College Admissions

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How One Student Made The Most Of His College Visit

Making The Most of College Visits

I received a call the other day from one my students, Nick, who had spent the day at SUNY Oneonta, a regional state university situated in the middle of upstate New York. He was scheduled to attend their information session but had also called ahead to secure an interview with an admission counselor. With the school residing nearly four hours from his hometown, it wasn’t likely that he was going back for a second visit before application season takes off. The school had only recently shown up on Nick’s radar and with a day off from school for Rosh Hashanah, he and his dad made the trek to campus.

Once the interview was over, Nick and his dad decided to skip the information session. He felt they had already received so much good information from the admission counselor that sitting through a 45-minute presentation would be redundant. They took a chance and decided to go off the beaten path to explore campus on their own.

Nick is a prospective music industry major so they decided to visit the music building to take a look around. Once inside, they ran into a few students. They made small talk with the students and then happened upon a professor who was on his way to teach a class. After introducing himself, the professor offered to show them around the building. He talked about the program’s strengths, the opportunities that were there for a student like Nick and also showed them around the sound recording studios. But it’s what happened next that got me so excited for Nick.

Realizing the time had come for his class to start shortly, the professor invited Nick to sit in on his class.

Nick accepted this professor’s offer and spent the next hour and half getting a taste of what a college class would feel like.

I’m so proud of him for doing what he did and I couldn’t have scripted it any better even if I had tried. If Nick had just sat through the information session, he would have missed out on all of this. He never would have sat in on the class, he never would have had a first hand look at the studios and he never would have called me with the level of excitement in his voice that I heard that day.

Instead, he took a chance, struck up some conversations and ended up having an experience that may just end up being a game-changer by the time his applications have been submitted and the dust has settled.

Now, that’s how you make the most of a college visit.

If you want some help and guidance on your college search and application process, contact me today to set up an appointment for a FREE 60-minute consultation.

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Eric Sep 08, 2013 , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
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A Conversation About College

A Conversation About CollegeLearn More at Dobler College Consulting’s College Admissions Workshop

I will be hosting a free workshop titled, “A Conversation About College” on Monday, September 30th at Sacred Heart Church in Southbury, CT. For more information or to reserve your seat, head over to my Events page.

The workshop shares strategies to help your son or daughter navigate the college admissions process while eliminating mistakes that tend to reduce their chances of admission. Topics include college lists, essays, interviews, campus visits and what you need to know about making college more affordable.

All workshop participants will receive informational handouts and will be eligible for special discounts off private college counseling services.

Don’t live in or near Southbury? You can easily get in touch with me to set up a free 60-minute consultation to help address your pressing college admissions-related questions and issues.

Also be sure to snag your free copy of the Top Ten Tips For Navigating The College Admissions Journey.

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Eric Sep 01, 2013 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , No Comments
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Four Ways To Explore Careers

Four Ways To Explore CareersConsidering I went to college with no idea of what I wanted to do, I spend a lot of time talking with my students about how they will make the most of college. I don’t expect them to have their life’s plan mapped out and ready to be laminated, but I do expect that they are ready to talk about their VIPS and how they can help direct them toward a major and, ultimately, a career path.

However, talking about career ideas will only get you so far.

So, here’s a few ideas on how you can get past talking and actually get into trying on mode:

Informational Interviews

Let’s say you’ve been thinking about being a lawyer but you don’t know what kind of law you would like to practice. Well, there’s no shortage of lawyers in any town or city so start calling up law firms and ask if any of the lawyers would be interested in being interviewed about what they do. Go in with a lot of great questions and you can learn a lot very quickly.

Job Shadows

While an informational interview can help you gather information, a job shadow is a great way to try on a profession for a day or two. Staying with the lawyer example, reach out to your family and friends (otherwise known as networking) to see if they know any lawyers. Then, ask for an introduction where you can ask about shadowing for a day or two to learn more about what they do.

Volunteering

If the job shadow goes well and you find yourself even more interested in being a lawyer than you did before you started exploring, volunteering some of your time now to help out around the office can be a great way to learn more and, ultimately, earn an internship, or part-time job later on. As a volunteer the tasks will be small, but the overall experience, interaction and networking can be incredibly valuable.

Summer Programs on College Campuses

They don’t come cheap, but some colleges host summer programs for high school students to explore career paths more in-depth. For aspiring lawyers, the Penn Pre-Law Summer Program lasts for an entire month and includes tuition, housing, meals, materials and weekend trips. A program like this should only be pursued if the previous three options have been exhausted.

Want some help navigating the college admissions journey? Give me a call now at 203.525.4096 or email me at eric@doblercollegeconsulting.com to schedule a FREE 60-minute consultation to discuss your college counseling needs.

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Eric Aug 04, 2013 , , , , , , No Comments
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How To Write Your Essay For Common App Prompts #3, #4 And #5

How To Write Your Essay For Prompts 3, 4 and 5If you’re trying to work through your Common App Essay, you’re in the right place. Last week I talked about How To Write Your Essay For Common App Prompts #1 and #2. Today, I’m going to cover prompts #3, #4 and #5.

