The Best U College Admissions Consulting

Greetings Families, Many families are continuing to ask us to send out collected updates on how COVID-19 is impacting college admissions. We will continue to be available for meetings with current clients and new clients and will provide resources and updates as we gather them. Resources for Current Seniors Here are some more resources that can help you explore colleges… College Admission Status Virtual Programs for Accepted Students College Admission Impacts The April ACT and the May SAT have been cancelled. The ACT and Collegeboard are discussing future dates and next steps. The AP exams for the academic year 2019-2020 will be offered as at-home exams online, check out more information  here . For the class of 2020 (current seniors), some colleges are pushing back their enrollment deadlines back to June 1 so seniors have more time to make their final college choice. Here is a  list  of colleges with new deposit deadlines for college enrollmen...

Colleges will release final decisions throughout the month of March. Remember colleges have until April 1 to release decisions. Some colleges will email you, others will ask you to log onto their portal, and others will mail you a letter. The decisions that will be released are for the applications from Regular Decision as well as for students deferred in Early Action and Early Decision. The standard decisions are: admit, waitlist, and deny. Some schools will offer spring semester admission or provisional acceptances with specific criteria that need to be completed prior to attending the school. If you are waitlisted then the college will give you the perimeters around when the final decisions off the waitlist will be released. Admission decisions tend to be final. If you want to appeal the decision you most likely need to email the director of admission, but you can reach out to your regional admission representative in order to find out the process. However, it is extremely r...

We are getting emails from many families about canceling their spring break college visit trips due to the state of affairs with COVID-19. There is a growing list of colleges that have canceled campus visits and/or in-person classes. Some colleges are asking students to pack up their belongings and move out of the residence halls for the rest of the school year. To be safe, many families are choosing to stay homebound rather than doing college visits in March and April during spring break. Updated List of College Closures The best source is going to the college’s admissions website directly to get the most updated information. Here is a daily updated “ Coronavirus Impact on Campus Visit ” list of popular colleges and the staus of their college visits and closures… College Visit Alternatives If you had plans to visit colleges over spring break and have canceled your trip, here are some alternatives in order to continue exploring colleges to the best of your ability while...

Based on client demand, The Best U has begun offering video courses to provide low-cost access to important college admissions information. These courses provide practical and expert advice on various topics in order for students to have the information and tools needed to manage their college admissions process. Find all our video courses  here .

There are so many ways to learn about colleges without going to visit them. Join Stacy, the owner and a college counselor at The Best U, as she walks you through all of the different ways to learn more about colleges in-depth without getting on-campus. In this video course, you will discover… How these suggestions can help high school sophomores and juniors learn about schools and how to dive into more extensive college research either prior to visiting colleges or in lieu of college visits in order to save money and time. How these tips can help high school seniors develop a more confident college list and select their final college choice. How you can save time and money by discovering the best college matches for you. COVID-19 UPDATES For seniors who had planned to visit colleges in March and April 2020 in order to make their final college choice, you will find this online course to give your comprehensive ways of exploring colleges and getting the information you need ...

Stacy Hernandez   received both her B.S. and M.S. from Northeastern University in Boston. From 1999 – 2011, I worked in undergraduate admissions at Johns Hopkins University and Northeastern University with short breaks during these years to have a family, work at Maryland Institute College of Art, and start a yoga business. In admissions, I read thousands of college applications, made admissions decisions, managed a variety of recruitment territories, oversaw the recruitment process and the tour guide program, and developed recruitment programming for underrepresented multicultural students. I switched sides of the desk and served as the Director of College Counseling at Dawson School in Lafayette, CO, from 2011 – 2015. At Dawson, I worked with all types of students to support their college admissions process and developed admissions programming for middle and high school students and parents. Additionally, I served as a College Counselor at Shining Mountain Waldorf School in...

Jenna Greenwood   received received a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Colorado, at Boulder and an M.S. in Higher Education Leadership and Policy from Portland State University. Since 2013, I’ve been supporting students as they navigate the higher education system in various different capacities. Early in my career, I did a term of service with AmeriCorps at a college access and retention nonprofit in Minnesota, where I developed an interest in helping students understand the financial aid process. I worked at the University of Oregon as a Financial Aid Counselor, where I developed a deep understanding of the financial aid system. As a Financial Aid Counselor, I advised and processed awards for a caseload of several hundred students, created and oversaw a student-run financial literacy program, and reviewed special circumstance petitions. Currently, I work as an Assistant Director of Programs and Student Engagement in the BOLD Center in the College of Engineering an...

You can’t listen to the news without hearing daily information about the spread of COVID-19. Colleges and universities around the USA and the world are having to make extreme decisions in order to keep their students safe. The impact has reached both high school and college students around the world. Some of the impacts so far include… Colleges are being asked to be flexible with missing application materials and make application decisions without having updated information since some high schools are closed and cannot provide updated grades, transcripts, etc. Service trips abroad and other school trips that high school students were planning on attending are being canceled, so they are having to plan new activity options. Families are canceling college visits due to their concerns about traveling. Many colleges are canceling or recalling students back from study abroad experiences this semester. Some high schools are postponing or canceling college fairs and college vi...

Learn why it is important to shift your expectations around having a dream school and what is the best approach to building your college list within the current state of affairs of college admissions. To learn more,  click here .

The Common Application announced their college application essay prompts for next year. The big news is that the essay prompts and word length will remain the same! You will select one prompt for your essay and you have up to 650 words (usually equals one page). Plan on writing your Common Application essay over the summer, ideally in June and July, so you can dedicate August to college essay supplements, which are the additional essays each individual college may require you to write. Writing essays over the summer will absolutely make for a less stressful senior year. Trust me, ask any current high school senior who applied to colleges this year. They will tell you to WRITE ESSAYS OVER THE SUMMER. Check out the college essay prompts below. I receive this information directly from the  Common Application . Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, plea...