This has been a crazy year, but our seniors are headed to some amazing colleges in the fall and we wish them the best of luck!

We are so excited for our seniors! They may not be ending high school as planned, but they all have so much to look forward to.
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Here is a list of where our seniors are enrolled for next year. From small liberal arts colleges to big state schools, California to Maine, Midwestern towns to Manhattan, Engineering to English majors -- our seniors are headed off for some amazing experiences!

This week, several more schools have announced test-optional policies for next year (and in some cases, beyond). Here are some of the new announcements:

• University of California 
• Davidson College
• Pomona College
• Vassar College
• Rhodes College
• Texas Christian University
• Trinity University
  

And in case you missed our last blog post, here are some of the schools that announced last week:

• Tufts University
• Boston University
• University of Oregon
• Scripps College
• Case Western University

You can find a full list at www.fairtest.org. You can also stay updated on current college admissions news by following us on Facebook or Twitter. Have a great weekend! 

Several schools have announced this week that they will be test optional for the Class of 2021 (and in some cases beyond that). We expect that this trend may continue given all of the SAT and ACT cancellations and the uncertainty about June test dates. 

• Tufts University
• Boston University
• University of Oregon
• Scripps College

MIT has made the decision to no longer consider the SAT Subject Tests

Here are some lists we found online with suggestions of ways to make good use of your time at home. When admissions officers review applications next year, do you think they will be more impressed by the student who spent his quarantine time watching Netflix, or the aspiring elementary school teacher who created a YouTube channel of himself teaching introductory cooking lessons to kids or the future engineer who took an online course about how bridges are built...and then built her own out of household materials?

Teen Volunteering Ideas while Sheltering in Place (created by a counselor in CA)
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40 Resume-worthy Activities You Can Do From Your Living Room Sofa (created by the Mauler Institute)

Advice from Jeff Schiffman at Tulane (scroll to “I’m a junior in high school and all of my spring extracurricular activities have been canceled”) 
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How to College (Social) Distance Learning Series for high school students (and any interested parents and educators). Presented on Instagram Live by Lara Schwartz and Andrea Malkin Brenner from American University, co-authors of How to College: What to Know Before You Go (and When You're There)  

•  Session 1: Using Your Distance Learning Experience as a Gut Check for the College Transition: How to Thrive in Unstructured Time 
• Session 2: The New College You: Preparing to Live in a College Community 
• Session 3: College is School: Academic Expectations 
• Session 4: Taking Care of You: Preparing to Look After Your Mental and Physical Health on Your Own 
• Session 5: Money Talk: Financial Literacy and Budgets 
• Session 6: Life Beyond the Classroom: Navigating Your New College Town and Planning Your Activities 
• Session 7: Your College Readiness To-do List: Getting From Today to Move-In Day 

 Before each hour-long talk, they will post a link to Google slides in their Instagram bio and on Facebook so attendees can view the slides during the live stream. Follow @HowToCollegeOfficial on Instagram and How to College on Facebook for more details. 

Follow Vinik EPS on Twitter and Facebook for more updates as we help you navigate the constantly changing college admissions landscape! 

I recently spent an afternoon at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida.  FSC is a small, private college of roughly 2,600 undergraduate students.  The school offers more than seventy areas of study, from traditional liberal arts disciplines such as history and philosophy to pre-professional programs, including business, nursing and education.  Want to study citrus science?  FSC may be the place for you.

Florida Southern was founded in 1883 and is the oldest private college in Florida.  Most college guides rank its campus as one of the most beautiful in the country.  The campus sits adjacent to Lake Hollingsworth and features 13 buildings designed by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright,   In fact, FSC boasts the largest single-site collection of Wright-designed buildings in the country.  Florida Southern's campus also includes a number of contemporary buildings that are unusually striking.  I've been to hundreds of beautiful colleges over the years, but the FSC campus is in a class by itself.

The small city of Lakeland is halfway between Orlando and Tampa and is just a short ride from campus.  Lakeland has a number of restaurants, from Indian-Pakistani to Creole.  Lakeland's historic Polk Theater shows both current and classic movies.  While I was in town, 2020 Oscar winner Parasite was playing at The Polk.

