College Coaching Video #3: Best College Fit

At Casady our college counseling mission is to partner with students to discern the best college fit. 

We use five broad categories to help students find the colleges that are a good match.

There are many organic threads of dialogue based off these broad categories that we have with students over many months and conversations.

It's always amazing how things begin to come into focus for a student and parent by just reflecting and answering honestly in regards to each category.

I would invite you to enter into discussion with your student (or reflection) about these categories to help begin to "narrow the focus" in terms of what kind of college ethos will be that excellent fit.

College Coaching Video #2: "The Bucket List"

Happy New Year.

We are wrapping up the application season with our seniors.

Most seniors applying into Regular admission pools have clicked the "Submit" button.

All green arrows on the Common Application.
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Now we make the seismic shift to the 11th grade class.

This Friday we begin our College Seminar.

The first major phase of the college search process involves two things.

Reflection.

And research.

The former involves bending inward intentionally to explore the contours of self.

"Know thyself" is a helpful prerequisite to "know thy college".

The latter involves investing ample time and energies into researching the college landscape.

We will equip our students with a number of "handles" they can use primarily through Naviance to explore the horizons of possible college fits.

In between, we will encourage our students to begin to really formulate a bucket list.

To identify and enumerate what specific experiences they want to have during their college years.

Some students' bucket lists will have the same items.

Study abroad.  Double major.  Tailgating in September.

Other students' bucket lists will have very different items.

Live in a major city.  Do research in nano technology.  Study aviation.

This "bucket list" exercise is, of course, a very fluid process.

It evolves over the college search, apply, and selection process.

College Coaching Video #1

Over the next six months, I will be adding a weekly college coaching video.

They will be short instruction videos that essentially are "chalk board chats" I often have with students and parents in my office as we discuss a range of college related topics.

The first coaching video has to do with regular admissions.

Many students will be hearing this week regarding early college admission decisions.

Gulp.

Some students will hear good news, specifically in Early Decision programs, and their college selection process will conclude by adding their new college's decal to their car.

At the same time, other students will hear disappointing news, either being deferred or denied in early admissions, which will send them scrambling to their Common Application portals to add more schools.

This first video is an attempt to coach students/parents through the application decision process.

There is a common mistake students make in regular admission.

I call it the horizontal mistake.