TaborTalk Blog

Writing is ingrained in every aspect of the college application process. Your ability to convey who you are in writing is important. If you are an athlete, a robotics team leader, or the main character in Chicago, admissions counselors want to know you outside of the classroom. They want to know you as your genuine, authentic self. How can you make your personal statement and supplemental essays stand out?

“Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you…….”. It’s the phrase every senior wants to read when they hear back from the schools to which they applied. Many of our students have already received good news based on early decision and early action results. But many Tabor students, and certainly the majority of high school students throughout the US, are not under binding decisions. For them, they wait. And once they get their acceptances, they decide. Ask them in June what was harder, waiting or deciding, and you might be surprised by the answer. But now it is real. Students are in the driver’s seat, about to make a decision that has been hyped as the most important of their lives to date. Many have bought into a myth of the idealized college experience only to be attained at the perfectly matched school. With the stakes ratcheted up so high, it’s no wonder they fear a misstep.   

Colleges and universities are ecosystems, and it takes time to get a feel for what makes each institution special and unique. Therefore, good research is a critical component of a student’s college search, especially the college visit. Juniors need to learn for themselves if a college or university’s vibe is right for them, and visiting campuses is the most effective (and fun!) way to figure that out.

To gain some insight about college visits, I reached out to several college admissions colleagues.

Ever wondered what all the acronyms in the college application process stand for? We're here to help. 

There’s something about August that incites the back-to-school jitters in me.  I clean and organize my desk, buy school supplies, and dig deeper into writing and meeting planning.

It’s the time of year when I start asking the juniors I work with what their plans are for the summer.

At this point, college decisions are almost all in and some students have been placed on the waitlist.  It must feel something like “I want to date you, but I’d like to see how this other person responds to my request to go out before I commit to you.”  What?  That doesn’t feel fair.

A year ago, my colleague Mary Kate McCain and I had just arrived back at Tabor following a week-long tour of colleges and universities in Louisiana and Texas, which we went on in early March.  We knew about COVID-19, but the idea of it becoming a pandemic hadn’t really struck home for the majority of Americans.  I remember looking at an infographic on my phone once we were seated on a flight heading from Boston to New Orleans, announcing to Mary Kate that there were 11 known cases of COVID in Texas.  Eleven.  What a difference a year makes.  On the college counseling front, the past year has felt a little bit like the wild west, but both college admission and college counseling offices have adapted.  Changes include virtual college rep visits and interviews, the offering of an optional prompt on the Common Application related to the impact of COVID-19, and major changes in the world of standardized testing, the most dramatic change being the surge of the test optional movement.  

Whether you’re new to the college process or a seasoned veteran, there’s always something to learn, especially in these topsy-turvy times. That’s why it’s important to hear from our colleagues at colleges and universities around the US to help us stay current. Tabor’s College Counseling Office invited four admission professionals to share some thinking with us for the Junior Family College Kickoff on December 2. Our guests were Deanna Dixon, Dean of Admission at Smith College in Northampton, MA; Bob McCullough, Director of Undergraduate Admission at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH; Amy Cembor, Senior Associate Dean of Admission at Providence College in Providence, RI; and Chris Gruber, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid at Davidson College in Davidson, NC.  

Tabor is in the midst of its third full week of distance learning, and I feel the weight of just how much has changed since we all departed for spring break.

Tabor’s college counseling team wanted to share this blog post by Jeff Schiffman, director of admissions at Tulane.