College Planning Information for the Week of 3/29/10

Did you know? Half of all college students attend a college that is less than 100 miles from their home. 88% are within 500 miles of home cooking.

College of the Week - If you are among the 22% that want to venture further from home, read on! Founded in 1888 in Boston MA, Wheelock College is a private, coeducational college with the public mission of improving the lives of children and families - and society, in general. Wheelock is known regionally as a premier institution for those seeking an undergraduate education in Education, Social Work, Juvenile Justice, Liberal Arts or Child Life/ At Wheelock, they value the importance of an intimate learning community where students are challenged and supported by faculty members who are practitioners in their fields and who are committed to teaching, learning, and mentoring.

My Schedule this Week - I will be on campus Monday 10-4, Tuesday 10-4 and Wednesday 10-5. I will not be on campus during Spring Break or Intersession but I check email regularly on days when I am not at school.

FOR JUNIORS

SAT/ACT Practice Test at TMS on Saturday 4/17 at 8:00 AM - Sign up on my door this week and indicate which test you'd like to take. If you are taking the Eureka SAT prep class here at school, you are expected to take this practice test.

Register for College Fairs - Save yourself time and agrivation and register for either the SF or Marin County College fair online. Registering before the fair will allow you to electronically exchange your contact information with colleges that you're interested in and that's a time saver and an excellent way to show you attended and were interested. Follow these links and note that The Marin School is not listed on the drop down menu (no idea why!) of high schools so you'll have to select "other" and add it.

• San Francisco Fair - Gotomyncf.com
  
• Marin County Fair - Wacaccollegefair.com
  

Upcoming SAT and ACT Registration Dates - The next SAT will be given on 5/1 (late registration deadline is 4/8) Register for the 6/12 ACT before 5/7. I recommend students take the SAT in May or June, the ACT in April or June and, if the student has over a 3.0 GPA, 2 subject tests in May or June.

FOR SENIORS

What do you have in common with titans, moguls and news makers? Well, some of them didn't get into their first choice colleges either. Here are a few things they had to say about the experience, with the benefit of hindsight, excerpted from a recent article in the Wall Street Journal.

Warren Buffet - “The truth is, everything that has happened in my life ... that I thought was a crushing event at the time, has turned out for the better,” Mr. Buffett says. With the exception of health problems, he says, setbacks teach “lessons that carry you along. You learn that a temporary defeat is not a permanent one. In the end, it can be an opportunity.”

Columbia University President Lee Bollinger wasn't accepted to his first choice college either. His advice: Don’t let rejections control your life. To “allow other people’s assessment of you to determine your own self-assessment is a very big mistake,” he says. “The question really is, who at the end of the day is going to make the determination about what your talents are, and what your interests are? That has to be you.”

Susan
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Susan Gotshall-Maxon
College Counselor

School Send-Off for Rites of Passage Team

Early Saturday morning eight TMS seniors will be heading to Death Valley for a week-long introspective quest. These seniors have been engaged in a preparatory process for the last two months. The trip itself builds up through a variety of group activities to a culminating 48-hour, fasting solo in the desert for each student.

The program was created to fill a gap in our modern culture, in which most of us no longer have the opportunity to mark the passage from childhood into adulthood in any guided, formal way.

This morning juniors, seniors and faculty members gathered for a send-off ceremony. The "questers" stated some of their feelings about the trip, and members of the community offered warm words of support for their up-coming experience. We look forward to their return and hope to share in some of what they learned.

Students Visit the Rainforest Action Network

Students in Matt O'Donnell's Revolution, Resistance, and Rebellion class visited the Rainforest Action Network's headquarters in San Francisco today to find out about the group's "Change Chevron" campaign. The RRR class had screened the film Crude earlier in the semester and was interested in finding out more about the issue. The students were shown how R.A.N. uses the media and social networking to hold corporations accountable for their environmental policies. The field trip inspired students in the class to plan a community-wide screening of the film Crude for the local community in the near future. You can view the trailer below.

Renowned Author Yiyun Li Visits The Marin School

Author Yiyun Li spent the afternoon speaking to students at The Marin School about her books and the writing process. Li is the author The Vagrants, a book that was read by the senior English class this year. There will also be and evening program tonight at 7 pm for parents and the school community.

Nighthawk Basketball Dinner

Thank you to all parents and players for attending the 2009-10 TMS basketball dinner.

Players were recognized for all their hard work and improvement this season.

Here's to an even stronger 1010-11 season!

Drama Students watch a presentation of The Caucasian Chalk Circle

Students from the Advanced Drama course attended a special matinee presentation of Bertolt Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle at ACT on Thursday, March 11^th. The production featured ACT’s resident theatre company and several of its conservatory’s MFA candidates performing together in a brilliantlly staged contemporary rendering of the classic play. Directed by John Doyle, the production managed to utilize many of Brecht’s trademark theatrical components to strong effect. In order to prepare for the production students staged their own version of the play’s compelling final scene. Comparing their version with ACT’s proved to be a real highlight. Students were also treated to a Q and A with all of the production’s actors after the show.

College Planning Information for the Week of 3/22/10

College trivia, or "what can I tell you that you don't already know"?

• The oldest college? Harvard University - founded 1636
• The college with the most land? Berry College in Georgia with 28,000 acres
• Where was Raiders of the Lost Ark filmed? University of the Pacific in Stockton
• Top US destination for spring break? Daytona Beach, Florida
• Best campus food (based on student surveys)? Virginia Tech
• Dorms like palaces? Smith College (sorry, guys!)

My Schedule this Week - I will be on campus Monday 10-4, Wednesday 10-5 and Thursday 10-4. I check email regularly on days when I am not at school but do not check voice mail.

FOR JUNIORS

The importance of your name - If all you friends know you as "Buddy" but your legal name is "Mortimer", make sure that your College Board, ACT and TMS transcript all hail you as Mortimer. If there are discrepancies, colleges will not be able to match up your application, the documents we send them and the official scores the College Board/ACT send. This can (and does) lead to denials of admission. So double check your College Board and ACT accounts if there is any doubt as to how you registered and make corrections now. See me if you need help with making changes.

SAT/ACT Practice Test at TMS on Saturday 4/17 at 8:00 AM - Sign up on my door and indicate which test you'd like to take. If you are taking the Eureka SAT prep class here at school, you are expected to take this practice test.

Upcoming SAT and ACT Registration Dates - The next SAT will be given on 5/1 (registration deadline is 3/25) Register for the 6/12 ACT before 5/7. I recommend students take the SAT in May or June, the ACT in April or June and, if the student has over a 3.0 GPA, 2 subject tests in May or June.

FOR SENIORS

Events for Accepted Students - Many colleges plan special events both on and off campus for accepted students. They want to provide you with opportunities to obtain information and get answers to your questions but most of all they want you to say "yes!" to their offer. Attending these events can be helpful when you have narrowed down your choices to one or two. Even if you have visited the campus previously, you will be surprised by how differently you view it now because you've learned a lot about yourself in the past year.

Susan
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Susan Gotshall-Maxon
College Counselor