Susan Lutz, College Consultant Each summer, the Common App hits reset. This year, the first-year application will close on July 28 for its annual refresh and reopen on August 1 for students applying for Fall 2027. Most information entered in the main “My Common Application” section will roll over, but [...]

Recently I made a decision: this year, I’ll run every student essay draft through an AI detector. Yes, every single one.  I didn’t make this choice lightly. Rather, it’s because of a disturbing trend I’ve seen in some of my students’ writing: prose as smooth and glassy as a pond’s [...]

Jeanie Grimm, College Consultant In this season of Independence Day, we have been thinking about what it means to be  independent. For a country, revolution often goes hand in hand with independence. That is most definitely not what we are recommending:) For high school students, we are really talking about [...]