Prompt #3: Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again?

This prompt is a tricky one because it only works for you if you actually challenged something AND it affected you in some way. With multiple keywords here, REFLECT ON A TIME, PROMPTED YOU TO ACT and WOULD YOU MAKE THE SAME DECISION AGAIN you have to make sure you hit on all three. Just wishing you had acted on something or not really knowing why you acted on something isn’t going to cut it.

This prompt gives you a chance to talk about your VIPS and can show that you have the ability to think critically about things that are bigger than you. Admission counselors like it when their students can demonstrate qualities like this.

Prompt #4: Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?

I really like this prompt because I think it allows for so much creative freedom if, and I stress if, the story is told well enough. The first set of keywords, PLACE OR ENVIRONMENT leaves a lot to interpretation. Is this a place you physically go to like your living room couch or somewhere less tangible than that? Your relationship to God, for instance? Either way, you have to tie into the remaining keywords which ask WHAT YOU EXPERIENCE in this place and why it’s MEANINGFUL TO YOU. And this is the key to this prompt – you need to talk about why this place is so important to you, what happens to you when you’re there and why it helps you in your life.

Prompt #5: Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.

This prompt allows you a lot of flexibility because the keywords are so broad. We’ve all had at least one ACCOMPLISHMENT in our lives and, depending on what’s important to you, you get to define whether it was FORMAL OR INFORMAL. The last set of keywords, CULTURE, COMMUNITY OR FAMILY are also very broad and left open to interpretation. Having said that, it’s the middle set of keywords, MARKED YOUR TRANSITION FROM CHILDHOOD TO ADULTHOOD that are important here.

Because while we’ve all had accomplishments, not each of them has helped us to think and act more like an adult. And that’s the key here: you need to show that whatever it was that you achieved, completed, performed or produced was an important event in your process of becoming an adult.

Going to college is a major transition in your life and one that will rapidly draw you into adulthood as you face critical decisions about your immediate and long-term future. An admission counselor will be pleased to see that you’ve gone through other transitional phases in your life and that you are on your way to becoming the person you were meant to be.

Want some help navigating the college admissions journey? Give me a call now at 203.525.4096 or email me at eric@doblercollegeconsulting.com to schedule a FREE 60-minute consultation to discuss your college counseling needs.

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Eric Jul 28, 2013 , , , , , No Comments
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How To Write Your Essay For Common App Prompts #1 And #2

Dobler College ConsultingLast week I introduced you to the new Common App essay prompts. If you missed the post, here it is.

At the end of the post, I said I would share some tips on how to approach each of the prompts. Without further ado, let’s talk about prompts #1 and #2 and in my next post we’ll talk about prompts #3, #4 and #5.

Prompt #1: Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

This is what I call a “big-picture” prompt because it’s about you and your identity.  It’s a topic that you can completely whiff on if you don’t pay attention to the keywords. First, whatever background or story you are going to share has to be CENTRAL TO YOUR IDENTITY. This means the story needs to be something big, something that has shaped you as a person, something that sits at the very core of who you are.

The second set of keywords, YOUR APPLICATION WOULD BE INCOMPLETE WITHOUT IT, is just as important. This means that, without telling this story, colleges aren’t going to understand the full picture of who you are and why they should admit you.

So, write down the prompt and then start making notes on everything that makes you who you are. What are your VIPS and how did they come to be that way? Has anything happened in your life – again, big-picture ideas here only – that an admission counselor should take into consideration? Remember, you’re trying to let them in on something about you that will help them say “Yes!” to your application.

Prompt #2: Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?

This prompt is all about making lemonade out of lemons.  So let’s keep keywords in mind here as well. First, AN INCIDENT OR TIME WHEN YOU EXPERIENCED FAILURE. Here, you’re being asked to talk about a time that you took a risk or tried something and failed at it. However, it’s the second set of keywords HOW DID IT AFFECT YOU and WHAT LESSONS DID YOU LEARN that form the foundation of what you are going to try to do with this prompt.

Because what you’re not going to do is go on and on about the failure itself. In fact, you should briefly introduce the failure and then spend the bulk of your essay talking about how it affected you and what you learned from it.

I like this topic because who hasn’t failed at something in their lives?

Just don’t dwell on the failure itself. Instead, focus on how something positive came out of it. Again, you’re asking an admission counselor to say “Yes!” to your application and an essay that is focused on a negative outcome isn’t necessarily going to help your cause.

Next week I’ll talk about essay prompts #3, #4 and #5. Stay tuned…

Want some help navigating the college admissions journey? Give me a call now at 203.525.4096 or email me at eric@doblercollegeconsulting.com to schedule a FREE 60-minute consultation to discuss your college counseling needs.

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Eric Jul 21, 2013 , , , , , No Comments