Advice for High School Freshmen

Starting high school can be an adjustment filled with uncertainties and anxieties: learning to navigate a new campus, understanding the academic expectations of unfamiliar teachers, meeting new friends, all with allusions to “how will this affect my college admissions?”   Acknowledge the complexity Starting high school can be complicated, and it’s natural to be anxious in…

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Quote: Ferris Bueller

Summertime: A Lesson in Life Balance

For a high school student, there’s no single “right” way to spend a summer vacation. Yet, many students and their families are concerned that without a “productive” summer vacation, then a student diminishes opportunities for college admissions. However, this is not necessarily true. Selection for college admissions is becoming increasingly subjective, thus no one summer…

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“Not Enough” Extracurricular Activities for College Admissions?

Most aspiring college applicants (and their families) are aware that they’ll report extracurricular activities in their applications, yet few may understand the significance of their efforts. With their extracurricular commitments, students can showcase their interests, while also contributing to their communities. Since college admissions officers don’t set specific requirements about the number or type of…

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Quote: Ferris Bueller

How to choose a summer program for high school students

Parents and students are often confused about how to choose a summer program, especially when a simple Google search merits hundreds of choices. Yet, with reflection, focused on the student’s needs, families can choose more effectively.  First, students can develop their own projects, recruiting mentors to explore their interests, all from home, saving money, while…

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Advice for Completing the University of California Activities & Awards Section

For those of you applying to the University of California (UC), completing the Activities & Awards section can require several hours of brainstorming, drafting and editing, over multiple drafts.  Thus, many teens will postpone drafting the detailed descriptions or conversely they may focus on drafting the descriptions, postponing their essay writing.  To balance the work…

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Post-Pandemic Innovation in Education a Real Possibility

During the last fifteen months of living a pandemic disrupted experience, kids experienced unstructured days amidst distance learning and suspension of regularly scheduled activities. Simply seeking to stave off boredom, many (re)discovered talents.   Perhaps a break from running on the hamster wheel of modern family life, chasing prosperity was just what we needed. Pandemics throughout history…

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Quote: Steve Jobs

College Admissions In the Time of COVID

Recently, I spoke with families at the Sacramento Buddhist Church about the current state of education, particularly changes to the college admissions process as a result of the near holistic COVID-induced disruption. I’ve highlighted several issues in the following post, as well as included the full recording. Questions about widespread test-optional admissions dominated our conversation,…

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College Admissions: complexity and emotion in a time of increasing demand

Every Spring, students and parents confront the subjectivity of the college admissions process, where “No’s”, “Yes’s” or “Maybe’s”, are all equally unexplainable, given the complexity inherent to the admissions evaluation process.  Thousands upon thousands of applicants are evaluated in under five months, read multiple times by at least two different individuals, who are all susceptible…

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Mind the Generational Gaps by Playing Games Today

Members of one generation can’t seem to avoid falling into gaps of mis-understanding regarding another generation. Eventully, they hit bottom, stumble around in the darkness of their own ignorance, often manufacturing a conclusion to ease their anxiety, at the cost of understanding the other generation. I’ll offer gaming in the digital versus real world, as…

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Put Down Your #2 Pencils: The University of California Will Eliminate the SAT/ACT Scores by 2025, Part 12

Since the University of California (UC) has suspended the requirement of SAT and ACT scores for all admissions cycles through Fall 2025, which affects current (2020-21) 8th graders, subjectivity in admissions evaluations will likely increase, as officers will lose a standardized metric as a comparison for the GPA, extracurricular resume and essays, utilizing the UC’s…

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