Recently in College admission Category

Before I close down for the night, I wanted to let everyone know that AQ contributed a blog post & podcast episode to the second edition of Mark Montgomery's College Admission Carnival.

The podcast (College Admission Carnival) is an interview that I recorded with Mark for the Boarding School Podcast. In it we talked about the reasons why he founded the Carnival along with his plans for the future.

On the blog front, we submitted the Boarding School Mom's first entry to her Parent's Boarding School Admission Journal.

Many thanks to Mark for inviting AdmissionsQuest to contribute.

NPR ran a story by reporter Tovia Smith introducing and explaining the 'gap year'. In simplest terms a gap year is a period (it can be a semester or a year) between high school graduation and college matriculation that a student uses to work or pursue an interest before settling into the strictures of college studies.

Gap year programs allow students to pursue a specific interest, learn about something new, and gain perspective. Programs can be academic, cultural experience based, and or work based. The goal is to make sure to make the time productive.

Smith does nice job of addressing two important issues:

1. What thinking, questions, and answers lead you to the conclusion that a gap year would be a good experience for you or your student?
   
   
2. Gap years cost money and the notion that gap years are the province of students with means who can afford to take a year off persists.  Gap years can be based on income producing work.

It's interesting to see that Princeton now offers support to students who enter public service during this bridge year.

You can hear Tovia Smith's full report on NPR's web site.

Interested in learning about specific programs? Check out AQ's list of gap year opportunities.

This is a bit of side-step from our normal conversation about boarding schools, but as a parent of a toddler I've got 529 plans on the brain.

My wife & I started one a year or so back knowing full well that we needed each second between then and the start of our child's (gulp!) college career for the plan to mature. It's stunning to start the process 18 years PRIOR, but that's a conversation for another day. In any event, we have lots of friends in the same boat and many (if not all) find the process of finding the right plan a bit confusing.

So, why talk about it here? Well, I stumbled on U Sphere a few weeks back-- a site that focuses on college admission. Lots of good info, but their directory of 529 plans immediately grabbed my attention. It's not intended to advise you on which plan to choose, but it does provide a great pivot point for your search. I found it handy to have all the plans in one place.