January 2025

Happy 2025!

It’s been an interesting year for me as a college consultant and a father, since this year my oldest child has been applying to colleges. So far there’s one acceptance (congratulations!), three applications pending, and another one to three being sent in the next week.

In some ways it’s been kind of easy to go through this with my own kid, because it’s not as overwhelming and I don’t feel like we’re starting at nothing. I already had some colleges in mind to recommend, and I’m also learning about some that I wasn’t familiar with.

But emotionally? Sometimes I’m just a dad watching his kids grow up, which is completely normal and also completely bonkers. I’ll keep you posted. Until then, there’s seasonal advice, some blog posts from years past that still make sense, and all of December’s college admission news.

—Benjamin

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Here’s what I covered on the website in December:

What should I be doing now? 12th grade, winter break

What should I be doing now? 9th-11th grade, winter break

Three Quick Questions:

The full Three Quick Questions archive. Whether or not you’re going to work with a consultant for college admission (you probably don’t need to), how would you answer these questions? How would you explain yourself to another person? What questions do you think I should ask that I don’t?

Here are some blog posts from the archive that seem good for this January:

Stop doing that. I want to encourage you to stop doing the things that aren’t making you a better student or happier person, even if those things are generally considered good. You already know you should stop giving in to your “bad” habits; we all know that. But if a “good” habit isn’t helping you, then please let it go.

The glossary: merit aid and need-based aid. College is expensive. Very expensive. Which is why most students receive some form of financial aid to help them pay for it. There's all kinds of terminology for all kinds of different financial aid, but let's first look at two broad categories.