By Adrian Cho, Ph.D. “Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.” – Marcel Proust (1871-1922), In Search of Lost Time: Swann’s Way The cursor blinks on an empty page. You rack your brain as you search your unresponsive mind for details on the moment you threw the game-winning..
By Adam Muri-Rosenthal, Ph.D. “I hit the word limit so I stopped writing.” Every year, throughout the essay drafting odyssey, multiple students dismay me with this very phrase. It’s an idea that arises from the misconception that a word limit is a cumbersome goal to be reached and, once reached, an impassable wall beyond which..
By Victoria Tillson Evans, Ph.D. There’s nothing like an imminent deadline to force people to get started. Unfortunately, that mindset doesn’t work for the college admissions process. Planning to start your applications and essays just shy of November 1st, the big Early Action or Decision deadline for most schools, is like trying to run a..
By Victoria Tillson Evans, Ph.D. My mom recently toted several items over to my house in an eager effort to clean out my old closet. Shoved in a plastic Safeway bag was a mixture of relics from my teens and twenties: a few quirky thinking-of-you Hallmark cards from my parents, a ticket to the Vatican’s..
By Caroline Matas, Ph.D. Often, when I start talking with high school students about what kind of college they’d like to go to, they’re not sure where to begin. There are so many different variables to consider: public or private; large, medium, or small; close to home or a plane ride away; in the heart..
By Adam Muri-Rosenthal, Ph.D. I’ve always had a complicated relationship with the concept of “value.” Maybe it’s because I work in a field where people often mistake appearances for substance, or because I’ve seen too many students directly equate cost (or worse, college ranking) with quality. Nowhere is that more visible than in the world..
By Adrian Cho, Ph.D. “Dear applicant, Thank you very much for your interest. We regret to inform you….” No need to even finish reading the email–you already know it’s a rejection. Your heart plummets and the months of anxious anticipation dissolve instantly. Disappointment, sadness, maybe even anger and resentment soon follow. This experience is pretty..
By Adrian Cho, Ph.D. “Tell me about yourself.” No other set of four words have quite the same potential to conjure up existential angst. It’s really asking, “Who are you?” Considering the question invites self-reflection as we try to articulate our narratives about who we are. And it comes up in all manner of contexts:..
By Adam Muri-Rosenthal, Ph.D. When J. Robert Oppenheimer began attending Harvard University as an undergraduate in 1922, he had only recently recovered from a serious gastrointestinal illness (Wikipedia contributors) that had put him well behind his intended timeline for graduation. In order to make up for time lost, young Robert enrolled in six courses per..
By Caroline Matas, Ph.D. When I was a kid, there weren’t nearly as many screens making demands on my time and attention as today’s teenagers face. That didn’t stop me from gravitating toward the TV after school and watching hours’ worth of whatever the gods of cable television served up (the olden days before streaming–I..