Study Hacks

France Bound…

I’m happy to announce that I’m off to France for a 10-day vacation. If all goes as planned, I won’t even see a computer until Monday, June 9th.

The bad news for Study Hacks is that there will be no new posts until I return. This also means that I won’t be able to moderate comments, so, if you’re a first time commenter, or commenting from a computer not recognized by Word Press, your note won’t pop up until I get back to digital civilization.

I really look forward to an excellent summer of posting. I have a lot of exciting ideas in store. So go have some fun! I hope to return with a new tan, a slightly improved French accent, a terrible wine hangover, and, of course, some fresh insights on student life.

Au revoir!

Share Your Innovations

Every week I preach the gospel of hacking your study habits. Enough about me. Let’s hear about you! I want to know your most effective, innovative, and unconventional study hack.

• Simply e-mail me your favorite homegrown study hack. I’ll choose the most compelling examples to post next Wednesday.

The winners will receive fame, glory, and the satisfaction of potentially helping thousands of their fellow students. Also: I’ll send you an awesome t-shirt featuring a big smiling picture of me, giving a thumbs up and saying “Straight-A Students Do It On Schedule. ”

I look forward to hearing your strategies!

Share Your Wisdom

I’m working on a post about the college admissions process. I need your wisdom to help pull it together. Specifically, here is my question for you:

From your experience, what part of trying to get accepted to college was the most time-consuming and/or caused you the most stress?

Some example answers:

1. Taking a course load that my guidance counselor would describe as “very difficult.”
2. Trying to keep my GPA in the top 10% of my class.
3. Trying to build an impressive extracurricular resume.
4. Attempting to deduce what the hell “passion” means.
5. My convoluted plot to kidnap the admissions director and replace her with a meticulously constructed, realistic looking robot programmed to sway the decision in my direction.

I’m interested in your insights. You can either shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment on this post. If you could, mention where you went to high school and where you currently attend college. All answers, as always, will remain anonymous.

Thank You For Your Vote

Thank you to every one who took the time to vote for Study Hacks in the 2007 Performancing Blog Awards. I’m happy to report that with 58% of the vote Study Hacks beat out five worthy competitors to win the Reader’s Choice Award for Best Education Blog. As I say often, the real value of Study Hacks comes from the insightful conversation, debate, and ideas you provide in the comments and over e-mail. So thank you again! I look forward to making this resource even better over the upcoming months. As always, I welcome your feedback.

Now, back to work on our regularly scheduled programming…

The Successful Slacker

While conducting background research for an ongoing writing project, I’ve had several people mention an intriguing paradox involving high school students and college admissions.

I want your help to figure out if it is a true phenomenon or just a rare occurrence.

Here’s the supposed phenomenon: In most high senior classes there is at least one student who surprises everyone by getting accepted to a good college even though he or she seemed to do a lot a less hard things than other students who get rejected at the same places.

My question to you: Was this true for your high school senior class? And if so, what’s your theory to explain it?

To answer confidentially just shoot me an e-mail. You can also leave a comment on this post.

Is the slacker paradox real or just sour grapes from a disgruntled few? Help me figure out what’s really going on here!

Off to Spain…

Julie and I are heading off to Spain for a much-needed 10-day vacation. To maximize relaxation, the laptops are staying at home. The implications:

• For the next 10 days there will be no new posts.
• For the next 10 days I won’t be moderating comments. If you leave a comment, it will appear after I return.

Before leaving, I’m going to post a top 25 student productivity articles list to keep you up to your ears in quality content while I’m away.

See you soon!

Share Your Story

I’m in the early stages of a new writing project about the college admissions process. Specifically, I am interested in hearing stories about students who followed unconventional paths into top colleges. That is, I want to hear about students who focused on one interesting, unusual thing in high school (instead of taking on a million activities to try to impress an admissions officer), and ended up getting accepted at a good college. The goal of the project is to question the necessity of some of the more painful and stress-inducing hoops many students jump through when thinking about college admissions.

Examples of the type of students I’m interested in:

• A young man in California who took on a reduced course load his senior year (no AP courses!) to revive a local search and rescue program.
• A young woman who traded a crowded extracurricular schedule for an obsession with a certain type of meteorite.
• Another young woman who took advantage of a work-study program to skip out of school early to hang out in Manhattan dance studios.

If you have a similar story to tell, or know someone else who fits this mold, send me an e-mail and briefly describe your unconventional admission tale. Most likely, I’ll follow-up with some additional questions. You might even be featured in an upcoming article.

Thank you in advance for your help. I look forward to hearing your stories.

Ask the Expert

Do you have a question about dieting, exercise, fitness, energy, or anything else related? Worried about beer and gaining weight? Want to build up your pecs before the SAE toga party? Need to figure out how to get in shape without having to go the gym?

A young fitness expert, and columnist for Condé Nast, has agreed to answer your questions. Simply e-mail me or comment on this post. I’ll send the best questions to our expert and he will provide answers in a post scheduled for the end of next week. Ask away!