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Avoid Common Pitfalls
Here are some common traps students fall into when writing their essays and how to avoid them:
Your college essay is more than just another box to check off on your application; it’s your one shot to stand out among thousands of applicants with similar GPAs, test scores, and extracurricular activities. A great essay can set you apart, while a weak one might leave you lost in the crowd. So how...
Colleges want to see more than just good grades and test scores on your college application. They want evidence that you possess personal qualities associated with success in college. Here are 9 personal qualities colleges look for in applicants.
It’s no secret that selective colleges look beyond th...
National Decision Day is May 1. Is your family ready to make the choice of which college your student will attend?
While National Decision Day, which is May 1, may have unclear origins, it has definitely become hyped as the time to make a decision for what to do after high school graduation. And for...
The writer of this essay is a 2023-24 Student Voices Fellow at Chalkbeat.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Sitting in the Seward Park Public Library, my fingers dance as they click away at my laptop’s keyboard, their momentum fueled by the overwhelming sense that all my ha...
It’s June, which means that school is over for the summer! If it’s not yet, it will be very soon. Your FINAL YEAR of high school is closer than ever before. This is a big deal; it's time to get serious about college planning! As a soon-to-be senior, the rest of the summer is going to be an exciting ...
A liberal arts college is a four-year institution of higher education with a focus on undergraduate programs of study that lead to a bachelor's degree. Students take courses in the humanities, arts, sciences, and social sciences. The colleges tend to be relativel...
Are you ready for regular decision notification dates? Admissions offices across the US are working hard to get through hundreds of thousands of regular decision college applications for the class of 2026 in order to notify students of their decisions by the spring.
Generally, most colleges...
There’s a pattern to the way the media, as a whole, covers college admissions. A typical year of coverage for most—that’s most—media outlets goes something like this:
Mid-September—The US News rankings come out, and everyone clamors over the top-ranked college. It’s typically the same top-ran...
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, better known as the FAFSA, is your passport to valuable sources of federal, state and college-based financial aid. But if you don’t fill it out, you could lose out on potential grants, scholarships and low-interest federal student loans. Even more t...
Like many new beginnings, your freshman year of college may feel both exciting and confusing. From getting accustomed to living on your own to keeping up with advanced-level courses, there’s no doubt that a student’s first few months on campus are a major transition.
Rather than stressing ...
If high school seniors want to graduate, they have to complete a FAFSA in these states now.
According to a federal study released last year, there are many reasons why students don’t complete the FAFSA: a majority of families believe that they can cover the cost of school on their own or that they wo...
Students in the United States are graduating from high school and completing college at the highest rates in decades. On the surface, these growing education levels seem to offer reason to celebrate. But a closer look reveals a widening income and employment gap between high school grad...
