For young people, going to college involves making some of their first
major life decisions. Here are some tips for Foreign Service high schoolers on
how to get it right. 
The college
application process is like the ultimate dating game. Every year a new batch of
students puts themselves through the possibility of crushing rejection with
hopes of finding acceptance with “the one.”
It’s an
emotional and opaque process in which the student must also learn to live with
the fact that the rules of the game are constantly changing. This year alone
has seen the introduction of the new SAT, a rising interest in doing away with standardized
test scores and even the creation of a new application process—the
coalition application.
With the
stakes so high, the Family Liaison Office interviewed two college counseling
experts—Judy Bracken and Rebecca Grappo—in search of best practices for
applying to college and a heads-up on the biggest mistakes Foreign Service kids
make.
Judy
Bracken has 17 years of experience in Falls Church and Fairfax County,
Virginia, public schools as a college and career counselor, and currently works
as a counselor for private clients. Rebecca Grappo is the founder of RNG
International Consultants and specializes in helping parents make the right
educational choices for their Third Culture Kids. She has also worked as a
teacher internationally and domestically.
Both Grappo and Bracken are parents of
Foreign Service kids, so they have been through the process themselves and
understand the unique challenges FS kids face while attempting to untangle the
college application process. Our discussion is the basis for the pointers to
Foreign Service students heading into the college application process offered
here.
To read
the full article by Claire Wedderien follows this link:
