Does your SAT score end in "90"?

Tomorrow Juniors head off to take the SAT with varying degrees of preparedness and nervousness. While most students will sit for the SAT and/or ACT at least twice, we don’t encourage our students to take these tests over and over in pursuit of that ever-elusive “highest score possible”. Standardized tests are only one piece of the college application. While an important part, they shouldn’t be given undue time or weight.

Good ... more >>

Study Abroad's New Focus is Job Skills

We’ve always believed in the many merits of Study Abroad and have encouraged our clients to take full advantage of these opportunities. However, employers have not felt as warmly about these opportunities, often dismissing them as “a few months backpacking through Europe.”

However, that tide is slowly turning and, thanks to people like Cheryl Matherly, the former assistant dean of students for career and international education at Rice University, who are helping students to ... more >>

Early Action Could Aid in Admission, Report Finds

With November 1 just a few days away, we’re very busy helping our clients meet Early Application deadlines. However, despite evidence that it might be easier to be admitted in this round of decisions, the choice to apply early isn’t that simple. First, it can be argued that those students who submit early apps are some of the strongests candidates because they dont’ need grades from fall and winter terms to ... more >>

Building a Better College List

Ideas for our monthly columns come from many different places, but after the umpteenth conversation with my colleague, Tim, about people’s misguided notions that we can “just make a college list”, I decided to write about the considerations that we put in to each of the college lists we create for our clients. In truth, we never get “the list” right on the first try and, in fact, we don’t try do. Figuring out which ... more >>

Does being "President of the Lady Gaga Fan Club" belong on your college resume?

High school students are encouraged to join clubs, take on leadership roles, be involved in community service – not just because these are wonderful opportunities for growth, but because they “look good” on the college resume. But where to draw to draw the line between a real experience and a whimsical hobby? If it is something the student is genuinely committed to, has been involved ... more >>

30 Ways to Rate a College

We’ve always been a bit suspicious of the usefulness of college rankings, believing that it is up to the individual to decide, based on their own criteria, which schools top their lists of “Best Colleges”. This powerful graphic by the Chronical of Higher Ed show that the college rankers themselves (Forbes, U.S. News, etc.) have also “personalized” their college lists by selecting their own criteria on which they rank colleges. Interestingly, there is very ... more >>

Pulling an all-nighter for the college application

Our goal for many of our college clients is for them to have most of their common application completed by the end of the summer. In July and August rising seniors have more time and fewer distractions so they can fully focus on completing the common app, and completing it well. The Fall is can be a very busy time and students should be focusing their energies on their classwork as this ... more >>

America's Best Colleges

According to a new report by Forbes, Williams is the college that best meets students needs. Having just visited Williams last month, I can tell you that the campus is stunning, the facilities are state-of-the-art, the faculty are very impressive, and their Tutorials Program, based loosely on the tutorial style teaching at Oxford and Cambridge, make this a top-notch place to live and learn. It seems like a no-brainer to encouage students to apply here. ... more >>

Drexel U. Brings On a New Wave of Applicants

Over the next few months, select high school seniors will be recieving “V.I.P. Applications” from colleges encouraging them, through a simplified process, to apply to their institutions. Colleges send out V.I.P applications to those students whose SAT scores fall within a certain range as a way of increasing their applicant pool as well as intentionally raising the average SAT scores of their applicants. Both these moves make colleges appear more selective. ... more >>

Getting in to med school without hard sciences

Mount Sinai medical school accepts a small percentage of applicants who have not taken organic chemistry, physics, or the dreaded MCATS each year, finding that those who majored in the humanities as undergrads actually make more sensitive doctors. It’s too soon to know if more medical schools will head in this direction, but given the wide range of skills and expertise demanded of doctors, it’s nice to know that they’re not all ... more >>