Josh Stephens

College Counseling

Annual Newsletters

For the past few years, I’ve sent one newsletter a year, usually in the spring.

Each year, I report on my students’ admissions results and summarize my observations of the previous application season. I recount trends I’ve observed based on work with my students, discussions I’ve had with colleagues, webinars and conferences I’ve attended, and reports I’ve read in the press. I try to get past conventional wisdom and cliches.

Collectively, I hope they amount to a good portrait of the college admissions landscape.

2024

  • Mental Health (and Therapeutic Exploring) 

  • Artificial Intelligence and Text Generation

  • Return of Standardized Testing

  • Affirmative Action & Diversity

  • The Nightmare of 'Dream Schools' 

2023

  • Student Wellness 

  • Some Blogs--and a Book!

2022

  • (Post?-) Pandemic Reflections

  • Lament: Demise of Take-Home Essays

  • Rhetorical Quirks of 2021

2021

  • Resilience & Opportunity  

  • Blogging the Madness

December 2020

  • Pandemic Predictions

  • Pandemic Reality 

  • Test-Optional Applicants

Fall 2020

  • Introducing The Urban Mystique

  • A Blog: “Personal Growth”

  • Reading, Hobbies & Self-Directed Learning 

  • ZoomSchool and Real School

Spring 2020

  • Quarantine and The Gift of Time

  • Admissions Trends: Our Technological Moment