Everything You Need to Know About the National Merit Scholarship Process and Awards: Applying to College: How Can Parents Help?
February 16, 2017
Hosted by Elizabeth Heaton
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Guest Information
Episode Description
It’s that time of year again: National Merit Scholarship finalists have been announced, and students are scrambling to update schools with their new status. How did those students qualify? Does it even matter in the admissions process? And how much money can you win anyway? We’re going to answer all of these questions and more in this week’s episode of Getting In. Applying to college can be very stressful for students and parents, and parental involvement can play a large part in ratcheting up the stress—or dialing it down. We’re going to talk through some ways in which parents can be appropriately helpful in the process.
Getting In: A College Coach Conversation
Thursday at 1 PM Pacific Time on VoiceAmerica Variety Channel
Planning for college? Tune into Getting In: A College Coach Conversation for tips, techniques, and insider perspectives. Hosted by Elizabeth Heaton, a former admissions officer at the University of Pennsylvania, and featuring her fellow admissions and college finance experts from Bright Horizons College Coach, the show shares what colleges are really looking for and how to highlight your hard-won achievements for the best chance at success. New episodes air every Thursday at 4 PM Eastern Time, 1 PM Pacific Time on the VoiceAmerica Variety channel.
Elizabeth Heaton
Elizabeth Heaton is the senior director of educational consulting and strategic marketing at College Coach, the nation���s leading provider of educational advisory services. Ms. Heaton began her admissions career at the University of Pennsylvania, where she chaired university selection committees, evaluated potential athletic recruits as one of the school’s athletics liaisons, and oversaw the university’s portfolio of admissions publications. She also served as second chair in the selection committee for the school's flagship interdisciplinary Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology. A graduate of Cornell University, Ms. Heaton brings exceptional skills to the craft of essay writing paired with experience reading and evaluating thousands of Penn admissions applications. She is featured regularly in news outlets including Wall Street Journal, USA TODAY, Time, US News and World Report, Boston Globe, and ABC News, among others, and can offer expert advice on a wide range of college admissions topics, from colleges’ expectations for high school curriculum choices and standardized test scores to choosing the right extracurricular activities and essay topics. Prior to joining Penn, Ms. Heaton worked as a public relations professional and served for a decade as a member of the Cornell Alumni Admissions Ambassador Network.