Posts by Bentham Team
The College Search: How To Choose a College
When I went on a college tour with my parents, we tried to see eight colleges in seven states in six days. We were from California, and we were driving in heavy snow most of the time. By the time we got to the school I was most interested in, my father decided (after a…
Read MoreWhat does Liberal Arts mean?
The concept of the liberal arts descends from Plato, who believed that any wise, compassionate, and trustworthy citizen would have mastered what he called the “seven arts” (logic, grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, and music). Although a great many more subjects are now covered in the liberal arts, the assumption is the same – a…
Read MoreWhat is a Good College?
Many students and parents looking for a college don’t really know where to start. “What is a good college” or “good colleges” are frequently used search terms. There are colleges out there that aren’t so good, so it’s a question worth asking. Aside from distinguishing what is a less-than-desirable college, though, the question is as…
Read MoreWhat to do if you’re deferred
When you apply early decision or early action, you may not be accepted or rejected. Instead, you might get deferred, which means your application joins the regular admissions process and you won’t get a decision until the spring. This probably means that you met the admissions criteria (those who did not were rejected), but there…
Read MoreWhy Apply to Colleges Early?
Early Decision, Early Action, and why you should be the early bird The question is, why not start early? The applicant who starts late, and by that I mean what the applicant considers to be “on time”, four weeks before the deadline, will always bitterly wish they had started the process earlier. It would obviously…
Read MoreRecommendations about Recommendations
Before we make recommendations about your teacher recommendations, let’s review the mistakes students commonly make when it comes to securing this crucial element of your application. Do Not – Think of the recommendation as just another hoop to crawl through, or another box to be checked. Do – Consider the teacher’s recommendation a crucial opportunity…
Read MoreHow should an applicant use the summer?
Parents usually look at summer in one of two ways. Either they want their high school student to get a well-deserved break after all the pressures of the year, or they worry that there is a particular program or internship that the parent of a college-bound student should be attending to. In reality, there are…
Read MoreAt how many reach, target, and safety schools should a student apply?
Many applicants and their families wonder how many schools they should apply to, and what mix of reach, target, and safety school applications they should work on. We at Bentham recommend making an accurate assessment of your standing relative to other applicants to selective colleges (consulting Bentham Admissions would be very helpful here), and then…
Read MoreWriting the Why Us essay
Before we talk about how to write the “Why Us” essay, let’s talk for a moment about what supplements are and how to budget your time to write them well. Many applicants make the mistake of devoting most of their time and energy to the personal statement, only to discover late in the game that…
Read MoreWhat is the Admissions Office Looking For?
Your application to a selective college needs to be like a three-legged stool. Admissions officers rate you in three categories: academics, extracurricular activities, and something called intellectual vitality, which means having a genuine passion for a field of study that has driven you to learn about it on your own time, go to summer camps,…
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