What a year it’s been, full of pretty much nothing but disruption. As if teens needed any more stress and uncertainty! I want to congratulate the students and parents we at Blue Stars had the privilege of getting to know this year as we all worked through uncharted territory. Together, we kept our focus on admissions success while also processing all of the change, pain, wins, and wisdom gained in this last, tumultuous year.

As we coach our students, the Blue Stars team and I form a close relationship with each one, tracking not only their admissions progress but engaging in deep discussions about what they’re experiencing as humans in the world. It’s important for us to know our students on this level of vulnerability. It helps them get to know themselves in this way when they embark on writing their self-reflective personal essays. And because students are often tasked with writing about great challenges in their lives, our time together is intense, and intimate. It was especially so this year.

I truly feel so bonded to the 2020-2021 cohort, and I’m so pleased to announce their wonderful results. Blue Stars college applicants were admitted to an array of best-fit schools, and we are so very proud of them all.

You can view the full list of 2021 results here.

Our younger high school students were admitted to some wonderful summer programs, too – from COSMOS to Yale Young Global Studies to the Sewanee Young Writer’s Conference for Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fabulism: Short Fiction through a Fantastic Lens. What foundations for the future they will be setting with these wonderful opportunities!

You can view the full list of 2021 results here.

People frequently ask me “what it takes” to get into a top school. This morning, as I was listening to an interview with Walter Isaacson (author of biographies on Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, and most recently Dr. Jennifer Doudna), one important answer occurred to me.

Explaining what unifies these incredible minds, Isaacson noted that they “all refrained from outgrowing their wonder years.” In other words, they were passionately curious about the world.

Isaacson points out that Steve Jobs loved calligraphy, dance, music, and theater while at Reed, but also computer programming, and he famously ended his Apple product launches with a slide showing the intersection of two main streets, the liberal arts and technology.

Passionately curious people tend to see patterns across different domains in nature. They’re highly analytical and creative. They can’t be replaced by a machine.

Admissions morphed this year, and I believe – because our society is going through such dynamic changes – this disruption will last for a while. The same is true for the professional world.

In his book Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation, NYT columnist Kevin Roose predicts that many white collar professions like data analytics will probably be eliminated by artificial intelligence. The trick for our future professionals, he feels, is to become skilled at what machines can’t do.

Success, he contends, will come to empathetic workers with strong communication skills.

If you can help your child become passionately curious and skilled at communication, the future will be full of opportunities.

I hope these observations help, and wishing you all extra energy as we make that final sprint to the end of the semester and past AP exams.