Strategies for College Success
Valerie Raines Submitting Tests Remains Mostly Optional Being able to apply without SAT or ACT tests, frees students to explore colleges that seem out of reach. The most popular, highly selective, and highest rated U.S. colleges may benefit most from this practice in new applicants and increased fees. Studies of colleges that were test optional before the … Read more
Enjoy this video on college admissions today. In it, I share changes in college testing, admissions, higher education, and financing with new info on college loans that may help you minimize debt.
What if college advisors guided families on search and application strategies sooner? High school students typically begin working with college advisors in 11th grade. Before that time, it is believed that students lack sufficient grades or reliable test scores for use in building college lists or doing admissions planning. Increasingly, I am hearing from families … Read more
This spring, college students were sent home with urgency because college leaders understood science. Now, they are planning to welcome students back to campus before a vaccine is ready. So as you plan for fall, let me share my thinking, which is drawn from recent college news and information sessions with industry leaders: Read the … Read more
During this COVID-19 pandemic, our priority must be to take care of ourselves, loved ones, and larger communities. Still, clients are asking how to navigate amidst cancelled campus visits, college fairs, and admissions testing. With school buildings closed, high school seniors may face college enrollment decisions with limited access to teachers and counselors. With colleges … Read more
This past summer, I visited Muhlenberg, Lafayette, Vassar, Bard, and Skidmore colleges in Pennsylvania and New York. During these visits, I met officials, toured campuses, and spoke with students. I want to share with you what I learned and include a short video about each college for you to learn more. Why visits to these … Read more
Message from Valerie 3-14-19: I am deeply dismayed by news of college admissions scams involving criminals and families pretending to serve students. I want to assure you that my work involves serving students across a wide economic spectrum in improving the trajectory of their lives through higher education. Adolescents often need guides to help them … Read more
Adults naturally draw upon their college admissions experiences when talking to teens, even if those events are from a time before smartphones–and a lot has changed since then. So, it is important that I inform families about how college admissions processes operate today compared to a few years or decades ago. Today, college admissions officers … Read more
Storytelling plays a big role when adults talk about college financing from earlier eras. Many of us have heard these messages in the stories told: I paid for college myself by working full time and going to school year round. I was awarded so many scholarships, the college had to pay me. I arrived on … Read more
Today many colleges until recently required strong credentials for admission, now appear to be accepting only students who possess outstanding qualities. Students who might have been admitted a year earlier, now are being offered a spot on a waiting list–or worse. So, while elders tell stories of getting into these colleges with average credentials, current … Read more