Imperfect information to seek value in education

Education is often one of the most complicated investments people make in their lifetime.  As such, accurate information is essential, yet often difficult to acquire thus only increasing the risk of educational malinvestment.  There is a cornucopia of free information regarding every possible educational issue known to man, but remember the old adage, “You get…

Continue Reading

Career Planning Is Less Planning and More Trusting Instinct

Many students (and their parents) believe that applying to college begins by choosing a career that will align with one of the many majors on the pull down list of most digital college applications, often wrongly assuming that college is little more than a sophisticated form of job training required in order to achieve lasting prosperity. …

Continue Reading

Gotta Love Mom

Parents by setting high but broad expectations based on an understanding of their children can help guide them to realize their life’s purpose. Though, it’s important for parents to remember that they’re only setting expectations, which may not be indicative of future results, which nonetheless, should be celebrated.

Modern Adulthood

“Adulting” classes may likely be the byproduct of a generation raised by “Helicopter Parents”, parents who don’t encourage self-sufficiency as their kid matures. Many students’ sole responsibilities have been managing schoolwork and extracurriculars, punctuated with the occasional “clean your room”, yet rarely do students I advise have part-time jobs. And, until the shelter-in-place, when school…

Continue Reading

A Chance to Ask Why

Since K-12 and college students are “distance learning” for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year, and the majority of extracurricular activities have also been cancelled, students are sharing that they’re “bored, but don’t know what to do.” Additionally, some parents worry that their kids’ aren’t “productive with their time.” So, to take advantage of…

Continue Reading

Imagine

A Renaissance in the Midst of COVID-19

Educators and students, participants in the Modern American Educational Industrial Complex, are mere glimmers of the Jeffersonian ideals of “essential merit”, which historian Joseph F. Kett defines as:  …merit that rests on specific and visible achievements by an individual that were thought, in turn, to reflect that individual’s estimable character…’Merit’ was that quality in the…

Continue Reading

An Open Letter to The College Board About Advanced Placement (AP) Tests

March 26, 2020 Dear The College Board, David Coleman, CEO College Board & Trevor Packer, Senior VP of Advanced Placement & Instruction: While not diminishing the dilemma of how to continue the AP program and administer AP exams in the midst of the current global pandemic, students’ frustrations about reducing the exams to 45 minutes from…

Continue Reading

Selecting a College vs. Being Selected by a College

Worries about “not being accepted” to a college are common, since most parents and students believe they’re at the mercy of an admissions officer’s decision. Often, students think, “How do I make my experience, like GPA, test scores and extracurricular activities, match the “right” selection criteria of (insert name of college)?” Few students turn the…

Continue Reading