A very brief Courier this week… we hope you enjoy the snow today!
RED FOLDER DEADLINE!
January 1 College Deadline: December 7 Red Folder Deadline
We don’t work over the holiday break, so if you have a 1/1/24 deadline, it needs to be wrapped up in a pretty bow before we leave.
Recording of “Rethinking Achievement Culture and the College Search” webinar
The college search has turned into a series of hoops that students jump through each year of high school: they feel like they need to take demanding classes, score high on the SAT/ACT, and make sure they have a legion of extracurricular activities for their applications. But for what—to do it all again in college?
As the author Jennifer Breheny Wallace examines in her new bestselling book, “Never Enough,” this achievement culture has only resulted in skyrocketing rates of anxiety, depression, and even self-harm among American teenagers. We’re crushing our kids all in the hopes that they get into the “right” school (whatever that means) and end up on the right side of the economic divide. Whatever happened to just being a normal teenager who does well in school and participates in activities they like and then heads off to a college–but not necessarily one with an acceptance rate in the single digits?
During this special evening edition of the Office Hour, we’ll explore how parents, families, and educators can help today’s students regain control over the admissions process by adopting the language and values of “mattering” with teenagers and assisting these emerging adults to become valuable contributors to a larger community.
Among the issues we’ll discuss, along with input from the live chat:
✅ How do we broaden our consideration of success and what makes for a “good school”?
✅ Ways we can lower the temperature on the demands of getting into the “right” school and make high school fun again.
✅ How to talk openly about what matters to success in high school, college, and beyond.
You must register to watch the recording
Here are some insights from her presentation:
MANAGING STRESS DURING THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS PROCESS
What a pleasure to meet many of you for my meaningful conversation with Jeff Selingo last week about rethinking achievement pressure and the college search. As the mother of a high school senior, I empathize with the pressure that you and your children or students are facing. Jeff and I talked about advice and strategies, and I wanted to share three simple things that I learned from my years of studying achievement pressure that I am doing to help my child (and myself) navigate this intense process:
Schedule stressful conversations. We make a conscious effort to confine stressful conversations about college to Saturday mornings. It allows us to enjoy the rest of the week and focus on other important things in my son's life.
Think "how" not "where." Many of our college conversations center around "how" my son wants to go to college, not just "where." How does he want to engage on campus? Which extracurricular activities look exciting? Is there a course that excites him or a professor that stands out?
Make home a haven from the pressure. To accomplish this, my husband and I try to manage any stress we have around the process away from our senior by leaning on friends who have gone through it already. As best we can, we try to make our home a place my senior can recover from college admissions stress.
For more practical advice on tackling achievement pressure at home and in the classroom, please check out my New York Times bestselling book NEVER ENOUGH: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic - And What We Can Do About It.
VIRTUAL GAP YEAR PROGRAM GUIDE