In this episode you will hear:   (05:30) Julia Esquivel makes her debut as one of our co-hosts in our monthly rotation for our “In the News” segment. Mark and Julia discuss a Washington Post article by Valerie Strauss entitled, “Advice from College Admissions Deans”. We discussed this article on #194 but we said we would return to it. Julia picked out three quotes from the article from admissions deans that resonated with her and Mark and Julia discuss them.         (37:56) Diana from Wisconsin sent us an outstanding list of questions that are all designed to get some guidance about the transition to college. Mark and Lisa acknowledge that the transition to college is an area that we haven’t adequately covered. Mark and Lisa answered half of Diana’s questions in episode and they answer the other half here in episode 231.   1) Thanksgiving break- we found that plane tickets for Thanksgiving break were sky-high in price and the remaining school year after break was so short, it was almost not worth it to have her come home for break. In retrospect, we kind of wish we had not set the expectation to have her come home for Thanksgiving, as it was short and stressful.    2) Safety and crime on campus - does the campus have an emergency alert system that students can sign up for text alerts for? Can parents sign up also?   3) how often should we talk on the phone together? Should we have a weekly call? How often will we be in touch with each other?     (01:01:10) Our interview is with Karen Kristof, a 30+ year admission veteran who has worked at five colleges. Karen is the Dean of admissions at Colorado College. Karen addresses three different topics over for three consecutive Thursdays. In last week’s episode Karen answered the question, how do colleges evaluate a transcript. This week she answers the question:   Preview-How admissions officers evaluate a high school   Karen shares how a college uses the School Profile to understand each high school Karen talks about how they evaluate a student who is at a poor high school How do you evaluate a student who is at a school with a lot of really high achievers Can they tell if a school has grade inflation or grade deflation We discuss reading by school group   (01:13:42) The recommended resource is the website: Explore Canadian universities and programs of study. Recommended first place to start for researching Canadian universities.   (01:30:30) Our College Spotlight is The University of Michigan, Part 2 of 2 with Lisa     Please send in your questions either on Twitter at @YCBKpodcast using the Messages tab (this is our preference) or via email at for the 26 admissions interviews we are doing in the summer and fall. Our interviews are with the following people at the following schools: Confirmed interviews Bard-Mackie Siebens Mercer-Kelly Holloway Oregon State-Jon Boeckenstadt (Interview about a range of admission topics)-July 19th Reed-Milyon Truelove- Rice University-Tamara Siler St Johns College-Benjamin Baum-This interview is on June 8th University Pittsburgh-Tom Becker- American University-Andrea Felder Texas Christian University (TCU)-Heath Einstein-This interview is on July 6th Michigan State University-John Ambrose-This interview is on June 10th Pitzer College-Yvonne Berumen Chapman University-Marcela Meija-Martinez Connecticut College-Andy Strickler* Trinity College-Anthony Berry* Trinity University-Justin Doty-(interview about athletic recruitment process for DIII schools)-July 15th College of the Atlantic-Heather Albert* Spelman College-Chelsea Holley* Scripps College-Victoria Romero* Saint Louis University-Daniel Wood-(Interview is about transfer admissions, Daniel is a transfer counselor) University of Connecticut-Vern Granger* Colby College-Randi Arsenault* Hamilton College-Peaches Valdes* University of Georgia-David Graves* Washington University St Louis-Ronne Turner University of Rochester-Robert Alexander* University of Delaware-Darrell