Prabhu Kavi, CFA’s Post

Parents of seniors awaiting college results, you have one job: Create the most supportive home environment you can, ideally before decisions come out. This week's featured reach4college.com post describes how: https://lnkd.in/e7Scf-Dq Your goal is to reinforce that your child’s merit and worth is not determined by the 12 minutes that admission officers take on average to review your child’s application. Instead, it is the 12 years of effort they have put in towards their studies, extracurriculars, and family commitments that make them ready to thrive in college. And that the colleges that admit them will be lucky to have them.

The Revival of Standardized Tests Great news! Yale announced that standardized tests will be required, and this follows Dartmouth’s similar announcement a couple of weeks ago. In this week’s featured Reach4College.com post, I explain why this is news that everyone should cheer. Contrary to many people’s opinion that standardized tests favor the rich, these colleges have done the research to show that these test scores, when viewed in context, are a great way to find strong students in poor performing schools that might otherwise be overlooked. The key takeaway for students: Everyone should take those standardized tests! Read more about this here: https://lnkd.in/eZKn6Cgv

Show Me The Money! This week's Reach4College.com post is for any family concerned about how to pay for college. With private college costs now approaching $85K per year, it's no surprise many families face sticker shock. But some colleges are willing to lure talented students through merit scholarships. To help you find these scholarships, I created a spreadsheet listing the merit scholarships offered by over 100 top US colleges and state flagships. For strong students, there is plenty of money available. Some of these scholarships provide a full-ride (covering tuition, room and board), and many more cover full-tuition. You can read all about this here: https://lnkd.in/ete4F7Ke #collegecounseling #scholarships

Today's Reach4College.com update is targeted for students in grades 9-11. One of the ways students get ahead in college admissions relative to other students is by having a productive summer. To help make yours productive, my latest blog post contains ideas for summer projects as well as a spreadsheet that lists over 25 high impact summer camps (mostly STEM now, with others to be added later). You can read more at https://lnkd.in/eMpCBx_z #collegeadmissions #collegeadvice

In this week’s featured Reach4College post, I review the best college advice book I have ever read, How to be a High School Superstar, by Cal Newport. Cal describes an innovative approach on how high school students can excel in extracurricular activities without burning out. This book recognizes that most students approach selective college admissions the wrong way. They overload themselves with difficult classes and participate in too many activities, but master none, hoping that their dedication to overwork makes them attractive enough to be admitted. Unfortunately, this approach rarely works for the most selective colleges. Cal’s book describes another way to shine in extracurriculars. Ironically, he advises that students cut back on the number extracurriculars and reduce the number of difficult classes. The free time is then dedicated to a student’s deep interest, which they cultivate over time into an outstanding extracurricular. For a more complete description of how this book does this, read: https://lnkd.in/eD2H6FD6 #collegecounseling #collegeadvising

I am happy to announce that I have started volunteering on Saturdays with MindsMatterBoston.org, a fantastic organization that takes talented low income students from the Boston area and guides them towards college. This organization is still looking for volunteers, so be sure to check them out. No previous understanding of college admissions is required. Of course, I am also continuing to coach students one-on-one through my volunteer efforts with Reach4College.com. If you know of strong STEM students that would benefit, have them reach out to me. #collegecounseling #collegeadvising

In my last week's Reach4College.com featured post, I called legacy admissions a "dead man walking" and predicted it could disappear by the end of 2023. It now looks it can happen much faster. In the last few days alone, Carnegie-Mellon, Wesleyan and the University of Minnesota all dropped legacy. More will follow. It is just a matter of time before an Ivy League college drops legacy. And if Harvard, Yale, or Princeton do so, there will be an avalanche as all colleges rush to drop it. No college wants to be the last one defending legacy admissions. Switching gears, in this week's featured post, I explain Yield Protection. This is when a college waitlists or rejects highly qualified applicants, shocking the students that applied. I explain why this happens, and what you can do to avoid it. https://lnkd.in/eTiFJRp7 #legacy #collegeadmissions #collegecounseling

Last week, the Supreme Court banished Affirmative Action for college admissions but left Legacy Admissions intact. Many found this unfair, and this week there have been multiple salvos attacking Legacy Admissions. In this week's featured Reach4College.com post, I discuss whether Legacy Admissions will survive these current and likely coming salvos. https://lnkd.in/eA-bUi54 #legacy #collegeadmissions #collegecounseling

In this week's Reach4College.com featured post, I estimate the admissions impact of the Supreme Court's affirmative action decision. This is Part 1 which discusses impact on private colleges like Harvard, and a future Part 2 will discuss public colleges like UNC. To calculate the likely impact on admission rates, I use Harvard's internal models that were released as part of the lawsuit disclosure. https://lnkd.in/ejGx9S_C #collegeadvice #collegeadmissions #supremecourt #harvard