Author Archives: Robin Abedon

Application Inflation: When is Enough Enough?

The New York Times by Eric Hoover — The numbers keep rising, the superlatives keep glowing. Each year, selective colleges promote their application totals, along with the virtues of their applicants.

For this fall’s freshman class, the statistics reached remarkable levels. Stanford received a record 32,022 applications from students it called “simply amazing,” and accepted 7 percent of them. Brown saw an unprecedented 30,135 applicants, who left the admissions staff “deeply impressed and at times awed.” Nine percent were admitted.

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Essential Information for the College Bound

TShirt3Not all who wander are lost, so Tolkien has told us. And so I am reminded each time I wear one of my favorite Life is Good t-shirts to enjoy some leisure time activity. So I was particularly pleased to hear these words from Soledad O’Brien, CNN anchor, recently, as she accepted the challenge of writing to her 17 year old self, 17 years later. What did she wish she had known then that she knows now?

“There is opportunity – and sometimes joy – in chaos and the unknown. . . Open up the door to a little more uncertainty! Honestly, it’s not a weakness to live this way.”

As my students in the class of 2010 prepare to go off to college, some have a planned road map to their future. Others do not. To all I say, it is good to have a plan; however, that plan might change — – one time or more. If there is no plan, as yet, there is time to develop one. Go to college allowing for uncertainty.

Read the complete Summer 2010 Newsletter