In fact, the biggest mistake that most teens make is waiting until the Summer to make these vital college visits.  Student life is the single most important characteristic of any campus.  Though your parents may still marvel at the architecture, the curriculum, and the student-to-faculty ratio (and you may be nothing but bored at these features of a school), you as a prospective student owe yourself the marvel at real college students in their natural habitat.  Simply put, college is more than school.  It will be your home; suburban or urban, small or large, college-based or university-based, it will become your community. And, as the traits and nuances of any community cannot be found on a bland website or in empty buildings, community must be experienced.

So, when you visit a school, don’t take just the standard campus tour.  Observe how the students there behave in class, act around campus, and – especially – commune in the dining hall (the belly of every community).  Take time to linger in each new environment and imagine yourself among its vibrant crowd.  Ideally a collegiate reverie will titillate your teenage soul, inspired into an urgent sense of optimism about making this daydream a reality; ideally you’ll know that that school – that that community – is meant for you. Alternatively, if you find yourself not daydreaming but dreading a certain undergraduate experience instead, then you will still have done yourself a favor; as you begin to plot your future, you’ll have the knowledge that that experience, or at least that that community, doesn’t ring true for you. You’ll even have plenty of time to prepare for a gap year . . . but that’s a matter for another article.

In the meantime, don’t hesitate to hit the college circuit and figure out the nuanced differences between the communities of Wellesley and Wesleyan, Williams and William and Mary, for yourself.

This article is an adaptation of an article, written for Teen Life by the Veritas Team.

Intro. statistics and social-sciences students, stay tuned; next week, the Veritas Blog will premiere its new series on introductory statistics, geared for social-scientific research!

Happy Presidents’ Weekend, all!
The Veritas Team

In Summary:

In 12th Grade:

On 11th Grade:

On 9th Grade:

On 10th Grade:

“Discover what you love to do and strive to be excellent at it.”

Warmly yours,

The Veritas Team

On Your Application:

Next week: The Application and Its Details.

On Your Admissions Officer:

Starting off 2011, the Veritas Blog is proud to inaugurate a new series, seguëïng from the Graduate Record Exam (whose series will return in the future) onto the College Admissions Process! In this first video in the series, Veritas co-founders Andrew M. and Jay B. introduce themselves, their work, and the current college-applicant’s context in one of Veritas’ popular and free local seminars. Speaking under the title “How to Get into (Your) Harvard,” the two emphasize that “there are schools out there for everyone” and that, by “discover[ing] what you love to do and striv[ing] to be excellent at it,” you’ll not only get into a college that’s right for you but also “live a fulfilled and successful life.” In short, Jay and Andrew speak to help you discover the passions that you’d like to cultivate going forward and, in posts still to come, will elaborate on how best you as a high-school student can do so.

Stay tuned, blog-readers! There’s a lot more in store for 2011.

Warmly yours,

The Veritas Team

Introductions and the Current College-Applicant’s Context:

We recently received a question from a parent asking about a policy change at her child’s school, the esteemed Boston Latin School.  With rampant student competition, the school has recently changed its policy to remove Honors classes from its Freshman curriculum.  With no GPA weighting for ninth grade BLS students, this curious parent wondered whether her daughter’s chance at admission to a top college would be limited.

In short, the answer is no.  Colleges are acutely aware of context when evaluating every applicant.  They know the policies and expectations of every applicant’s school of origin.  Even top colleges with exceptional applicant pools will not penalize a student with no AP courses if her school does not offer that curriculum.  As such, administrations are taking justifiable steps to throttle back over-achieving students.  Rather than creating a crucible of competition and stress, students ought to be encouraged to pursue activities and passions for long term interest and fulfillment.

Admissions offices certainly understand the virtue of academic passion but also recognize the life-shaping value of extracurricular interests.  The ability to learn and perform for the external motivation of grades is one indicator of diligence; however, the passion to pursue interests – such as music, sports, art, or volunteer work – for internal reward will get a student into college but more importantly into herself.

Therefore, every member of the Veritas Tutors staff is not only a expert teacher but an inspiring mentor.  It is our mission to improve student outcomes within and without the classroom by fostering sustainable curiosity, passion, and success for the school setting and beyond.  We help students discover their passions, whatever they may be, and guide them to excellence in that field.  When was the last time you asked yourself, “What am I passionate about?”

As always this was an informative and interesting discussion with Chris H. as we explored the intimate details of the admissions process.  For more information on College Admissions please visit the Veritas Blog.  Without further ado, here is the seminar in its entirety.

To download, follow this link: http://drop.io/HowToGetIntoHarvard/asset/how-to-get-into-your-harvard-2010-mp3