Reasons to attend Florida Southern College

• Small classes -- Roughly 60% of FSC classes have fewer than 20 students.  Get to know your professors as they get to know you 
• Great weather -- Lakeland, Florida enjoys more than 300 days of sunshine a year.  Who could turn that down?
• Honors Program -- Interested in challenging yourself and working closely with faculty?  The honors program at FSC culminates in a two year capstone project that pairs you with a professor in your field.  Honors students receive priority registration, special housing and the opportunity to take extra classes for free.
• Internships in Tampa and Orlando and Beyond -- Internships are so important to FSC that many departments have their own individual internship coordinators.  Students in the School of Business and Free Enterprise have special access to all sorts of internship opportunities.
• A fabulous, historic campus -- At how many colleges can students walk in the steps of Frank Lloyd Wright and study in one of his iconic buildings every single day?  
• Taco Bus Restaurant -- Are you tough enough to order El Jefe?

Laura is currently serving as the interim pre-law adviser at Georgetown University's Cawley Career Education Center. Her article, "Top 3 Myths Your High School Clients Believe About Law School," was recently featured in the Independent Educational Consultants Association Newsletter. Common misconceptions about law school include:

• Myth #1: I have to go to a "prestigious" college and major in political science to have a chance at attending a top-tier law school.
• Myth #2: I hate public speaking / I don’t want to deal with criminals / I don’t want to work a million hours in a big law firm...so being a lawyer isn’t for me.
  
• Myth #3: I’ll never do well on the LSAT because of those tricky logic games, so I can’t get into a “good” law school.
  

To find out why all of these statements are myths, read the full article here.

You researched colleges, you visited campuses, you agonized over your choices and finally narrowed it down to your one chosen favorite – the lucky winner of your Early Decision (ED) application. After submitting the application in early November, you moved on – there were other applications to complete, midterms to take, and Thanksgiving break plans. But all of the sudden it is now December! You could actually hear back as early as next week from some schools (though most schools will notify applicants more towards the middle of the month).

How can you stay calm while waiting for what feels like the most important decision of your life?

Focus on the great schools you have already been accepted to. This time last year, one of our clients applying ED to Cornell had already received a generous scholarship to Tulane University. Another had been accepted to the Honors program at the University of Pittsburgh. A client who applied Early Decision to Bates College had been offered a substantial merit award from Clark University, and a student applying ED to Tufts was excited to have already been offered a spot at his dad’s alma mater, Indiana University. We encourage all of our clients to apply to at least one school with rolling decisions or early notification. That first acceptance does wonders for students’ stress levels!

Stay off of social media. If your school is one of the later ones to release decisions, or if you didn’t get the news you were hoping for, do you really want to see pictures of your friend Johnny sporting all of his new Duke gear?

Make sure all of your other applications are in. I know it is tempting to let your regular decision applications sit – after all, they aren’t due until January, and you may get good news from your Early Decision school in mid-December. But what if you don’t? Then you’re in a bad mood, it is Winter Break, and you’re doing a sloppy rushed job on your remaining applications instead of enjoying the holidays. Plus Murphy’s Law says that if you invest a lot of time on the other applications, you’ll end up getting into your Early Decision school, right? And at that point, you’ll be so happy you won’t care about the wasted time or application fees.

Focus on your grades. Senior grades matter. A LOT. Particularly for regular decision schools, and any Early Decision or Early Action schools where you are deferred to the regular pool. These schools will all be waiting for your fall transcript, and these are the grades that tell them the most about the student you will be when you get to their campus. And if you are admitted Early Decision or Early Action, schools will still want to see your final transcript before you officially enroll. Last year I had a client who was questioned about her dramatic drop in grades second semester, and she had a rocky 48 hours in June where she wasn’t sure if the school was going to revoke her acceptance.

Spend time with your family and friends. After all, in about nine months, you’ll be moving away – possibly to the next town, or possibly across the country. Cherish the time you have with your family and friends while you can. Have your mom teach you how to do laundry and boil and egg.

Remember that there is more than one “perfect” school. You have a variety of schools on your list for a reason. They all have something to offer and if you put together a thoughtful list then they should all be schools where you know you can be happy and successful. Every one of my clients who did not get in to his or her ED school has ultimately been excited about his or her options.

Continue doing the things you love. Hopefully all of those activities weren’t just for college applications. So keep volunteering at the soup kitchen, training for the half-marathon, or teaching kids to play piano. Hobbies are one of the best ways to relieve stress. I hear that some people find baking brownies to be very calming – if this is you, I can send you my address!

Good luck making it through the waiting game of the next several weeks and/or months. For two great New York Times articles on coping with the stress of college admissions decisions, check out: College Advice for the Cost of a Single Post-it Noteand How to Survive the College Admissions Madness. And just remember Frank Bruni’s sage advice in his best-selling book title, “Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be.”