What is a Crimson Rise Session Like?

While elite universities become more and more selective, enlisting the help of a program like Crimson Education at the high school level is becoming more and more common.  But what do you do if you want your child to start their road to success even earlier? 

Enter Crimson Rise, a holistic mentoring program that helps students grow academically and personally. Featuring tips and tricks for managing homework, personalized guidance to help middle schoolers to find their specific strengths (from academics to extracurriculars and beyond!), along with exercises to help students manage their time, reduce stress, and build vocabulary, Crimson Rise helps prepare middle schoolers for high school and, even more to the point, their college applications.

While Crimson Rise can be supplemented by modules ranging from coding to entrepreneurship to speech and debate, as well as tutoring in subjects of your child’s choice, the heart of the Crimson Rise program lies in its strategy sessions. As the only company offering such a program at a middle school level, Crimson Rise believes that preparing students for college at the middle school level gives them a huge advantage when it comes to college preparedness. Crimson Rise strategy sessions are held between 8-12 times a year (depending on the package purchased) and after getting to know the student in an ISM (Initial Strategy Meeting), the subsequent meetings generally go as follows. 

The Phases of a Typical Crimson Rise Strategy Session: 

• Catch Up—Our Crimson Rise strategists serve as personal mentors to middle school students, and we keep track of how they are doing in school, their extracurriculars, and day to day life. We pride ourselves on giving helpful advice as needed in these domains and firmly believe that middle school students often need a friendly ear and nurturing advice in their lives.
• Program Check-Up—In addition to Crimson Rise strategy, many of our students engage in additional Crimson modules such as coding or entrepreneurship, and perhaps even specific tutoring subjects. We want to ensure that each of our student’s additional Crimson courses are directly helping their overall goals; therefore in strategy sessions we always dedicate at least a few minutes to discussing students’ progress in other areas of Crimson.
• Review of Previous Tasks—While at Crimson Rise we do not believe in assigning homework just for the sake of it, our strategists will often assign tasks at the end of sessions so as to give your middle schooler a chance to actively engage with the topics discussed in the session in a more tangible way. By reviewing the previous session’s tasks at the start of the session, we are able to gauge whether it is appropriate to move ahead in the program or go over previous topics once again.
• Introduction of the Day’s Topic — Each hour long session has a central topic, ranging from academics (study habits, course selection, etc) to extracurriculars (exploring hobbies, extracurricular expectations for US institutions, etc), career exploration (taking the Holland Code test, exploring appropriate majors together, etc), personal skills (time management, stress management, etc), improving command of the English language (reading, vocabulary, writing, etc) and more. Our strategists are specially trained and follow the Montessori principle of “follow the child” to decide on which topic is most appropriate for each student.
• Personal Application of the Topic—After an overview of the topic and a discussion of its origins and importance, our strategists work with your child to apply the topic to their specific circumstances and goals.  For example, in a stress management session the strategist would explain the science behind stress (in my personal practice, I refer to it as “fighting invisible tigers” due to the evolution of the human body) followed by an exercise in identifying the student’s specific stressors and providing tangible, applicable tips on how to cope with them in a healthy, positive manner. 
• Future Considerations for the Topic—As middle schoolers still have so much ahead of them (from high school to college and beyond) our strategists will then discuss how the topic at hand will come into play in the future. After all, meaningful learning is that which a student can use in the future.  
• Session Wrap Up—The final minutes of the session leave time for any remaining student questions, an explanation of the tasks which the strategist assigns, and scheduling the next meeting both in terms of time and the topic.

While sessions take place between 8-12 times a year, you and your middle schooler will be supported by a SSM (Student Success Manager) in the interim, and as a parent you are also welcome to contact your strategist at any time to ask questions ranging from task advice to bringing up issues such as which school clubs to join, discussing report cards, etc. Check out our students to see their success stories!

Does this sound like something that may benefit your family? Reach out to an Academic Advisor today and get a free consultation to see whether Crimson Rise is the right program for your middle schooler.

Your friendly neighbourhood Rise blogger, Gala