Before answering the question, “should I apply Early Decision,” we need to get our terminology clear: Early Decision is a BINDING contract between the student and the school. If you are admitted, you are going, no ifs, ands or buts (the one exception to this is if you are not offered a financial aid package … Read more
We’ve published many, many posts about college essays – aside from building your college list, it’s probably the topic that challenges and confounds students the most. If you’re looking for college essay advice – there’s lots of it out there! Just last week, Georgia Tech Admissions Director Rick Clark, whom we quote and link to … Read more
“It’s very dangerous,” UCLA Admissions Director Gary Clark said to me recently, “to try to reverse-engineer a particular college admissions decision.” You know how you’ve heard that your hairdresser’s best friend’s mailman’s son got into Yale, and he had straight Bs and except for the C he got in Chemistry? And everyone heard about the … Read more
I hope this is not news to you, parents and students: You will not be allowed to read the letters of recommendation your teachers write for you. FERPA is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. It’s a law that gives you control over what pieces of your educational record high schools and colleges retain … Read more
Families frequently ask us about college visits. We’ve compiled some of the top questions we receive, and our responses, below. Should we visit colleges? YES! You should visit colleges, starting as early as the 10th grade. Your goal for visiting colleges to to gather information – about the academic life, the social life, the support … Read more
While most people would tell you that the “right time” for students to take the SAT or ACT is spring of their junior year, the reality is that it depends on a few things. One of the most important factors in determining a student’s testing timeline is whether or not the student has completed Algebra … Read more
One of the questions we are asked most frequently is “what are the best extra-curricular activities?” The truth is, there are no “right” or “wrong” extra-curricular activities. It doesn’t matter if you’re involved in student government, band/music, a sport (in school or club level), community service, scientific research, or something completely unconnected with school. It’s … Read more
School’s out – it’s time to start your college essays! Can’t figure out where to start? Here are a few quick links to resources to help you brainstorm as you begin writing your college essays! Here are the Common Application essay prompts for the Class of 2019 (write one of the 7 prompts; max word count … Read more
One of our clients’ parents recently forwarded an email from his alumni association – he attended an Ivy League university. The message was sent to alumni who are involved in interviewing students for this particular university, and it noted that of the about 35,000 applications this university received last fall from the Class of 2018, … Read more
A few months ago, in an effort to help you understand why you shouldn’t start with college rankings as you begin building your college list, we published this blog post with a detailed breakdown of the US News & World Report college ranking methodology. We also did a webinar on this topic; during the first … Read more