Candid advice.
Delivered with style, humor and heart.
This December, Take a Pass on Recruit-to-Deny Admissions
A few years ago, still panting from her modern dance class, a student burst into my office on Cyber Monday to tell me about a “bizarre” email she had just received from a college.
No names. But it was an Ivy with a microscopic acceptance rate.
The Year of Living Gratefully
Despite the overt risk of sounding like a clearance bin self-help guide, I will admit that at certain points in my life, I’ve struggled to express enough gratitude. Perhaps this affliction is not uncommon amongst those who loosely match the public perception of my previous self: young, ambitious and outwardly fabulous.
But in middle age, gratitude is something that I find myself trying to summon more and more - and thankfully, it eludes me less and less. Part of this evolution is just the wise, natural march of age. But honestly, I owe a good chunk of this quiet victory to my profession.
The Likely Dance
At this time of year, my brain is a jukebox stuck on a single track: The Safety Dance.
For those who may not be aware, the song dates back to 1982 and is by a Canadian synth-pop band called Men Without Hats. It helped drive the musical revolution known as New Wave, and was a smash hit all over the world. I guarantee your mom danced to it in high school with her ridiculously teased hair and white Keds. The bizarre, ultra camp video made zero sense - but it still played on blast on MTV for the rest of the ‘80s, and it happily populates some of my first sensory memories.
How to (Politely) Get Your Aunt Susan to Shut Up About Your College Search
Like any bon vivant, I love the holidays.
But decades of professional treadwear have taught me that this time of year can be tricky. Right now, everyone seems to be incessantly and obsessively talking about the “c word” - college. And frankly, by this point in the process, most seniors just need a rest; and I can surely empathize. Even the most passionate and caring counselors need one, too. I once holed up in a Saks dressing room on a snowy December evening, swathed in a steeply discounted Paul Smith angora sweater, patiently waiting for a very familiar voice to recede into the din of the cosmetics section - I simply couldn’t talk about college for another minute that day.