Blog - JRA Educational Consulting

The 2026–2027 Common App opened on August 1, and most of the attention, as usual, went to essay prompts and the renamed Activities and Experiences section. But a quieter requirement costs families an unbudgeted hour every fall: Courses and Grades, the section that asks students to recreate their entire high school transcript inside the application, course by course, grade by ...

Sitting deans of admissions almost never explain, on the record, how their offices actually read applications. That's what makes a July 2026 interview with Jim Bock, vice president and dean of admissions at Swarthmore College, worth an hour of any admissions-minded family's attention. Speak...

An independent educational consultant (IEC) is a professional advisor whom families hire directly, and pay directly, to guide educational decisions: college admissions most visibly, but also K-12 school placement, therapeutic placement for students facing emotional or behavioral challenges, and graduate school. The operative word is independent, and most families ski...

Most students treat the personal statement as a writing problem. It isn't. By the time a student is agonizing over the first sentence, the outcome is mostly decided, because the essay was won or lost the moment they chose what to write about. A sharp topic carries a mediocre writer. A weak topic sinks a strong one.

This matters more in the 2026-27 cycle than it did five...

If your student is thinking about majoring in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM), you've probably heard one thing over and over again:

"It's so competitive."

While that's certainly true, I'd like to offer a little reassurance. After recently attending a webinar on STEM admissions hosted by a panel of college admissions officers, I walked away ...