We recently received this email:

“My school doesn’t offer many AP or IB classes for students and I was wondering what could I do as a sophomore to be able to take those courses.”

In an age in which the job market is rough for recent grads, a career in nursing is not a bad profession to pursue. Nurses are not only fulfilling upon their civic duty to help others, but they are also consistently in high demand. Not all universities offer Nursing majors, but we’ve curated a list of top-tier programs that do.

These days, there’s a lot of pressure on students to cultivate the right suite of extra-curriculars. Often times, kids join too many clubs or take on too many volunteer opportunities and miss the mark on demonstrating that they’ve committed to one area of expertise. But developing depth in an area doesn’t have to be limited to unpaid activity. In this post, we talk about how work experience can be a great addition to the resume.

We get this question a lot, and it’s an important one to ask because oftentimes students come to us the summer before their senior year not having visited one school. To be frank, that is kind of an *almost* worst-case scenario. By that time you should have your school list nearly together and have begun working on your Common App personal statement. For that reason, we encourage our students to begin touring colleges the spring of their sophomore year. But the best time would be to plan a trip during the summer between your sophomore and junior year.

The summer goal for every high schooler should be to do something impressive with their time. You want to work hard and show that your hard work paid off. But a lot of people think that creative writing isn’t a rigorous field. We disagree. In fact, we feel that having a strong grasp of the creative process is crucial for writing standout college essays. There’s no reason you shouldn’t explore your passions during your time off of school, whatever they may be. That’s why we’ve identified a list of programs just for creative writers who are too ambitious to spend the summer siting by the pool and reciting poetry.   

Summer is a wonderful time of year. The snow (barring climate change) has melted. Movie theaters market films to kids and teens. Beaches are back open, and perhaps best of all, school is out. We hate to be the bearers of bad news, but unfortunately, if you want to get into a great school spending your time simply lounging and enjoying the bliss of summer isn’t going to cut it. Sorry (not sorry) but in order to be competitive, you’re going to have to be strategic and work hard during your summer vacation.

We get the question all the time: how should I spend my summer? While there’s no one answer, there is a direction in which we recommend our students head during their free time, and that is to spend time doing something in which they can learn and demonstrate their new knowledge on their applications. Granted internships are hard to come by for high schoolers, summer courses are not a bad way to go. If you are going to go the summer program route, keep in mind that the program should be rigorous and should also fall under an academic niche you’ve already been exploring. For kids who intend to study computer science in college, there are an increasing number of great programs each year.

Junior year is a lot. There’s no way to sugar-coat it. However, there are myriad ways to make all of the ancillary college process items more manageable. So, before you dive-in head first, it’s really important to get organized, create a strategy, and stay on track. That way, when things feel chaotic, you have a plan to refer back to. In this post, we talk about ways in which you can forge a clear path for junior year.

When most kids think of college applications, they think about junior year as the pinnacle. But in our experience, sophomore year is the best year to start hitting the pavement. In this post, we discuss what you can do to stay on target and build a great foundation for your applications.

Earlier this week, we got an email. It read:

"I am a junior in high school interested in pursuing finance or economics and management in college. Do you know of any summer programs at decent/top tier colleges for high schoolers less than two weeks long in June or July that would help me show colleges my interest in these areas? Thank you very much for your help!"