Update on Spring Semester

Hi Everyone--

Its the first day of Spring Break here at Princeton, which means that we are gearing up to administer our second Diagnostic this Sunday. We are doing well overall, but we are also struggling to keep our attendance steady each week. We had about 85 kids send applications in, but we expect between 60-70 kids each week. How are people working to keep attendance up each week? I was thinking that calling each Sunday before class--what works for you?

Both the students and the coaches are getting along great. We have 30 CRW coaches and 30 Math coaches--each having between 3-5 kids each. One of the problems that we are having though is the pace that some groups are going through. After last year, we decided to split the groups up according to the first Diagnostic score (or their PSAT score if they were not able to attend the test). We wanted to try and keep the groups at similar levels in testing level, but now we are having problems with some coaches almost being done with their material for the semester. Is anyone else having similar problems? I am happy to see that the students are really grasping the material, but I want to make sure that they stay interested and excited about the program for the rest of it!

We are also working on increasing the College Counseling activities--having 30 min. per week devoted to either a speaker, SAT registration, or essay writing. We are hoping to have complete common applications for each student by the end of the program--we are also gearing up to have them all take the SAT in June.

Great--I think that's all for now, but I think that I will write again in a few weeks to see how to keep momentum up.

Good luck, everyone! Enjoy your weekend!

Christina Cadrecha