18 Unexpected SAT Tips from Our Friends at Magoosh SAT Prep
You can’t avoid it. Every SAT prep checklist has it, and every SAT prep tutor will tell you to do it: STUDY! Yes, we all hate to have to do it, but it really is the key to your success on this (and every) standardized…
An Open Love Letter to the Authors of UC Personal Statement Prompt #1
I love how open the word “world” is. But it’s not open in an impossible, abstract way. It conjures images, colors and differences. And it actually affirms that students come from a “world” that is different from other students’ worlds–something that many students don’t consider…
How Big of a Difference Can the College Admissions Essays Make in Highly Selective College Admissions?
Guest post by Parke Muth, former Associate Dean of Admissions at UVA How big of a difference can the admissions essays make in highly selective college admissions? Parke’s post below is in response to the question posed above on Quora by prospective college applicant. Your…
How to Write the Stanford Roommate Essay + Examples
Applying to Stanford? Great! The Stanford Roommate Essay can serve as a great way to introduce yourself to your future roomie and vice versa. Enjoy these examples and tips below on writing the Stanford Roommate Essay. Your first semester is going to go swimmingly! Okay,…
Why Dominating the SAT is Like Climbing Trees
Let’s take a walk out on to the branches You might be wondering how you know which question is easy and which one is hard. Well, for the most part the SAT has made it pretty easier for you. The higher the number within a…
The Ten Types of Movie (and Personal Statement) Plots
In Save the Cat, the very excellent screenwriting book by the late Blake Snyder, Mr. Snyder claims there are ten basic movie plots. It’s a rad concept and it just may help you figure out the plot (aka story) for your college essay. Note: big…
The “Everything I Want Colleges to Know About Me” List: A Brainstorm Exercise
Note: I don’t recommend a stream-of-consciousness free-write because this tends to get a little messy. By “messy” I mean that this tends to bring forth a lot of words but not a lot of specific, bullet-pointable qualities that will help you get into college. And that’s…
How to Make Sure Your College Application Is Doing Its Job
First of all, what is the job of your college application? To demonstrate a variety of amazing things about you: strengths, passions and anything else that shows you’d be a fantastic and valuable contribution to any college campus. So how do you make sure your app is doing…
Fly-Ins for Counselors
(organized alphabetically by city, state, or region served) All the credit for this list goes to the folks at collegelistspbworks.com! I’m just reposting it here in case it should get moved or should disappear. California “Decemberfest” – Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Scripps, Pitzer, Pomona, Occidental,…
Why Students are Struggling with the New ACT Essay (and How Not to Be One of Them)
When I first heard about the new ACT essay prompts last year, I was worried. As a former high school English teacher, I immediately knew students would struggle with the new format. It turns out I was right. A recent article in the Washington Post,…