New Year’s Resolutions for College Bound Students

Students who are still deciding on resolutions for the new year might want to consider several that could set them up for success when the time to file college applications rolls around.  As students embark on the first few days of the 2020 academic year they may want to resolve to:

Manage Time Effectively.  This is an important habit to develop before embarking on your college journey where good time management skills will have a major impact on your academic success.  Practice setting a schedule, indicating when you will start, and finish, working on each long-term assignment and studying for each exam. Be sure that procrastination is not one of your traits.

4 Tips if Nearing New Years and Not Yet Into College

If you’re a high school senior, with hopes of attending a great college in the fall, all is not lost if you have not yet applied to, or gotten accepted to, your dream college.

While the application deadline has passed for all of the Ivy League colleges, and many other elite institutions, there are more than 500 colleges whose application deadlines for the 2019-2020 academic year fall on or after January 15th.  There are also about 200 colleges that have a “rolling admissions” policy, which means they review applications until they have accepted enough students to fill their class. 

While this is not the ideal time for college-bound students to begin the application process, those who find themselves in this boat – due to procrastination or any other reason – should follow a few guidelines.

Students Predict Future With “College Scorecard”

It’s no secret that students can expect to earn different salaries based on the college they attend, the degree they earn, and the field they choose for their future career.  But now, thanks to the “College Scorecard,” these numbers are concrete and not an abstract concept.

Back in 2013, the Obama administration created the College Scorecard to be used as a type of Consumer Reports for colleges. Ever since then, data has been collected on colleges throughout the U.S. regarding the costs of attending, the graduation rates, and the actual salaries that alumni were earning (based on specific degrees) one year after graduation.  Numbers don’t lie, so students and parents can now enter the college process wide-eyed, able to compare the cost of earning a particular degree at a specific college with the salary that its alumni are earning just twelve months after earning their degree.

Tim Cook Believes Learning to Code Is Essential

Apple CEO Tim Cook, during a media interview in France, stated, “If I were a French student and I were ten years old, I think it would be more important for me to learn coding than English....this is a language that you can use to express yourself to seven billion people in the world.”

Statistics back up Cook’s emphasis on the importance of coding skills.  More than a third of the highest paying jobs in the U.S. require some familiarity with computer programming, according to a report from the job search platform Glassdoor.

Practical Gifts That Students Need or Want

In this holiday gift-giving season, parents often search for ideal gifts that will benefit their teenagers and be appreciated.  Some items fall more into one category than the other.  

An extremely pragmatic item to give your high school child is College Board’s “Official SAT Study Guide.”  It includes eight full-length SAT exams that mirror exactly what you child will face on his/her test day.  Any student who diligently works with this book and understands the correct answers to all of the questions is on track to earn extremely impressive SAT scores – and likely garner serious scholarship money.  An accompanying gift could be College Board’s “Book of Majors,” which explains scores of potential majors and the colleges that offer degrees in each one.