The wait is finally over. You know your admission results. Congratulations on the acceptances you have earned—you’re on your way to a bright future!
Now it’s time to choose, but how? Here are some tips, and of course you can also consult your college or school counselor.
Continue reading Tips for Choosing Your College or University
The humanities add meaning to the most profound moments of our lives, but they also bear burdens—notably, the myth that their study is inconsistent with a practical and prosperous career.
Experience shows us otherwise.
Keen students of the humanities can think critically and analytically. They express themselves persuasively in speech and writing (often in more than one language), empathize, mobilize diverse individuals and talents in teamwork and problem-solving, and boldly range outside the box as leaders in education, business, economics, law, and media.
For those students (and parents) still uncertain about the value of the humanities in higher education, here are a few points to consider.
“Not on my sofa!” was one parent’s response at the prospect of their student’s gap year. Fair enough, yet under the right circumstances, could a gap year be a smart solution?
Editor’s note: This post was originally published on Admitted in November 2018. It’s being republished as part of NACAC’s Best of the Blog series.
We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files;
We’d like to help you learn to help yourself;
Look around you, all you see are sympathetic eyes;
Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home.
Simon and Garfunkel’s lyrics mirror the facts and feelings of visiting prospective colleges these days.
You may recall the story about a class of kindergartners who are asked to raise their hands if they are artists. All hands fly up amid peals of delight. Then, a class of ninth graders is asked the same question. Few or no hands appear. What happened to still those creative hands? Unfortunately, as they grow older students are often led to believe that delving deeply into the fine arts will result in an unreliable and unprofitable future. Students are steered to more “practical” endeavors like science, engineering, or business—as if knowledge were deposited like grain into sealed silos.
As college counselors, let us ventilate those silos with windows of opportunity. Each fine artist is imbued with imagination, curiosity, and creativity, and through these windows light pours into every corner of the mind. Albert Einstein declared: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Einstein is in the good company of Leonardo da Vinci, who, had he been practical and followed his father’s profession, would have become a clerk. Imagine the loss, not only to art.
Continue reading Windows of Opportunity: The Fine Arts Advantage
We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files;
We’d like to help you learn to help yourself;
Look around you, all you see are sympathetic eyes;
Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home.
Simon and Garfunkel’s lyrics mirror the facts and feelings of visiting prospective colleges these days.
