ADHD Resource Specialist & Parent Partner

Disability ReFramed: In Media (Virtual) | Buy Tickets in Boston | Ticketbud Disability ReFramed: In Media (Virtual) - Boston - June 27, 2024 at 1 Guest St, Boston, MA, USA. Find event and ticket information on Ticketbud.

Welcome To Holland

By Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The flight attendant comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Letting kids play is “literally an investment that delivers compound interest year after year, after year,” said Michael Hynes, superintendent of the Port Washington, Long Island School District.

Check out how easy it is to start a Play Club 👉 https://ow.ly/VXZZ50RmqBp

I HIGHLY recommend these guys (see below for FREE webinar. Woot!) They’re great. They have it all including executive functioning coaches and k-adult mentoring and INCREDIBLE academic tutors. ❤️👏🏼

Dear Friends:
We invite you to join us for a free information session to learn about the evolving role of standardized testing (SATs, ACTs, APs) in college admissions.

Sunday, February 4, 2024
7:00pmEST-7:45pmEST

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAsf--rpz8iGdOvkIUGZcm6_MrcM0EPV78j #/registration

You may have heard the buzz about colleges and universities reinstating standardized test requirements. Whether or not they do, these tests — including and especially AP tests — really matter in college admissions. AP scores, which reflect actual knowledge gained, can serve as a critical differentiator on the college application. AP scores give colleges a benchmark for differentiating students taking these challenging classes.

“Standardized test scores are a much better predictor of academic success than high school grades, which… carry the complication of being increasingly subject to grade inflation.”

Christina Paxson, President of Brown University, “To Test or Not to Test.”

“Without test scores, admissions officers sometimes have a hard time distinguishing between applicants.”
David Leonhardt, The New York Times. “The Misguided War on the SAT.”

“In 2016, 47 percent of high school students graduated with grades in the A range. This means that nearly half of seniors are averaging within a few numeric points of one another.”

Tim Donahue, high school English teacher.“ If Everyone Gets an A, No One Gets an A.”

“An A at one high school isn’t the same thing as an A at another high school... College admissions officers are left looking at transcripts where nearly all the students are getting nearly all A’s. They can’t make decisions based only on that.”

The New York Times Daily, “The Messy Fight Over the SAT.”

Our diverse cohort of instructors can help your student prepare for the upcoming AP exams in May, as well as the ACT and SAT. Click here to schedule a free consultation.

Please forward this invitation to anyone who might be interested. You can also click here for a free consultation to learn more.

Hope to see you!

Abigail

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: NEW DATE!! FREE Information Session: APs, SATs, and ACTs in College Admissions. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting. Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: NEW DATE!! FREE Information Session: APs, SATs, and ACTs in College Admissions. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.

Join in on an evening of talking about a really hard, but terribly important, topic.

The film, Childhood 2.0, is hard to watch as a parent… so let’s watch it together.

Accord School director Katy Boucher will be on the panel.

The best time to start is in June and July. The Common Application takes roughly 5-10 hours, though this estimate can vary widely. The initial interview is the most essential piece of the process, since that is how we get to know what makes the applicant special and unique. As we chat about extracurricular interests and activities, we start filling out the Activities/Honors/Additional Information sections. We also determine whether we can take advantage of the COVID question (this may be removed for the 2023 application season) and whether the student needs to fill out an additional question (for example if they had disciplinary action or switched schools). These take extra time, of course, but also provide an opportunity to tell the admissions officer more details. Students whose activities sections are full and complex require extra time and strategy. Please note: Not all schools take the Common Application but I’ve never met a student who didn’t use it at all. We know how to repurpose writings from the Common App for the Coalition App, UC system, or college specific applications like Georgetown, MIT, and Loyola.

Register for a free consultation! Link in bio!

Wanted to share an EXCELLENT resource for academic tutoring, executive functioning coaching for teens, and college counseling/applications.

Abigail Hillman & Associates: Academics & Applications Tailor-made, concierge application services from 8th grade through grad school. Personalized academic support from kindergarten through college.

Be sure to check out these podcasts!