The Pilgrim College Guidance Blog
News, trends, insights, and the occasional self-indulgent fluff piece
Photo credit: Jen Jordan Photography
What Goes in a Counselor Letter of Recommendation?
As I’ve been getting to know my juniors, I’m already in recommendation writing mode. In fact, I’m in letter writing mode all the time. Every time I notice something notable or hear a memorable story or even a brief snippet, I like to write it down for future reference. Maybe it’ll make the letter, maybe not, but everything contributes to the whole picture I see when I think about each individual student. But what actually goes in a counselor letter of recommendation? Content will always vary, but here’s an overview of what is typically presented to admissions.
How to Answer the Community Essay
As stated previously in my Admissions Squid Game post, I’d like to briefly address the popular “community” short answer question. The premise seems simple enough. You are a unique person who will join a diverse community. What would you contribute to it?
In Search of an Identity - Reflections on the 2022 NACAC Conference
Maybe one of these years, I will write an individual post about every session I attended at the NACAC conference. It didn’t happen last year. And it’s not happening here. I have to confess that I was reluctant to even attend this year’s conference. There is never a convenient time of year for this event, but this year seemed even more hectic and uncertain than usual. I only went because…well, it’s NACAC.
College Admissions Squid Game - Reflections on the 2021-2022 Application Year
If you have Netflix, there is a good chance you’ve seen “Squid Game,” the platform’s most viewed show of all time. In this South Korean survival drama, hundreds of cash-strapped people compete in a series of children’s games in the hopes of winning billions of won. I have to admit that I was hooked from the start. Like much Korean television and cinema, the major themes focused on economic struggles and social class, but midway through the series, I was struck with the premise in a much different way. I couldn’t shake the idea that the whole series was a metaphor for the college admissions process.
What Should High School Juniors Be Doing Right Now? – Spring Edition
I’ve always considered February to be a transition month. When I was a school college counselor, I would see symptoms of senioritis start to kick in as the juniors would begin their annual annexation of my office. It was always a fun time of year as the excitement of a new class would begin to manifest itself. February is kind of my September. But to juniors, this is still the middle of their overhyped yet still important year. I want to revisit a fall blog post about what I said high juniors should be doing. In this spring edition, you’ll see that many of the fall tasks have extended to the spring, but now we’re getting to the real work.
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.