Against Meritocracy (video #2)

Hi All,

Here’s the second video:

Covered topics include:


- GPA

- SAT/ACT

- Meritocracy

- The Stuyvesant High School Admissions story

- Emotional Intelligence

- The Theory of Multiple Intelligences

- The power of improving grades later in high school

- How I got into Columbia with a 2.97 GPA ...

- The importance of factors *besides* grades and test scores

- The importance of exploring and learning ones strengths/skills/goals and ....

- Appreciating and cultivating skills and interests that aren't necessarily traditional factors in admission

- The importance of *finishing high school* regardless of college plans!

- The importance of keeping eye contact with the camera when shooting a youtube video. :-)

***One topic that should be in this video but isn't and will be addressed briefly in the next one, which will also be the first SAT tutorial, is the importance of legacy in college admissions, and how legacy, while very problematic, may be a necessary evil.

Thanks for watching!

This falls into the old "it's funny because it's true" category. 

One of the reasons I've branched out from just working with students (great kids, don't get me wrong) at our nearby prep school is to help level the college admissions playing field in my little way. Live in a big city but can't pay $250+/hr for academic/admissions help and are comfortable working online/phone? Drop me a line. Ditto if you live here in Western Mass. and want to work in person. I've been doing this work for 30 years (dang I'm old), I'd be a bargain at twice the price!

#academiccoaching #academiccoach

Welcome / Time to start thinking about the Common App Essay

Welcome to the blog section of Jamie Berger: Tutor and Academic Coach for College-bound Students, where I’ll be posting updates, tips, and videos. I’m going to get right to a detailed debut post below. For a general intro to who I am and what I do, please click HERE to go to the home page. Thanks.

jamie+and+emma+tutoring.jpg

It’s time to start thinking about the Common App Essay!

Here’s one for current high-school juniors. Recently, the New-York-based tutoring site Noodle Pros, asked me to write two entries (see below) for their series on writing the Common App essay, something you should be taking a look at and starting to let percolate in your minds starting now. Start to ponder what it is about yourself that you want to let colleges know that they won’t see by looking at your GPA, test scores, and list of extra-curricular activities. (No, I didn’t say start to ponder what you don’t want them to know about you, stop that right now!) The idea is to show them something that makes you unique, that would make you an integral part of an incoming freshman class.

Take a look at the prompts on the Common App site, come up with five (5!) possible topics, and write a couple of sentences on each. Ready? Go!

Below are links below to my entries on two recent prompts, the “failure” prompt and the “choose your own topic” prompt.

https://www.noodlepros.com/blog/2017/08/01/how-to-write-your-common-app-essay-part-3-of-8/

https://www.noodlepros.com/blog/2017/09/15/common-app-essay-prompt-7/

To be clear, you’re in the middle of a busy and very important semester. Unless you have a shocking amount of free time, don’t dive deep into this until the school year ends, But take a look now, while you’re also starting to look at colleges. And, as best you can, have fun with it!

-jb