Ask almost any college and they’ll likely agree that they aren’t looking for students to specialize in high school. They prefer students to demonstrate that they can be successful within the five core course types because that is what they will be expected to do in college.

Academic rigor is one of those buzz phrases you’ll read and hear a lot during college preparation research. It is regularly touted as the most important aspect to any college reviewing your application, yet pinning down what exactly constitutes academic rigor can be murky at best.

The Common Application has announced the 2025-26 application cycle essay prompts, which are largely remaining the same.

The personal statement is likely to be the college application component over which you have the most control. But it is also an intimidating task to sum up the whole of your being into approximately 650 words. Here are my tips to take this process one step at a time.

Early Decision I, Early Decision II, Early Action, Single Choice Early Action, Regular, Rolling— aka ED I, EDII, SCEA, EA, RD… Ahhh! What does all of this even mean?

In my last post I gave three concrete steps to take when “eating the elephant” one bite at a time, making the college applications process more manageable. Let’s explore the next three “bites.”

College application season has officially begun.

Knowing where to start can be daunting. So many of my students show up trying to tackle it all at once. But like I always tell them, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

So here are my suggestions for a few of your first bites: