Fay College Counseling is featured in today’s Washington Post Express “Getting Ahead” section. Read the article and post your comments HERE.

OK, so I know Fay CC clients aren’t old enough to know the R&B song “It Takes Two,” but I am and the song is on my mind today having read the news that as of this fall, no US colleges are requiring three SAT IIs.  Two will do, even for the last two holdouts: Georgetown and Harvard!

For the full report, click here: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/08/09/subject.  Unless you are planning to apply to the University of Toronto, I guess you’ll have to find something else to do on the Saturday morning you were planning to spend on standardized testing.

Last August, a Duke professor announced her intention to have her students grade each other (read the original story, with links to the professor’s blog, here: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/03/grading).

A year later, the results are in: the students in the experimental class all got As, and the professor reports both the students and the process earned top marks (here’s the follow up story: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/05/03/grading).

The Colleges That Change Lives are coming to Bethesda this weekend. Parents and students, you don’t want to miss this chance to get to know 40 terrific schools and their student-first approach to education.  Click here for more information: http://www.ctcl.org/events/washington-dc10.

The printed version of the 2010-2011 Common Application is now available on the Common App website (https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/CommonApp2011.pdf).

The online version won’t be available until August 1, but at least you can get a jump on your essays!  The Common Application is now accepted by 414 colleges and universities, including 27 new members for 2010-2011.  Among the new member institutions are UMBC, Mt. St. Mary’s, UConn and Michigan.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has just published a good summary of the role interviews in the college admissions process, which quotes several of my former colleagues from my own days as a college admission interviewer. Read it here: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Enduring-Mystery-of-the/65545/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en.

Prompted in part by a Better Business Bureau inquiry brought by competitor, Kaplan, Princeton Review has decided to eliminate claims of specific score increases from their advertisements. This piece from Inside Higher Ed does a great job of walking us through the controversy surrounding test prep companies and their claims.  If you want to be a savvy consumer, read on: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/05/13/scores.

One of my favorite college traditions is the annual Scavenger Hunt undertaken by University of Chicago students each May. The participants, know as “Scavvies,” use their smarts and senses of humor spending four days on the road to victory.  You can read about this year’s Scav Hunt in the U of C Maroon: http://www.chicagomaroon.com/2009/5/12/snell-hitchcock-takes-scav-victory-for-third-year.

My friend and colleague, Lisa McLaughlin, wrote an article for the “Daily Pilot” about the role extra curricular activities play in the admissions process – and should play in the lives of high school students. Read it here: http://www.dailypilot.com/articles/2010/04/16/opinion/dpt-mclaughlin041710.txt

Here’s a link to The Daily Beast’s tally of the most stressful colleges: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-04-04/the-50-most-stressful-colleges/?cid=tag:all1. Now that is rank.