As colleges increasingly integrate AI into the admissions process — from essay screening to application review and even interviews — families are asking an important question:
How do students still stand out as real people?
When written components are harder to authenticate, and applications are reviewed at an unprecedented scale, student voice and presence carry growing weight. Admissions offices have said this directly.
This is why an InitialView Glimpse video remains a powerful — and often underutilized — tool, especially for students who have been deferred or placed on a waitlist.
A short, 60–90 second video allows admissions officers to:
• See the student behind the transcript and data points
• Assess authenticity, intellectual ownership, and communication
• Add human context when decisions are close and outcomes uncertain
Importantly, it is not too late. Submitting a Glimpse video after a deferral or during waitlist review is not only appropriate — for many colleges, it is welcomed.
In an admissions landscape where:
– Essays may be AI-assisted or AI-reviewed
– Reader fatigue is real
– Committees are looking for clarity among equally qualified applicants
👉 Video can help differentiate a student who is “on the bubble.”
This is not about polish or performance. It is about presence, clarity, and credibility — qualities that are difficult for algorithms to evaluate but remain central to human decision-making.
For families navigating uncertainty right now, a Glimpse video can be one of the few remaining opportunities for a student to be seen and heard in a meaningful way.
Advanced College Counseling
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Advanced College Counseling assists high school students and their families navigate all aspects of the college admissions process.
Another admissions season is well underway, and while many families are still holding their breath for Regular Decision, it’s been encouraging to see how students are doing so far.
Thanks to , we’re able to take a step back from individual outcomes and look at patterns over time. What the data continues to show is that strong results don’t come from shortcuts or luck, but from early planning, balanced college lists, and applications that clearly and authentically tell a student’s story.
Admit Rates — Overall vs. Dr. Sue’s Students (NerdApply):
Stanford University: Overall 3.60% → Dr. Sue’s students 18.75% (5.21x)
Duke University: Overall 5.10% → Dr. Sue’s students 18.75% (3.68x)
New York University: Overall 9.00% → Dr. Sue’s students 54.55% (6.06x)
University of Virginia: Overall 16.90% → Dr. Sue’s students 45.45% (2.69x)
Cal Poly-SLO: Overall 30.00% → Dr. Sue’s students 79.37% (2.65x)
SDSU: Overall 34.00% → Dr. Sue’s students 70.69% (2.08x)
TCU: Overall 43.00% → Dr. Sue’s students 80.85% (1.88x)
UC Berkeley: Overall 11.70% → Dr. Sue’s students 46.03% (3.93x)
UC Davis: Overall 41.60% → Dr. Sue’s students 75.36% (1.81x)
UC Irvine: Overall 25.60% → Dr. Sue’s students 47.06% (1.84x)
UCLA: Overall 8.70% → Dr. Sue’s students 23.94% (2.75x)
UC San Diego: Overall 24.50% → Dr. Sue’s students 54.55% (2.23x)
UC Santa Barbara: Overall 27.80% → Dr. Sue’s students 44.87% (1.61x)
UC Santa Cruz: Overall 62.50% → Dr. Sue’s students 88.24% (1.41x)
Proud of our students, grateful for the trust families place in us, and looking forward to the next round of decisions this cycle.
27/10/2025
An Early-Decision Student Backed Out of Tulane. Tulane Punished the High School.
In an unusual move, the university imposed a one-year ban on Colorado Academy for early-decision applications, which carry a commitment to attend.
At Tulane University, early decision isn’t just a process. It’s practically the brand of its admissions department.
For years, the private university in New Orleans welcomed more than half of its freshman class this way, locking in students months before regular-decision applicants even got a chance. Take Tulane’s class of 2026. About two-thirds of the more than 1,800 freshmen in the class were admitted through early decision, and only 106 with regular decisions, according to a report by Inside Higher Ed. (Others got in through early action, a preferential way to apply without committing to enrolling.)
So when Tulane quietly placed Colorado Academy, a private high school in Denver, on an early-decision suspension for one year, it set off alarm bells. The ban prevented the high school’s next senior class from applying early decision after a student there backed out of an early-decision agreement at Tulane last year.
Read more here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/26/business/tulane-early-decision-colorado-academy.html?smid=url-share&fbclid=IwY2xjawNrwWNleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFVQ0haQVdGMW03aDRHNG50AR5XFqs0vH0HJ9sBDf6dWDOD8ySSMJWgjrn_CjG2K9_SCces25ymjjw2HEAnMQ_aem_YQZWZ0311NB3UpBv188bvw&brid=W8-kxyj5w3DKwLi3u7UMwA
Tulane Punished a High School After an Early Decision Student Backed Out In an unusual move, the university imposed a one-year ban on Colorado Academy for early-decision applications, which carry a commitment to attend.
21/10/2025
How a Small North Carolina College Became a Magnet for Wealthy Students As Trump slashes funding, schools are trying to attract the limited pool of higher-end families. High Point University is a blueprint.
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22/05/2025
25 Stats for 2025 College Graduates...
A compilation of recent surveys of college students and hiring managers provides a glimpse into the future of this year’s college graduates.
Data: Trends in Hiring, 2025 Graduate Readiness for the Workforce A compilation of recent surveys of college students and hiring managers provides a glimpse into the future of this year’s college graduates.
12/03/2025
My 22-year-old daughter works as a barista at Peet’s Coffee, near where she grew up. This is a normal thing to say, except that where she grew up is Palo Alto, California — a town built in the shadow of Stanford University, where 13 percent of the population holds advanced degrees and the median house price is over $3 million.
Palo Alto is a city where everyone has to be good at something, so my husband and I bought a house here 24 years ago.
My husband was a resident at Stanford; I had just finished my Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. I was a lecturer at Stanford, and Palo Alto was where intelligent, successful people went to be innovative and successful. Also, the schools were good.
It turned out that while the schools were indeed good, they were not good for everyone. They were not, for instance, good for our daughter, who struggled with depression and anxiety and learning differences, and the stubborn conviction that everyone else was more innovative and successful than she was.
And in a place where acronyms measure success— GPA, SAT, ACT, AP, HYPS — there’s little room for other metrics.
My daughter and I had dinner together a few days ago. She told me about her work day, which involved a latte that had to be exactly 182 degrees, and a mocha with no shots for a woman who didn’t want to be seen ordering a hot chocolate. Another woman who ordered a cappuccino sized her up and asked, “Why aren’t you in school?”
“What did you tell her?” I asked.
“I told her I was in school,” my daughter said.
My daughter IS in school
It’s true. My daughter is in school.
She is a straight-A student at Foothill Community College, taking three courses while working 30 hours a week. She has struggled with fearsome demons and comes out on top.
This is a huge win.
But in Palo Alto, where she grew up, community college is not what most parents who move here because the schools are good imagine for their children.
I know this because I’ve worked as a private college admissions consultant for the past 16 years, often with students who are juniors and seniors attending these good schools.
I’ve worked with students who seem to be effortlessly carrying an academic course load of five advanced placement classes, playing two varsity sports, and mentoring first-generation students learning how to code (it’s almost always coding — we’re in Palo Alto, after all —but sometimes it’s other things too).
I’ve worked with other students who have had to take an academic leave for anxiety, depression, OCD, and eating disorders but who are nonetheless fixated on getting into a good college, which usually means one or more of the Ivy League schools and/or Stanford and/or if they must, Berkeley or UCLA.
When I say that, they seem to be overwhelmed and distressed and suggest that they consider a gap year or one of the two excellent local community colleges at a fraction of the cost of a four-year college so they can regain their equilibrium and apply to a four-year college from a place of strength, their faces tighten.
Many don’t consider community college as an option; they should
They do not want to consider community college or a gap year — for many reasons, but often because their parents, who, like my husband and me, moved to Palo Alto because the schools were good, do not want to consider those possibilities.
What will people think? What will they post — or not post — on social media? What will they write on their holiday card? Affix to their car bumper? The shame of it all. The thinly veiled looks of pity from other parents in the cereal aisle at Trader Joe’s.
And because the idea of missing a stop on the success train — good school to a good college to a good job—is too gruesome for words, no one likes to talk about it. And so we don’t.
My daughter and I spent half an hour considering things she could have said to Cappuccino Lady. Among them:
— I went to the school of hard knocks.
— I’m conducting field research for my anthropology Ph.D., focusing on public/employee interactions at local coffee shops.
— None of your business.
— I have three children under five, and I must support them somehow [discreetly sliding the tip jar closer to Cappuccino Lady].
What galls me most is the assumption that my daughter should be in school instead of working a menial job, that there is only one way to be successful, and being a barista at Peet’s is not it.
I’ve spent several days spinning a world of possibilities where I set Cappuccino Lady straight, including being at Peet’s when she asks my daughter why she’s not in school.
In this scenario, I storm up to her and shout, “Do you know what this girl has been through?
Do you know that she’s one of the most naturally gifted writers I’ve ever known, that she has pored over the UC Santa Cruz course catalog and wants to take “Histories and Cultures of Piracy” and “Monsters in Literature” after she transfers, that she reads everything from science fiction to James Baldwin’s “Nothing Personal,” that when we watched the second season of The White Lotus, she made offhand remarks about plot and character development that would put a seasoned television critic to shame?
And you know what else, Cappuccino Lady?” I imagine myself yelling, hands on my hips, frothing with anger.
“Not everyone can go to college. Not everyone wants to go to college. Not everyone thrives in college. Success is not one-size-fits-all. I know people who didn’t graduate from college who lead meaningful lives, and I know people who graduated from good colleges who are incurious and arrogant and not that much fun to spend time with. But sure, let’s continue to use narrow metrics to define what it means to be successful. That’s worked out well. There’s a whole book, in fact, about how well it worked out!”
My daughter doesn’t need me to fight her battles.
She knows what she knows; she’s emerging from the shadow of growing up in Palo Alto, and she’s more robust, resilient, and vibrant for it.
She has learned so much already, and she will continue to learn, and there are so many things about her that make me proud, not least of which is that she is currently working on mastering latte art, where you make intricate designs in the foam. She’s starting with a heart.
by Irena Smith
18/02/2025
World Reputation Rankings Explore the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2025, revealing the top universities for academic reputation and prestige globally.
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UT Austin’s auto-admit rule raises the stakes for applicants The University of Texas at Austin has rapidly become one of the most selective colleges in the country. That’s partly due to a 30-year-old state policy attracting national attention as an affirmative action alternative. But Texans say it’s no perfect model.
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The 2025 Best Colleges in the U.S.: Princeton, Babson and Stanford Take the Top 3 Spots The Wall Street Journal/College Pulse ranking includes 25 new colleges in the top 50 this year
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AI Will Soon Be Reading Your College Admissions Essays As application numbers surge at elite schools, admissions offices face a daunting task of reading through countless personal statements and essays. AI offers a solution: automating essay evaluation. This month, Jed Applerouth, PhD takes a deep dive into the revolution in AI-led essay-reading that’...