helloPOTENTIAL

How are you? 

The typical response to that question these days is a breathless, "Busy, and you?" with the occasional sigh and a somewhat forced smile. The point of this newsletter is not to create more "busy" for you or your teen; it's to help your teen make one or more small shifts that can yield significant results when it comes time to apply.

It's high season for college applications right now. My team and I are continuously reviewing applications and helping students position themselves. N…

Earlier this week, I found myself in savasana in a Core Power Yoga studio in Colorado Springs. For non-yogis, savasana is the final resting pose at the end of almost every yoga practice, and basically involves lying flat on your back on your mat with your eyes closed for a few minutes. The enthusiastic instructor had a very Colorado-esque handlebar mustache and shoulders that flexed in ways that I didn’t know were possible. He guided us into the final resting pose as he intoned, “So whatever you…

My work is to help students open doors and create opportunities for themselves. I recently recorded the following 58-second video and posted it to Insta. I framed the information as an important tip for students to keep in mind during college visits. However, the point I address is broadly applicable to all of us and how we show up in life for nearly everything and everyone. In fact, it's a question we could each productively ask ourselves dozens of times a day:

Am I trying to prove that I am…

In my last newsletter, I promised to share a list of eleven things that went really well last year as part of what I have come to call the Anti-Resolution Movement (ARM). The idea came to me after starting to read, The Gap and the Gain: the High Achiever's Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy.

I had a vision of sitting contemplatively with a cup of green tea under a blanket with my dogs snuggled on the couch as I happily reflected on what went re…

New Year, Same You! Long Live the Anti Resolution Movement.

It’s the middle of the month now, and I wonder how many of you have spent the days since January 1 trying to change something – your hips or lips or parenting or account balance. You’re trying to keep your RESOLUTIONS. 

I find the entire idea of New Year’s resolutions off-putting at best. They imply (or outright assert, if we’re being honest) that you are decidedly not what or where you need to be. Even the word itself, “resolution,” …

Labor Day 2021 - Move-in day at Stratton Mountain School for Aaron '22 and Mary '24 

You don't need me to tell you that there are moments in life that require you to suddenly reprioritize your time. In other words, sometimes, things go seriously sideways.

This particular time, it was my husband getting a breakthrough case of COVID-19 right in the middle of back-to-school. The subsequent reprioritization required that I race to Jersey City at 9 am over a national holiday weekend so our two te…

Hello , 

We've been so busy here readying to launch our new website (woo-hoo!) that I realized that it had been two weeks since we last connected. Today is a quick post about the number one thing to discuss with your teen (regardless of where they are in the process).

There are two lenses through which teens can view admissions.

The first is that an acceptance from FabulousU will:

• validate that I am smart, accomplished, worthy, and this will ensure my highest potential will be reached.
• re…

In the summer of 2005, we were renovating our home. One of the countless decisions that had to be made amidst the chaos of that project was whether or not to add a cable hook up in each of the three children's bedrooms. As a family, we had cable and we were keeping cable, but in my mind, hooking up the kids' rooms was a non-starter: "NO WAY! They'll be hiding in their rooms, by themselves, not learning how to negotiate the remote to decide between The Dukes of Hazard and The Six Million Dollar M…

Receiving Christmas and Holiday greeting cards this year brought me significantly more pleasure than in years past. No one was more surprised than I was by my feelings of authentic delight when the first card arrived, nevermind that it was from Chewy.com! I even put it on display, tucking it under a window frame where everyone would see it – “everyone” being my immediate family since no one else was coming – and I made sure to point out to each of them the very FIRST greeting of the SEASON (cue …

What Do the Essential Self and the Right Fit Have in Common? 

The short answer: Everything.

The long answer is, well, longer than that, but we think it’s worth reading about, thinking about, and considering seriously.

Sociologist Martha Beck proposes that each of us has two selves that form the basis of our operations: a “social self” and an “essential self.” In Finding Your Own North Star, Beck lists the behaviors of these selves: The “social self” is avoidance-based, conforming, imitative, …