The Pilgrim College Guidance Blog
News, trends, insights, and the occasional self-indulgent fluff piece
Photo credit: Jen Jordan Photography
Not A Normal Year
There’s something about the first week of school that never gets old. After a summer of personal transition and relative idleness, being around the energy of students again is a nice change of pace, even as application season looms. College admissions also never seems to get old, but for very different reasons. For such a cyclical process, no two years are ever alike. I’m not sure what a “normal year” would even feel like, but it’s definitely not this year. There are major changes that were announced a while ago, and a few that are more recent developments. Here are a few I’d like to highlight.
Reflections on the Supreme Court’s Ruling on Affirmative Action
When the Supreme Court released their decision to prohibit the consideration of race in the college admission process a few weeks ago, it came as no surprise. And yet, I felt a sense of disappointment for my field and I know many others have publicly shared the same sentiment. I’m going to try to keep this post relatively brief, and maybe even objective, as I’m still processing and reading articles, but there have been a lot of conversations taking place about the future of college admissions. I don’t want to get into the political or even legal aspect of this decision, as neither are my areas of expertise. I do know college admissions though, so I’ll keep the focus on that.
My Favorite College Essay Ever
There’s a pretty well-known book called “50 Successful Harvard Application Essays” that’s made the rounds over the years. Given the title, I can only assume that sales are doing just fine. I’ve always had mixed feelings about the book. On the one hand, I actually had a student featured in the third edition (for the record, I take no credit for his inclusion in the book or his admission/matriculation to Harvard). But on the other hand, the idea of sample essays has never sat well with me, even with a wide variety of examples. To the credit of the arrangers, they also explained why each essay was compelling in its own way. In all my years of college admissions and college counseling, there are only a handful of essays that I still remember to this day. And in the spirit of essay writing season, I’d like to share my impressions of one essay from a former student and why it worked so well.
Should You Apply Early?
It was the first few days of September when I began to work on this post. I almost immediately began to question if it was too early to address this topic. On the one hand, I had already made reference to it as one aspect of college admission that will never change and also as a sign of demonstrated interest, so maybe the deeper dive could’ve waited. But after considering my options for future posts, and in the spirit of making an early commitment, here we are.