7 tips for writing a great college essay from ex-Stanford admissions officer

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:45 GMT

At its core, Irena Smith’s job as an independent college counselor means being a writing coach. With a PhD in comparative literature, the former Stanford admissions officer helps her teenage clients pen the all-important essays they’ll submit with their college applications.Certainly, the essays should be well-written, but they should mainly tell a good story about who the student is as a person — their personality, passions, values, unique life experiences — as Smith writes in her book, “The Golden Ticket.”REALTED: Confessions of a college counselor: Pushy parents, teen misery and the futility of the Stanford dreamOften, writing a good story means means abandoning the idea that the essay should brim with self-promotion. A student can tell a more engaging narrative about failure or about the most vulnerable time in their life, Smith said. They could also write about situation that seems minor but that illustrates an important point about their interests or motivations.Wh...

Confessions of a college counselor: Pushy parents, teen misery and the futility of the Stanford dream

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:45 GMT

In Irena Smith’s memoir about working on the front lines of America’s college admissions mania, the Palo Alto-based independent college admissions counselor recalls how she made a ninth-grader cry.Smith told the boy and his mother that he shouldn’t count on getting into Stanford, despite his good grades and vow to do whatever he could to be accepted. As Smith writes in “The Golden Ticket,” she worked in Stanford’s admissions office for four years and knew that the staff read most applications with “an eye to turning students down.” Indeed, data reported in February shows that Stanford’s acceptance rate for its class of 2026 was a record low 3.7%.When Smith assured the boy he could still get a great education at hundreds of other universities, his mother wasn’t pleased. She shot Smith “a look of hatred” when she dismissed the idea of letting her son falsely claim that he was captain of three varsity sports. “Who’s going to know?” the mother said.Sm...

Man missing in Northern California mountains is found dead

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:45 GMT

A man who went missing three months ago in the mountains of Northern California has been found dead, having apparently driven off the road barely 30 miles into his trip, the California Highway Patrol said.John Bartholomew, 56, had not been seen since he drove away from Salyer, in Trinity County, in the early hours of Jan. 14. He was reportedly headed to Sacramento, a 250-mile drive.A missing-person announcement on Jan. 20 said a car matching the description of the one he was driving — a silver 2005 Honda Accord — was seen on video from Highway 299 in the Weaverville area at 2:30 a.m. Jan. 14, but its license plate was not readable.Search-and-rescue crews drove and flew the mountainous Highway 299 corridor, with no sightings.It is likely Bartholomew never made it to Weaverville. Around 4 p.m. Friday, April 14, the CHP was notified of the wreckage of a Honda Accord along the Trinity River below Highway 299 between Big Bar and Big Flat, 20 miles west of Weaverville. The lic...

Bay Area Dance Week waltzes back after 3-year absence

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:45 GMT

The performing arts are always in want of good news, and the return of Bay Area Dance Week after a three-year hiatus brings welcome, joyful tidings of rare magnitude.Running April 21-30 in studios, theaters, parks and classrooms around the region, the vast open-door celebration encompasses hundreds of events, including workshops, performances, classes, open rehearsals, and more.Did we mention that everything is free?Presented by Dancers’ Group, an indispensable force supporting the Northern California dance scene, Bay Area Dance Week captures the dizzying diversity of traditions and styles that can be found here, from burlesque, Bollywood and Bolivian folkloric dance, to ballet, hula, Congolese dance, tango, jazz, modern, and hip-hop.After four years of tribulations and pent up energy, “We are beyond ecstatic to open the doors to studios and venues and spotlight individual artists and companies,” said Andréa Spearman, artist resource manager for Dancers’ Group. “This is an event tha...

