Some students will see this as good news, while others may be less thrilled: CollegeBoard announced Friday that it will allow students to take AP exams at home. Originally scheduled for May, each exam will now be offered twice; those dates will be announced on April 3. In-home exams will be taken via computer, tablet, or smartphone, with an option to submit photos of completed work for those students who may have more limited tech access. The exams will be shorter than usual—just 45 minutes each—and will focus on content that most schools were able to cover by early March. Details regarding the logistics and security of this new model are currently limited, but CollegeBoard is expected to release more information in the coming weeks. They’re also striving to ensure that students without regular internet or device access can complete the exams.

Finding a job can be tough at the best of times, but what if you are a teen looking for your first job with no experience? In this video, our college admissions experts will provide some helpful tips to help first time job hunters land an interview! Tune in to the latest installment of the College Coach video series, We Can Explain, to learn how.

If you speak to an admissions officer for let’s say, Wellesley, she might mention their beautiful campus or famous alumnae. If you speak to a student at Barnard, she will likely extol the virtues of a campus in the city and the robust internship opportunities therein. A professor from Agnes Scott College might mention their unique SUMMIT program, in which each student has her own personal Board of Advisors and is empowered to be an agent of global change. An alum from Sweet Briar or Mills College might tell you how they, as part of the student body, prevented their beloved alma mater from changing its core mission. But I’m not here to talk to you about any of those things. I’m going to tell you a secret: Women’s colleges aren’t special. 

The Admission Office’s Perspective

First, the use of a waitlist at any given school can vary dramatically from year to year. A school might take 100 students from the waitlist one year and zero students the next. In general, more selective schools are less likely to use their waitlists because they will have a high percentage of admitted students who accept their offers of admission. They’re therefore much less likely to suffer from a shortage. For all schools, how they use the waitlist depends on the number of students who accept their offer of admission, and that’s not a question they’ll have answered until very close to or after May 1.

A lot of families of high schoolers take advantage of spring vacation weeks to visit college campuses. For high school juniors and their parents, this may be the last opportunity they have to visit campuses while school is actually in session before applying to colleges in the fall. So, what’s a student to do with the limited time they have to be on campus to help them decide if this college is a place where they’d like to spend four years of their life?

Despite thinking that the hardest part of the application process would be the actual application, for many families the waiting game can feel just as unnerving. Sitting on your hands during the months of January through March can feel like an eternity. Here are some things you can and should be doing while you await decisions from admissions offices.

Test prep can be an expensive undertaking, yet we recommend that every student do some prep before they take the ACT or SAT. We’ll be discussing free test prep resources—what’s out there and which options are best. For juniors, we have advice on the top five things you should be doing now to get started on the college search and application process, and the top five things you and your families should know as you prepare to pay for college.

If you can believe it, we’ve been bringing college finance and admissions information to you every single week since we launched our college admissions podcast, Getting In: A College Coach Conversation, on February 5, 2015. Join us for a celebration as we share stories from our time working in admissions and financial aid, along with some cautionary tales and highlights from a few of our favorite students and parents.

For twins and multiples, the college process is twice (or more) intense than for everyone else, from deciding where to apply, doing college visits, writing essays, and figuring out how to pay for it all. We’re offering insight into how twins and multiples are treated in both the admissions and financial aid processes, and giving some tips for successfully navigating both. In Office Hours, we have a plan for seniors who want to attend college next fall but haven’t yet submitted applications.

Post-January 1 can be super challenging for seniors. After the crush of finalizing and submitting applications, have nothing left to do but wait—and that can be tough. We have some suggestions for actions you can take once all of your apps are in. Since it’s the new year, we are all about resolutions—and we have thoughts about some good resolutions you can make related to college admissions and finance.