The Compass Academics Blog
Our blog is designed to educate and inform students and their parents in all subjects related to college planning.
Campus Safety Tips
College is a time of unprecedented freedom and independence. Parents won’t enforce a curfew, and a student’s social life explodes exponentially. As the saying goes, “With freedom comes responsibility.” Here are some tips for being responsible for yourself and others:...
Survival Tips for Freshman Year
After receiving much-anticipated offers of admission, high school seniors turn their attention to preparing for their college experience. Whether it is joining campus message boards, connecting with incoming freshmen on social media, or shopping for dorm swag,...
Freshman Dorm Room Must-Haves
As college students prepare for their Freshman year and move into their dorms, here is a list of must-haves and tips for a successful transition: Whenever possible, order textbooks online (often cheaper than the bookstore) and don’t buy the book until you attend the...
How Important is Volunteer Work?
With so many variables at play in the college admissions process, it is tempting to look for ways to gain an edge. For many students who feel trapped by average GPAs and test scores, and even for students with stellar scores looking at elite programs, finding ways to...
Get Paid to Wait: Virginia Tech’s Plan to Pay Students Not to Enroll
In much the same way as farmers are often paid not to farm in order to forestall and/or correct economic imbalances, it seems that Virginia Tech is taking a similar approach to mitigate the potential strain its 7,000 incoming freshmen might place on the university and...
No Take Backs: When Colleges Rescind Admission
Many message boards and community forums dedicated to college admissions are filling up with student concerns about having an admission offer rescinded. These "reverse chance me" posts are indicative of the general anxiety high school seniors feel when they haven't...
SAT Adversity Score
The College Board’s announcement of their SAT Adversity Score expansion last month prompted a flurry of discussion surrounding its merits and/or deficiencies. There are certainly many factors that influence a student's academic success and potential to succeed at the...
College (Con)petition: Scandals, Fraud, and Deception
Where there is competition, there will always be players looking to gain an unfair advantage. If the recent Operation Varsity Blues college admissions scandal taught us anything, it is that people will do whatever it takes to win. Of course, most of us didn’t need to...
College Admissions Consultants
Desperate times call for desperate measures. The end justifies the means. Greed is good. Any of these famous quotes can be used to rationalize paying and charging ridiculous sums of money to gain an advantage in any competitive industry. Wherever uncertainty, frailty,...
Guidance Counselor Crisis
The American School Counselor Association recommends a student-to-school counselor ratio of 250:1. The national average is more than twice that at 482:1. Of course, when you consider that these counselors are most often “guidance counselors,” and not specifically...
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