Mr. K's College Knowledge

We are quickly heading towards February, and the college application season has been long, and draining. You most likely have put hours upon hours of your life researching, visiting, contemplating, and applying to colleges. This is a huge decision, and all the hard work will pay off. However, if you are not satisfied with your college list, you do not just have to settle with what you have now. There is still time to search for and apply to colleges across the country. Yes, January 15th was a big day for regular decision deadlines, but there are still hundreds of great colleges and universities that are still accepting applications. If you are not satisfied with your college list, or you have been accepted into a few colleges, but the the financial aid award letter doesn't offer as much as you like, keep looking. There are still a ton of schools that have deadlines in February, March, April, and even some that are rolling admissions and go into the summer. Below I will list a s...

During the last week of summer, I was lucky enough to be invited to Lafayette College along with four other NYC college counselors. I hopped into a minivan with the four counselors, and the Lafayette College admissions representative behind the wheel, and an hour and twenty minutes later I arrived in Easton, PA to Lafayette’s beautiful suburban campus.  I spent the day there, learning more about the school’s academics, admissions, and overall community. Here’s everything you need to know about Lafayette College, plus my personal perspective below. Key Stats: ·          Location : Easton, Pennsylvania (the first exit leaving New Jersey) ·          Type : Medium-sized, private liberal arts college with a very strong engineering program ·          Size : 2,500 students in a residential campus/suburban setting ·       ...

Last week, I was fortunate enough to travel to High Point University , in High Point, North Carolina, for a college counselor fly-in, to learn more about the school. To be honest, I did not know much about HPU, but I was extremely impressed with what they have to offer for students. Since I spent an entire day there, I was able to gather a ton of information, which I will try to breakdown for you below. I hope this can help you get a good grasp on the type of place HPU is, and it just may possibly be the right place for you! By the Numbers: High Point University was recently ranked the #1 most innovative college in the south and for the past four years, HPU has been ranked the #1 Best Regional University in the south by US News & World Report HPU has also been ranked by students as having the #1 food options in the country 20% of students are from North Carolina, while 80% are from the other 49 states and 38 countries There are just about 5,000 undergraduate students, whic...

Hey Everyone,  I honestly cannot believe it, but Thanksgiving is next week, which means two things: we will all soon begin to loosen our belt buckles, and many those Regular Decision deadlines are only a month away! As many students have applied Early Action, decisions will be coming soon, and there is always an opportunity to add a school or two through regular decision. One school students may want to look into adding for regular decision, is Franklin & Marshall, which I was lucky enough to visit earlier this week. I wanted to give everyone a brief look into F & M and what they are all about! Academics and General Information Let's get down to the basics. Franklin & Marshall is a residential, four-year liberal arts college located in Lancaster, PA. The school has about 2,300 undergraduates and the campus screams "classic college" with vast green space and beautiful buildings and facilities spread throughout. I haven't spent much time at all in Lan...

Hey Everyone, I hope the summer is going well for you and all of you rising seniors and juniors are making plans to visit colleges this summer, as you know, I feel it is the only way to truly know if the school is a right fit for you. I am currently in Williamsburg, Virginia in the middle of a 7-college tour. Yesterday, I saw the University of Virginia and the University of Richmond. Later today, I will be going down the street to check out the College of William and Mary, then I am off to Elon, UNC, Wake Forest, and Davidson to round out my trip. I will pick a few schools to blog about during this trip, so please check out the blog over the next couple of weeks, and if you have twitter, follow the Xavier Guidance Twitter account for live updates and pictures from my trip @XHSGuidance. Overall Information Today, I want to spotlight, the University of Richmond , located in Richmond, Virginia. Richmond is home to incredible academics, the Spiders as their mascot, and my wife's a...

