Dear Families,
Thank you! Last week I had the pleasure of speaking in front of over 500 families at Mountain View Los Altos High School. It was a wonderful step out of my daily routine. (You’ll find me most days seated behind a computer in my home office.) This experience of connecting with many people at once, to deliver a message and share useful information, en masse but in person, is one of the thrills of being human. It allows me to tap the pulse of my purpose. If you were there, thanks for coming. If you weren’t there and wish I could speak at your high school, parent group or parent-teacher-student organization, please reach out to me. I’d love the opportunity! We are entering the tunnel of the early admission deadlines. Here are my notes and tools: October Task list: What To Complete Before Early Deadlines
My Nudges Early, Regular, Not sure… If you haven’t yet decided whether you are applying early, then here are my tips.
Stay on top of your email. Be sure to check your email on a daily basis. For the moment, you are likely receiving important emails from the counseling office at your high school. Soon you will begin to receive emails from the colleges to which you have applied. This will continue through May 1st, then you will be asked to make a decision and choose one of the colleges that have admitted you. If anything is missing from your application (a letter of recommendation or a test score), the college will contact you by email. A college might also request further information from you. Failure to respond to these emails can put your admission at risk. Before you let others read your essays. You’ve put in a lot of work on your essays and you feel really good about them. So when you request others to read your essays and provide feedback, first get clear in your mind about what kind of feedback you would like to receive. People are coming from their own experiences and backgrounds which can lead to the too many cooks in the kitchen scenario. So before you let your readers loose on your essay, tell them what feedback would be useful and what you want to hear about. This way you avoid getting responses that might not be helpful to you. Examples: --I am really happy with my essay. Can you tell me if my final message is clear? --I would like to know how you respond to my essay? --I need someone to simply read over my essay and see if it could be better. You will have your own ideas about what kind of feedback you need. Communicate this to your reader for the best possible outcomes of the exchange. Stress Less. This is a stressful time on many levels. How much of this stress comes from you putting pressure on yourself? How can you stop pressuring yourself? When I catch myself ramping up my own stress, I imagine that I have a dial in front of me and I turn down the volume on the stress. Try taking a 10 minute break just to break. Step outside and feel the sunshine on your face, watch a bird or listen to the wind. Put in your earbuds and play your favorite song. Take a quick walk around the neighborhood. Sit and breathe in and out for a count of 4 each inhale and exhale. Comments are closed.
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Felicia Fahey PhDFelicia is a comprehensive educational consultant. She works with college bound students of all ages close to home, across the country and around the globe. Archives
January 2018
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