Extracurriculars


Six Quality Summer Activities for Success in the College Admissions Game

Ah, summertime. The long awaited break from the rigors of academia during the seemingly interminable haul between September and June. Time to sleep in every day and finally get to new levels in all your favorite video games and indulge all your other couch potato fantasies.  Right? Um, wrong! The last thing you want to do in the college admissions game is be a complete couch potato over the whole summer. There are plenty of productive, meaningful, and FUN things to do between final exams and back-to-school BBQs that will give you a feeling of accomplishment AND impress college admissions […]


Leaving Soon for College? Dr. Yo’s 7 Simple Tips for Guaranteed Success (What are YOURS?)

If you’re lucky enough to have a college open to attend this fall, this one’s for you! I wouldn’t take much of the advice I have to offer. If you know me as a friend, or if you’ve been working with me a while, you know I’m full of all kinds of advice (cut it out, not just full of it). If I start telling you where to invest your money, or what car you should buy next, politely nod and walk away. Quickly, if you know what’s good for you. But when it comes to getting the most out […]


Summer Goals and the College Admissions Game

(Quick note to Moms, Dads, and other primary care givers: I know you’ve said very similar things to your kids. But, of course, they won’t believe it coming from you. So print this out and leave it on their pillows. The third-party approach often works like a charm ;-)) The most important criterion—and the most frequently heard buzz word—in today’s college admissions game is passion. Demonstrable passion. Anyone can CLAIM passion about his or her interests, but picture admissions committee as one giant D.A. from Lily Tomlin and company’s awesome kids’ show The Magic School Bus, running around with a clipboard demanding […]


Traveling Abroad Revisited – Good for Life, Good for College Admissions

All my CPE students seem to be talking and writing lately about foreign travel in one form or another. From school-sponsored exchange programs to trips with school bands performing on stage or with churches performing community services to family safaris and other individual summer adventures, something’s in the air. Thought it was a propitious time to dust off a piece I wrote almost three years ago to the date (and by dust off I mean change the parts I don’t like): It would be no exaggeration to say that my trip to France in the summer of 1980 changed my life. As a typical angst-ridden […]


Should Athletes Be Held to Higher Standards? A Quick History & Math Lesson for Inquisitive Idiots

          So I’m playing the challenge your assumptions game this morning at the gym when I see this caption scroll across the bottom of the TV screen during the news: Should athletes be held to higher standards? Seriously? THAT’s the question were going to ask about the Ray Rice debacle?           Forget for a minute the media frenzy around the spate of high-profile athletes with serious domestic violence issues—as if athletes are the only perpetrators of violent crimes rife in society. What inquisitive idiot at Fox penned that gem for all of us to […]


Dr. Yo’s 6 Tips for September Goal Setting

September is always a month of great beauty and of great energy in the academic world. The start of a new academic calendar every September—as a career academic, I’ve always put more stock in the Sept-June than the Jan-Dec calendar—is a great time for self-assessment and goal setting. If you haven’t sat down yet and made some goals for yourself for the new school year, now would be a great time. 🙂 I just did mine and posted them on the fridge where they can serve as a motivation (or admonishing reminder) of what I want to accomplish for myself in 2014-2015. […]


9th and 10th Graders: DON’T WAIT TO GET INVOLVED IN EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

Attention 9th and 10th graders! One of the best parts about being an “underclassman” is that you have more time than juniors and seniors to try new things. By the time you get to 11th and 12th grades, you’ll have harder classes and more demanding teachers; more standardized tests with higher stakes; and college visits and applications to contend with. So enjoy your relative freedom while you can and take advantage of opportunities to try new things. What new things, you ask? Good question, glad you’re paying attention. Start with your hobbies and interests—what we in the college admissions industry […]


Attention Underclassmen and Parents: CommonApp 101 & Hot Tips for Extracurrics

                “Passion is no ordinary word” – Graham Parker  One of the most common words bandied about in the college admissions game is “passion,” and not without good reason. Indeed, one of the keys to writing successful applications is effectively communicating areas in your life–whether academic, athletic, extracurricular, or volunteer and work experience–about which you are passionate. These days committees aren’t as impressed with “well-rounded” as they are with “depth of interest,” in other words, passion. So how and where can you communicate your passion on the CommonApp?  Good question, glad you asked. Many mistakenly think it’s only the “Personal […]


Application Essays and the Common App: What You Need to Know

Listen to internet radio with CollegePrepExpress on Blog Talk Radio   Join me and three teen experts who have recently gone through the application writing process as we discuss how best to respond to those pesky personal prompts on the Common App! Topics include: managing all the written pieces of the Common App changes to the 2011-2012 Common App what to write about when to write them what admissions officers are looking for review of what the “College Essay” books  say managing the supplement sections how to maximize the extracurriculars list maximizing teacher recommendations advice from students who’ve recently gone […]