As August ushers in the new school year, it’s a reminder to incoming high school seniors to begin writing and revising the college essay in earnest. Whether you have finished a first draft or are still deciding what to write about, it can be helpful to review the purpose of the college essay, learn tips […]
Student and Parent Guide: Starting the Common App Essay Read More »
June is graduation season. Whether your son or daughter is graduating from preschool, high school, or somewhere in between, it’s a natural time to reflect on the friendships and memories they’ve made, their challenges and accomplishments, and the road ahead. A few years ago, as an 11th-grade English and AP US History teacher, I had
Parent Guide: Thinking Graduation Read More »
When we consider the ways that high school students can impress colleges academically (thinking of GPA, SAT/ACT scores, and AP classes), we often overlook an important criterion: students’ college coursework. It might sound strange at first–high school students taking college courses before they’ve even graduated–but it is an increasingly common trend, both in California and
Student Guide: College Courses for High School Students Read More »
With the cost of college once again rising this past year (2022-2023), every parent needs a game plan. US News & World Report has crunched the numbers on ranked 4-year colleges, and the average annual tuition this year was $39,723 at private colleges, $22,953 at public, out-of-state colleges, and $10,423 at public, in-state colleges (US
Parent Guide: The Scholarship Search Read More »
The SAT was once as inescapable a part of the high school landscape as auditorium assemblies and #2 pencils. But at this moment, in the spring of 2023, it’s clear that the SAT’s place in that landscape has fundamentally changed–and is poised to change again. For many parents, these changes have led to questions about
Parent Guide: Does Your Child Need to Take the SAT? Read More »
The recent launch of ChatGPT, a chatbot that runs on natural language processing and produces coherent written responses to user prompts, has raised many questions, not least about the future of student writing. Ask ChatGPT to write an essay, and within seconds (using algorithms to determine the most relevant internet data) it generates a seemingly
Student Guide: The College Essay and ChatGPT Read More »
The SAT was once as inescapable a part of the high school landscape as auditorium assemblies and #2 pencils. But at this moment, in the spring of 2023, it’s clear that the SAT’s place in that landscape has fundamentally changed–and is poised to change again. For many parents, these changes have led to questions about
Parent Guide: Does Your Child Need to Take the SAT? Read More »
