Closing Time: You Don't Have to Go Home, but You Can't Stay Here Feb. 17, 2006 Hola, ladies and gents. The good people at FastWeb have informed me that my contract is up! No more blogs from yours truly. Dry your eyes. It'll be okay, I promise. You can still believe in Santa. The past six months have gone by really ...

1. Take it again. Some colleges will accept the higher score. Some will combine your scores for the best possible number. If you didn’t do as well as you could have on the SAT or ACT, call your prospective college for advice: Should you retake it? If the college rep says you may be eligible for more scholarships or a better ...

Clinging to the narrow railing, I eagerly waited for my turn to mount the remaining steps of the dilapidated book mobile. My seven-year-old eyes scanned the narrow shelves lining the trailer looking for the perfect book to borrow. As I glanced around, my eye was drawn to one particular book. Propped up in the back window and illuminated by a single ...

One thing that has surprised me the most about going back to school as an older student is how my view of professors has changed. Though I had a good rapport with several of my instructors in my early college days, the majority of my professors seemed omniscient and invincible fixtures of the establishment. Granted, this was at a large four-year ...

Glancing up from my exam, I noticed two of my classmates handing in their blue books to the professor and leaving the classroom. We were only fifteen minutes into the testing period. Were they already giving up without a struggle? I was amazed that at least a third of the class hadn’t even bothered to show up. Several tardy students were ...

I find it ironic that my classroom windows overlook the Littleton Cemetery. Strangely enough, in a rare childless moment, I found myself meandering among those very headstones just three months ago. As I wandered aimlessly, I looked down the grassy burial grounds across the train tracks towards Arapahoe Community College disheartened and unsure if my dream to go back to school ...

During my spring break last year, I felt a little out of place at the airport. Most people migrated south for the lovely delights of sun-kissed beaches, refreshing gelatos and flip-flops. However, I, the high school junior, headed up north with my ski jacket to visit some potential college choices. When my dad drove our rental car through the thick, snowy ...

Personally, I think it is reasonable to assume that most Americans can shamefully (or proudly, in some cases) admit that they have watched a teen flick. Whether the movie is Clueless, High School Musical, Mean Girls or Napoleon Dynamite, they all have that same cafeteria scene. The stock characters isolate themselves in their cliques at the lunch tables while appeasing their ...

During my senior year of high school, I was very thorough in my college search. There were many important factors for me to consider when choosing a college: location, cost, size and enrollment, professor/student ratio, resources, opportunities to study abroad and athletics, just to name a few. I looked at everything from public universities, to technical schools, to private institutions with ...

As a college-bound student, I will admit that preparing for the college process takes more than good grades and activities. While students strive to find a place in the realm of academia, I believe that scholarships are a crucial element. Universally, most people concur that a decent education doesn’t come cheaply. Indeed, knowledge is power, but obtaining that power costs a ...

When I picked up Dante’s “Paradiso” of The Divine Comedy a semester ago, I expected the souls in heaven to live the good life. I anticipated the stereotypical floating souls to eat endless buckets of fried chicken and live a carefree existence. Instead, I found Dante’s work very philosophically abstract and difficult to comprehend at times. Therefore, when I started comparing ...

A few months ago, I compared my actual application process to the “Inferno” of Dante’s Divine Comedy. However, in this phase of my senior year, I now find more parallels with the second canticle of Dante’s work, “Purgatorio.” Dante the Pilgrim now needs to wait and reflect upon his life to achieve perfection. For example, the envious must sew their eyes ...

In my first week of my AP English Lit class, my new teacher announced that we would begin the school year with one of the most famous works of literature, Dante’s “Inferno.” In his epic poem, Dante writes about his journey through Hell and Purgatory to eventually become the perfect man in Paradise. He struggles, hesitates and fails at some tasks, ...

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 ...

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 ...

A High School Senior Shares is experiences preparing for college. Different Year, Same Old Blog Jan. 11, 2006 Ahoy, my friends! Happy belated new year to you all! It's 2006 and you know what that means….absolutely nothing! That's right, it's a different year but it's still the same old song and dance here on my quaint little blog. Now that it's ...

Several high-profile schools sparked debate recently by ending early admission. Why are schools like Harvard, Princeton and the University of Virginia abandoning these policies and what does this mean for you? Differences in Admission Colleges typically offer different admissions options. Early admission, which is at the center of the recent debate, has two forms: early decision and early action. Both allow ...

College planning can be stressful for both students and parents. Long before they face the challenge of finding college funding, students face an equally important challenge - the college admissions process. Filling out college applications and waiting to hear from admissions committees can make for a nerve-wracking senior year. But now schools are taking steps to alleviate student stress by instituting ...

In early June of this year, as my sophomore year of high school was drawing to a close, I realized several things. First, I was halfway through with high school, and had less than two years to make myself presentable to colleges. Second, I was coming up on my junior year, the hardest and most important year of my high school ...

Time is such an ambiguous thing. At some times in life, it seems to go too slow (e.g., chemistry class). At other times it goes too fast (e.g., hanging out with friends). Right now, though, I am caught in an awkward mix of feeling as though time is going both too slow and too fast. On the one hand, I can't ...