Insights on admissions, testing, and academic life.

COVID-19 and its associated lockdowns may be the most significant event in education in our lifetimes. In many cases, schools were the first institutions to shut down and attempt to move to a remote learning model as students remained at home. This has been met with a variety of successes; some schools have been able…

Perhaps the number one concern between parents and students in the modern landscape of education is the time students are expected to spend on everything from school to homework to sports and other activities. How are they supposed to get all of this done? The answer may be simpler than you think: use Google calendar.…

“What’s better, an A in a normal class or a B in an AP class?” It’s a question as old as advanced courses, and one that families cannot be faulted for asking. Wouldn’t taking a much harder class, but receiving a lower grade, look better than succeeding while playing it safe? In some ways yes,…

All throughout high school, parents and students fret over their activity schedules and resumes. Extracurricular activities are, after grades and standardized test scores, perhaps the most important element of American college applications. Not only do colleges gauge students on the basis of their activities, but those same activities offer the grist for students’ essays mills…

The impact of COVID-19 and our efforts to flatten the curve of its spread in the United States continue to send shockwaves through education. The College Board has canceled its June 2020 test (though it promises that tests will be offered every month starting in August 2020), and schools on every level of the college…

Summer programs are a critical element of every student’s college application process. As more and more schools look for an unnatural level of maturity in their applicants, it is no longer acceptable for students to just take a break over the summer or hold down a single, light, part-time job. Instead, students should be exploring…