General Information Another stop on my college tour was at Fairfield University , located in Fairfield, Connecticut. Fairfield is a private, liberal arts school with just under 4,000 total undergraduates. It is located on an absolutely pristine campus with views of the Long Island Sound. The 200-acre campus is in the suburbs, but students are only minutes from city life and the beach, and only about 90 minutes from New York City.   The campus has green rolling hills throughout, which creates a perfect place for students to study, throw the frisbee, or just take a nap. When I was there, I even saw the archery club setting up for a practice. Also, it is hard to miss the turkeys that call Fairfield home throughout the year, so watch out for them when walking the campus! To me, it is a perfect mix of nature, wide open spaces, but the campus is in close proximity to downtown and beaches, for students to have fun during their time at school. Fairfield University is one of the 28 Jesuit...

The next student reflection on the college application process is written by senior, Sean Drennan. Enjoy! The college search and application process seems like a daunting task to many rising seniors. To myself it seemed like I had to get over a 10 foot fence. First researching and finding colleges that you would like to visit is a tough task. Getting down the location, size, and type of college you want to attend seems like an easy task but there's so many options that you don't even know where to start. After finding the list of colleges that you want to apply to, the application process comes into play. This was actually the easy part of the process for me. In order to make this part easier many schools that I applied to had rolling admissions or the deadlines were spread out from the months of November through January. This made the essays I had to write easier to spread out thus making them better for the admissions representatives. Another tip for college essays i...

The next student written blog about the college process is from senior,  Gianluca Milea. He has a ton of great advice and experience to share. Enjoy! The college process can be very intimidating at times.  While it is very important to have numerous options, I found it difficult to apply to a limited number of schools.  Although Xavier does not put a maximum on how many schools to which you are allowed to apply, application fees are very expensive and at the end of the day you will only be attending one college.  To begin the process, I visited a myriad of schools, some of which were unrealistic options for me.  After visiting four schools in two days, I decided to create guidelines for my potential college.  While academic rigor is essential, there are many other factors that go into a final college decision: food, campus life, off-campus life, greek life, religious affiliation, athletic programs, housing, location and possibly two of the most i...

Today, I had the pleasure of meeting with two admissions representatives from Saint Anselm College for a presentation about their school. Saint Anselm College is located Manchester, New Hampshire, only about 4 hours from Manhattan. Saint Anselm, also referred to as Saint A's is a Catholic Benedictine Liberal Arts College with about 1,900 underclassmen. I will admit that I did not know as much about St. A's as I do with other schools, but after learning more today, this is a school I am eager to visit, and will recommend to many students in the future. Saint Anselm is situated in the beautiful city of Manchester , on a picturesque campus in New Hampshire. The school is only 1 hour from Boston and the ocean, and only 10 minutes from the airport. This is a place that embodies what a true college community is all about. It attracts students who are eager to participate in a liberal arts education where they will be challenged, but supported by peers, professors, and administrato...

As all of the seniors are in the busiest part of the college admissions process, I’m sure most people are counting down the days until they are finished with completing applications, writing essays, finalizing the college list, and paying for those application fees! Juniors most likely are just beginning to explore what colleges are out there and are beginning to think about what and where they want to study during their four years of higher education. Wherever you are in the college search and application process, I think it is always good to hear about more schools you may not have thought about. I recently was able to be part of a 2-day, 3-college tour with counselors from across the country. During the trip, we visited Wheaton College, Emerson College, and Providence College. These three very different colleges were an absolute joy to visit, and I want to share some information with you on all three of these schools. Trust me, there are some schools I would not recommend to my stu...

Recently, I have had the pleasure of traveling to nine colleges in Seattle, Portland, and Saint Louis. Visiting schools across the country give me great perspective and insight on the different programs and environments available to all students. Since I have always worked with students in the NYC area, I have noticed that most students and families are “stuck” in the 3-5 hour bubble of schools. Of course, there are hundreds of terrific colleges and universities in this part of the country; I hate to see students limit themselves. Traveling around the country has opened my eyes to some incredible places, and I am excited to share these experiences with all of you. In the coming weeks, I will highlight the schools I visited, and I hope that you will take a closer look at these schools and others, that you may not have thought about before. The first university I would like to highlight is Saint LouisUniversity , most commonly referred to as SLU. Here are a few SLU ‘quick-hitters’: ...