MOMents – Talking about College

May 1 can’t come fast enough

If you have a senior and have been agonizing over where he or she should go to school, May 1 is the deadline to decide and the journey to that decision should finally be over. It can’t come fast enough. But when it does, I don’t know if any of us who have juniors or seniors in high school will remember what we used to talk about before the discussion of college consumed our lives. The topic takes many forms and has endless detours, but it dominates thoughts and conversations for a long time, maybe more than two years in the foreground and probably more in the background. Everything seems to lead in that direction. There is the testing, the preparing for the testing. Which test to take, ACT or SAT or both? And, how many times? Tutor or no …

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School Counselors Host UMass Night March 12

Representatives from four UMass admission offices will present information and answer questions, March 12, at 7 p.m. in the Swampscott High auditorium.

Dear SHS and MHS students and parents/guardians, We are very excited to offer you our newest school counseling sponsored event, "UMASS Night," here at Swampscott High School on March 12, at 7 p.m. in the SHS auditorium. There will be a presentation from each of the four admissions offices-Amherst, Lowell, Boston, and Dartmouth and a question and answer session to follow. Come learn about each college's programs, sports, extracurricular activities, admissions expectations, deadlines, and much, much more. Over the past five years, an average of 68 percent of seniors applied to at least one UMASS school. Since 2009, we have seen a 20 percent increase of students applying to these schools. This year, 77 percent of the senior class has already …

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MOMents

MOMents – College Mail

Will it ever stop coming?

When the first bit of college mail arrives on the doorstep, it's exciting. The kids wonder if they are truly wanted by the schools who court them.  The brochures are slick and glossy and it makes the next step in life look exciting. You wonder how they knew about your child and allow yourself to dream a little bit about the process of finding a college. Was it test scores that brought this bounty of colorful catalogues to your door? Was it a box your child checked off on a standardized test? Does someone out there realize that your child is special even if they have little information? Before long, you realize that none of the above is true. Your child is simply on an “elite” list of “high school students." You are now part of a huge …

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Bring Swampscott To College With You

Beat homesickness by staying in touch with all things Swampscott.

As the new school year approaches and senior graduates head off to colleges and universities, we know the thought of homesickness can be overwhelming.  So, we're inviting our Swampscott students to stay up-to-date on everything happening in town.  Good luck to all of the Swampscott students entering college this year!  Where are you/your child going to school this fall? Comment and let us know.

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MOMents

MOMents - Listing in a Sea of Rankings

How important are lists?

  We are a culture obsessed with lists. We like when our child gets into a college on one of the many U.S. News and World Report top college lists.  We like when our school system shows up in Boston Magazine’s best school list. We like when our school has top MCAS scores, sports championships and awards for art, drama, science and math. When we don’t make a list, we fret. What do we need to do to make it next time? What resources should be devoted to this goal? These are valid questions that should be examined. We also need to ask ourselves how important is the list versus the others things that we value?  Do lists blind us to things that might be more important? For example, a friend, coming from a private middle school with a large drama…

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MOMents: College Daze

So many stops on the way to life

  Every year it is the same. There are accomplished seniors who do not get into their first choice schools. Their initial reaction is to look back on all the things they did until this point in their young lives and question. Was it worth it? Was the problem one bad grade or one bad score? Should he have taken four years of Spanish instead off three years of Latin? Did she have a typo on the application?  One girl felt that her average SAT scores trumped years of hard earned accomplishments in high school. Why couldn't her first choice school see past this one thing? In time, these teens will see that everything they have done in their young lives has value. They will see that their whole life does not depend on a single admissions …

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Grads from Swampscott

Swampscott Man Earns Diploma and Lands Dream Job

Dan Comite graduated from the Savannah (Ga.) College of Art and Design and was hired by the Discovery Channel.

This announcement was submitted by the readmedia.com news wire. Dan Comite of Swampscott, a 2011 advertising graduate from the Savannah College of Art and Design, found his dream job online — well actually, the job found him. Comite, a shark enthusiast, hasn't missed an episode of the Discovery Channel's Shark Week in 10 years. So for one of his final projects prior to graduation, Comite created a campaign for the network's upcoming Shark Week, which he then posted to his online portfolio. The day before graduation, Comite's Shark Week campaign was discovered by people at Discovery Network and Dan received an unexpected – and life changing - phone call from the Chief Marketing Officer of Discovery Creative who had caught wind of his work. …

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