2017
character in college admissions

What Do Colleges Want in an Applicant? (Character)

A recent excellent article by Eric Hoover in the Education Life section of the New York Times of Sunday, November 1, 2017, asked the question and the word noted in the parentheses of the headline was Everything. I […]
October 13, 2017
women and STEM

Are Women Making Progress in STEM?

When I started to do some research for this blog, I came across a lot of articles about the dearth of women studying in STEM fields in college. There is, of course, the cultural stereotype that women can’t […]
September 29, 2017
Boston colleges and universities

On the Road with Betsy Woolf: By Land and By Sea

Massachusetts is lovely in September, especially when the thermometer reaches into the high 80s! That was the unusual weather earlier this month on a trip to Boston to attend the annual convention of the National Association for College […]
June 12, 2017

What’s New in the Common Application? A Brief Outline

A Little Bit of Background * 4.5 million applications were submitted last year, with an average of 4.8 per applicant. 22 million recommendations were submitted. * Top states for students who submitted the Common Application last year were […]
May 22, 2017
Cornell University

My Students’ Insights into Freshman Year at Cornell University

I recently shared student insight into freshman year at Emory College of Emory University and at the University of Cambridge. Now I am giving you a glimpse of the first year experience at Cornell University in Ithaca, New […]
May 15, 2017

My Students’ Insights into Freshman Year at Emory University and the University of Cambridge

My students, as well as their parents, become valued members of my family, and I love to hear about students’ experiences in college. Over the years, I have asked students to share their insights about freshman year in […]
April 29, 2017

What Makes a Leader?

I love to take the train. Either I get to catch up on my sleep or on my reading. The other day on MetroNorth to NYC for a lunch meeting with reps from two southern colleges, I got […]
March 2, 2017
Notre Dame

On the Road with Betsy Woolf – University of Notre Dame

The temperature in South Bend, Indiana, on February 17th, 2017, was in the mid-60s, and Northern Indiana hadn’t experienced snow all winter. Needless to say, it was a great day for a return visit to the University of […]
February 26, 2017

I Would Not Come Here If I Were a Republican

“I would not come here if I were a Republican” is a quote I discovered in a guidebook about American colleges, supposedly stated by a student at a college in New England. That isn’t such an atypical statement, […]