On Friday, August 13th, Corsava joined the team at Mission: Mentor for the 8th installment in their Operation College Application series: How to Build a Strategic School List to Get Accepted featuring Corsava. Watch a recording of the event here.

We like supporting organizations that offer free support to students, and the lineup this student-founded organization has put together for this series is very impressive.

On Wednesday, March 17th, Michelle Silbernagel (Touchstone College Advising) and Corsava’s own Angie Luengen shared fun, engaging tools and resources to help families launch their student’s college search while keeping the focus on finding the right fit for their unique needs. View the presentation here: https://youtu.be/pwD90qWnGIE

A critical component in our work is developing a list of good match colleges. Do you always give students the best options? How do you measure your list building skill? Building a great college list means looking beyond standard criteria to help students discover where they will be pushed, not shoved; where they will learn more about themselves, others, and the world; and where they will be happy. In this session, we will discuss critical elements of list development: experiences that correlate to success in college; questions useful in determining fit; and tips for effective list building.

Corsava’s Anne Wager and Angie Luengen, along with Emily Dobson of EDGE College Consulting, had the pleasure of sharing Corsava with a group of dedicated international counselors at The Student World’s LATAM Counselors Workshop on September 30th. View the presentation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elUSTg2HG0Y&feature=youtu.be

Keep It Relevant, Keep It Real and Hopeful

Last fall, I was catching up on the latest Seattle tech news in Geekwire, and something caught my eye--a photo of Jeff Bezos touring the Star Trek actor Patrick Stewart through Amazon headquarters. It wasn’t the image that struck me, but what lay buried in the article; they were in the department at Amazon, where “comedy writers come up with bon mots for Alexa.” Amazon hires people to write jokes!

Learn more about the importance of looking beyond the rankings to find colleges that will help students thrive in this upcoming webinar, “A Healthy Approach to College Admissions”. You can register here for the upcoming webinar with Challenge Success Co-Founder Denise Pope who will provide actionable strategies and lead this valuable look at “college fit.”

Corsava’s founder, Anne Wager, joined Chuck Liddiard, of the University of Delaware, as guests on Magellan College Counseling’s recent webinar: College Admissions Chat with Evelyn Jerome-Alexander. Check it out!

Changing plans when you thought you had things nailed down is hard in the best of times. But right now, when every week brings new predictions and plans from colleges, pivoting can be even more challenging. Before you make any decisions, make sure to look inward and ask yourself these questions to evaluate the long-term impact of your decision:

Anyone who has worked with me knows I’m not afraid to take a stand and answer questions definitively. However, we are in a new world, and anyone who says they have definitive answers right now is wrong. What follows is my take on the most popular questions we are hearing from families regarding the future of higher education, and in many cases the bottom line is, “it depends.”

To help your family make more informed decisions based on your unique situation, I’ve put together responses to these questions, with some pros and cons outlined. It’s critically important that families be aware of the downsides of taking certain actions right now as well as the possible benefits. As frustrating as it is to hear “it depends,” the more information you’re armed with before heading into the fall, the better prepared you’ll be to be flexible. Let’s take a deep dive into where we are now with June approaching.

Making connections with people at your colleges of interest is a surefire way to narrow down your top choices and stand out in the college application process.