"In her role as one of the nation’s premier college admissions advisors, Dr. B told her students in early 2020 that the biggest disruption facing high schoolers in the college admissions process will come when standardized tests are minimized in importance or deleted from all required applications. At that time, students will have to pull themselves up through their wits, subject mastery, and imagination, emerging from the in-school rut where classmates follow each other down the same course and activity paths instead of defining what is unique and remarkable about themselves. Dr. B admits that this won’t be easy. It takes far less critical thinking and creativity to follow what your high school has framed as the “right” way to spend grades nine through twelve. But the way you adapt to such a charge will begin to shape a more thoughtful and innovative generation (not to mention, more successful college applications). Here we are, post pandemic, when in fact, the standardized test is being reconsidered as a necessity for college admission and the reliability of acceptance to a top-tier school is becoming less and less easy to predict. So, Dr. B has addressed the new college admissions environment by writing the most skillful, comprehensive, inspired, strategic, no-baloney guide to college acceptance. The Exceptional Applicant is a game changer—different from any guide for high school students you’ve ever read. Dr. B unpacks volumes of action steps, an array of creative projects, sample college essays, and a mindset for creating remarkable possibilities and adventures during high school. Included are tips and wisdom from some of the nation’s leading educators in research, technology, mathematics, music, business, debate, and athletic leadership—fields that, if pursued at a high level during high school, can create the EXCEPTIONAL APPLICANT who pops off the pages of the college application and makes Admissions say, ACCEPTED.

—RICHARD ROSSI
Founder, the National Leadership Academies