college admissions
August 18, 2026
The Chronicle of Higher Education's annual Almanac. This year, it's dated August 14th for 2026-2027 but most of the data is from 2024 with a bit from 2025. Still it is telling, and to me, quite surprising in places.
August 15, 2026
IRemarkably, as many schools move back to testing, at least one school has moved away from grading students- at least initially in a pilot program that will launch next year.
June 19, 2026
I was surprised at how picturesque the location is. Yes, the university really is down by the tranquil waters of St. Katherine Docks. A school of only 2200 students at this location (Northeastern's main campus is in Boston), its main building and campus hub, Devon House, is a modern edifice on the Thames River in a waterfront and boating community filled with cafes and restaurants.
November 26, 2025
Situated on the northwest corner of 43rd Street and Broadway, this outpost of Touro with an enrollment of 2500 students is a modern high rise whose big windows face the building from which the ball is dropped on New Year's Eve - my angled look upwards revealed the ball perched atop the building - and whose rear windows overlook the theater where Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is playing on 43rd Street and the site of Madame Tussaud’s wax museum on 42nd Street.
November 10, 2025
The simple truth is that college admissions are unfair - and the system works to the advantage of the colleges, not to the students. This year alone, I have seen early applications spike in my practice with students applying to 15 or more schools often in a very short period of time - by November 1 of senior year. Even though they have already been accepted to a few, they keep on applying.
October 4, 2023
"If great artists can't get their creations right the first time, what makes the rest of us think we have to? All of our writing - articles and books, reports and briefs, memoranda and proposals - should start as grumpy old Pentimento Men, and as we transform them on the way to our final draft, they will evolve into lovely figures captured in contemplative moments. Every article, book, and tip I write begins as a grumpy old man. Or a cat, or a peach."
August 13, 2023
...we are seeing that some colleges, such as the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Carnegie Mellon University and Yale University, do not have their supplemental essays ready to be published on the Common Application. Others have published supplements that reflect the court's decision
July 7, 2023
...there are ways to continue to college after high school, keeping in mind that among the factors in making the best college match is affordability, to have the ability to pay for college and not be saddled with years and years of debt. I firmly believe that you can be successful whether you go to Harvard or to a public university or to a less selective school or to community college. In my practice, I see as much potential in students who aren't going to the most selective schools as in my students who are. Sure, plenty of successful people started their careers by attending very selective private colleges, but many did not.
May 15, 2023
My last blog listed the first five things to consider for finding the right college match: location, size, campus, students, and grades. Here are another five to round out the list: 6. Cost and Affordability: Admissions personnel in private colleges and universities often tell students not to count them out in favor of public colleges and universities because of cost. That's because there are ways in which they discount the cost to students, which can often mean that a private education can cost the same or less than a public one.
May 9, 2023
Finding the right college match may seem daunting when you first start out thinking about college, but it doesn't have to be. Here are the top 5 things to consider at the outset of your college search that will lead to finding the right college for you. The idea is to get to know what you want in a school before you even start to create a list of schools to consider. The college search process involves looking inside yourself and getting to know what's important to you.