It’s hard to believe we are midway through the fall semester. What happened to those warm September days when we were in orientation mode? It’s time to get ready for Halloween parades and costume parties. Fall sports are coming to a close. Gym and rink rats are headed toward basketball courts and ice hockey arenas. The fall term is rushing past us.

In this column, I often focus on issues affecting students. We have talked about challenges with technology, loss of skills because of COVID, the developmental stages of social-emotional growth in students, and anxiety about standardized test scores. No one has any solution to the madness of the college admission process other than to play the game as everybody else does, fearing that abstaining will jeopardize a student’s status in the admissions race.