Category: College Selection

Spring of junior year is prime time for standardized testing.  Most students hope to get all of their testing done before the start of senior year.  In order to make the most of the time available, students should make a plan for how they are going to tackle the tests.  The tests aren’t offered every week – so a lack of planning can lead to a lot of stress. No one needs to add more stress to the college application process!  Doing a little research now can save you big headaches in the future.

As students look at the application requirements for various colleges, they may come across something known as the SAT IIs, or the SAT Subject Tests.  What are they? Do you need to take them? How do you sign up for them? All of this is information you want to know.

First, what are the SAT Subject Tests?  They are one hour, [...]

It is hard to believe, but summer is here, and with it comes changing schedules and a break in the routine. It’s easy to let the weeks slip by, but remember that summer never seems to be as long as we expect! For rising seniors, the summer is a critical time – this is your chance to get ahead on all your college applications. Students can officially access the Common Application starting in August, however that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do before then. First off, rising seniors should make sure to check out the essay topics for this year’s Common App Essay (find them on commonapp.org). Use the summer to work on this. Keep in mind that this is a personal essay, and so it may take some time to get it right. The best essays are almost never the first draft that you write. Give yourself plenty of time to brainstorm and try [...]

Last edition, I started sharing some of my observations of families who (in my opinion) successfully navigated the test preparation, college selection, and college admission processes.  In this edition, I would like to share a few more observations on how some of these parents best helped their students to succeed.

One factor that can negatively impact a student’s SAT or ACT score is the stress of taking a timed test.  Many of us know smart students who excel in their classes yet do not perform well on tests.  While there are strategies that can be utilized to help mitigate the stress, parents should be realistic about how much improvement they can expect to see from their students’ scores.  Adding on the pressure of an unrealistic parental expectation is rarely helpful to already anxious kids.  In fact, often is has quite the opposite effect.  Try to avoid the trap of comparing your [...]