Russia’s parliament increases penalty for treason, terrorism

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:45 GMT

The lower house of Russia’s parliament on Tuesday approved legislation increasing the punishment for treason to life imprisonment and boosting the penalty for terrorism.The legislation, which advances to the parliament’s upper house, represents an escalation of the Kremlin’s domestic crackdown. Human rights advocates say charges of treason and terrorism are sometimes used against political critics and opponents. Another aspect of the crackdown reported Tuesday was an allegation of violence brought against imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.The State Duma sent for further approval a proposal to increase the punishment for treason to life imprisonment from the current maximum of 20 years. Punishment for terrorism would be increased from 15 to 20 years in prison. Specifically for international terrorism, punishment will be from 12 years to life imprisonment, up from its current penalty of 10 to 20 years. In the Navalny case, his spokespeople reported ...

Sheriff: Arrest warrant moot for kidnapping of Emmett Till

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:45 GMT

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi sheriff says in a new court filing that there’s no point in serving an arrest warrant on a white woman in the 1955 kidnapping that led to the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till because last year a grand jury decided not to indict the woman.Till’s kidnapping and killing became a catalyst for the civil rights movement when his mother insisted on an open-casket funeral in their hometown of Chicago after his brutalized body was pulled from a river in Mississippi. Jet magazine published photos.The Mississippi arrest warrant for “Mrs. Roy Bryant” was issued shortly after Till’s death but was never served on the white woman who has since remarried and is now known as Carolyn Bryant Donham.Last June, a team doing research at the courthouse in Leflore County, Mississippi, found the unserved warrant. In July, the office of Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch said there was no new evidence to pursue a criminal case against Donham. I...

7 soldiers hurt in military vehicle pile-up in Germany

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:45 GMT

Berlin (AP) — German police said Tuesday that seven soldiers were injured after armored military vehicles crashed into each other on a Bavarian highway.Several German media outlets reported that the vehicles involved in the crash on Monday belonged to the U.S. military, but German police said they were not authorized to give out information on the nationality of the injured soldiers.The public affairs office for the U.S. Army Europe and Africa in Germany did not immediately return calls seeking confirmation.Police in Amberg in southern Germany said that “a military convoy was driving on the A6 highway on maneuver duty, and that for still unknown reasons a rear-end collision involving four armored vehicles occurred.”“According to initial findings, seven soldiers were injured and brought to hospital, two of them via rescue helicopter,” Tobias Mattes from Amberg police said in a statement, adding that one of the soldiers was in a serious condition. The crash occurred at around 10:55 a....

Late-season storm brings more snow to the Sierra Nevada

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:45 GMT

TRUCKEE, Calif. (AP) — The winter that wouldn’t quit showed up again in the Sierra Nevada region of California and Nevada on Tuesday.The fast-moving, blustery storm wasn’t expected to last long, but it was enough to require chain controls on some trans-Sierra highways and add to staggering snowfall totals left by an exceptional series of winter storms.“A blast back to some wintry weather today with wind and snowfall,” the Mammoth Mountain ski resort wrote on its web page. The early morning temperature was just 18 degrees (-8 Celsius). Like most Sierra resorts, Mammoth doesn’t need anymore snow after recording 705 inches (17.9 meters) at its main lodge and 885 inches (22.5 meters) at its summit.In the Lake Tahoe region, the Palisades Tahoe resort reported that early morning winds hit 100 mph (161 kph) before calming down.Spring conditions are expected to return later in the week, the National Weather Service said.Source

2 Iowa teens plead guilty in Spanish teacher’s beating death

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:55:45 GMT

Two Iowa teenagers charged in the beating death of a high school teacher pleaded guilty to first-degree murder on Tuesday.Willard Miller and Jeremy Goodale both changed their pleas to guilty Tuesday and admitted helping kill 66-year-old Nohema Graber, their Spanish teacher at Fairfield High School. Investigators said the attack was possibly regarding a dispute over grades in Graber’s class. Prosecutors say the evidence shows both Miller and Goodale struck Graber with a bat. Miller admitted helping plan and carry out the killing but denied ever hitting Graber. Goodale testified that Miller initiated the plan to kill Graber and they both struck her.The teacher’s body was found in a Fairfield park in November 2021 hidden under a tarp, wheelbarrow and railroad ties. The town of Fairfield is home to some 9,400 people and is around 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Des Moines.Prosecutors agreed to recommend a sentence between 30 years and life in prison with the possibil...