The Compass Academics Blog
Resources Designed for Academic Growth
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...
Power of the Yield Protection Myth
To paraphrase Nietzsche: Humans can tolerate suffering, but humans can't tolerate meaningless suffering. There is no doubt that many students are suffering right now with news of rejection from schools where they hoped they would spend the next four years of their...
On the Subject of SAT Subject Tests
I recently gave a presentation for parents of HS Sophomores and Juniors and the subject of SAT subject tests came up. Compass Academics is based in St. Louis and many of our local clients are not very familiar with the SAT, much less SAT Subject tests. When I...
Diversity Diversion?
In a recent article, “When Colleges Seek Diversity Through Photoshop,” InsideHigherEd.com exposes the lengths to which schools will go to appear to be more inclusive than they actually are. Scott Jaschik reports that a recent ad campaign from York College in...
Admissions Demystified
What Does it Take to Get into College? Each year, the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) publishes their industry report: “State of College Admissions.” This is a fantastic resource for parents and their college-bound students. NACAC...
Activism and Academia
The Political Campus The recent mid-term election further illuminated the political spectrum of our country and college-aged voters turned out in record numbers. With the highest turnout in 25 years, voters between the ages of 18-29 took to the polls and influenced...
Students for Sale
How much are applicants worth? In the world of Big Data and ever-increasing competition, universities are target-marketing to potential students like never before. What used to be a seasonal outreach program to students who generally fit a profile, has now become a...
Degrees of Debt
How much should college cost? Recently, Reddit posted an excellent thread in their Life Pro Tips forum. For those of you unfamiliar with Reddit, it is known as the “Front Page of the Internet” and is essentially a site that aggregates web content, news, and...
ACT, SAT, or Both?
Which college admissions test should you take? It is that time of the year when rising Seniors are considering taking their college placement tests at least one more time before they submit their college applications. If they did not do as well as they had hoped...
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