“So do you live with your mom or your dad?” was, for six-year-old Marquan Williams, a seemingly ordinary question to ask as he sat next to me at the worn spinet piano of the Albany Boys & Girls Club. For weeks, I prepared copies of sheet music and stacks of flashcards to help me open up the world of piano to my students. Yet in that moment, as I looked into Marquan’s curious, eager eyes, I saw the world that...

Although Albany stands as the capital city of New York State, it lacks the “downstate” culture and feel of the New York metropolitan area. And although I have lived in Albany for my entire life, I have always felt a certain connection to the cosmopolitan culture that this upstate city lacks. After all, I am only a first-generation Albanian, and the majority of my family still resides in the tri-state area. On my father’s side—Streit’s, the family...

Choose teachers with whom you are very close. Your recommendation letters should include aspects that admissions officers can't see in your GPA, essay, and extracurriculars. They should reflect who you are as a student in the classroom and should make an admissions counselor want you as a student in a college setting. I chose an English teacher and a physics teacher as the two teachers to write my recommendation letters. If possible, I would recommend choosing teachers...

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Be well-rounded. All colleges describe their admissions processes as "holistic", meaning they take into account all aspects of an application. One thing is not more important than another. Good...

I knew that I wanted to go to college in a city, but I also wanted the campus and almost small-town feel of many colleges located outside of urban centers. Harvard, located in the small ...

Although I only ended up applying to Harvard because I was accepted Early Action, I was planning to apply to several more schools. I decided that I wanted to be in a city, so almost all of the schools...