On one very lazy Sunday afternoon, I went shopping at one of my favorite stores, Barnes and Noble. I could get lost and spend hours looking at random books, CDs, journals and other various accessories in this magnificent store. However, the biography section of the bookstore caught my immediate attention during this shopping trip. On each biography, I saw the pictures ...

I’ve been answering questions that seem to be wildly misled about who actually reads your application. One site refers regularly to the "ADCOMM" -- admissions committee -- likes it’s some alien entity that always acts the same way, and not thousands of individuals. Questions like "how do admissions committees look at essays about my trip to Antarctica?" are almost as nutty ...

Applying to college for the first time is complicated enough, but the process of transferring from a two-year to a four-year college can be dizzying. With little consistency in transfer policies from school to school, there’s a lot to keep track of when changing colleges. Use the tips below to make a smooth transition. Know When to Transfer Prepare for your ...

One morning, a credit card in hand (and Handel’s “Halleluiah Chorus” playing in my mind), I gleefully clicked the ”Submit” button for my Common Application. After I paid the application fees and filled out the school transcript forms, I was finished with the whole process. The thing I was wondering about ever since I was six had reached its completion. As ...

I hear from a lot of people who think the admissions process is unfair because they don’t understand the goals that drive admission. Fair warning – much of this post came from my dissertation research, so it is long, even tedious, and only for those really obsessed with understanding the admissions process. Most people assume that colleges and universities should just ...