Why Smart Students Score Higher
Chancy and consequential exams like the SAT & ACT have long been conflated with IQ tests. While there may certainly be some overlap–historically, SAT scores correlated highly with the g factor or general intelligence–these different assessments are designed for dramatically different purposes. Even so, smarter students tend to score higher on these and any other exams. But smart doesn’t carry the same connotation as intelligence, at least in this context. Instead, I favor the way Seth Godin–-a genius in his own right–-defines what smart really means: Smart is no longer memorization. It’s not worth much. Smart is no longer access to information. Everyone has that. Smart is: Situational awareness Filtering information Troubleshooting Clarity of goals Good taste Empathy and compassion for others The ability to make decisions that further your goals The good news is that smart is a choice, and smart is a skill. Anyone old enough to remember…
Testing & Scholarship Timelines Webinar
Success on the road to college depends as much on what you do during summers as during the school year. If you’re looking to make this summer count, find out everything you need to know about when and how to prep for the important admissions exams and submit successful scholarship applications. “I wish we had started sooner.” That’s what every parent tells Dave “The Scholarship Coach” Peterson. Dave is the father of college graduate who, over his undergraduate studies, won over $80,000 in scholarships. His success with scholarships prompted Dave to write the book DEBT-FREE COLLEGE: Proven Strategies for Winning Scholarships and Other Tools to Help You Avoid Student Loan Debt and share his expertise with other families. Dave and I have shared strategies for smart college admissions many times previously, most recently in a discussion of Scholarships & Majors: How Clarity Can Unlock More College Aid.
Key Conversations in College Planning
High school spans a period of time during which teenagers make a myriad of decisions that, to one extent or another, influence what comes next for them. Minor questions about what classes to take, activities to commit to, or who to sit with during lunch can be tough enough but pale in comparison to grander queries about what comes after high school. The answer for many students is to choose higher education, but that opens up many more monumental questions. Grappling with existential questions about what to do with one’s life shouldn’t be a solitary process. Teens should absolutely confer with both the people that care about them most and the experts who can provide the most information. School counselors, private counselors, teachers, and tutors might be the knowledge experts in academic affairs, but parents and guardians are often key stakeholders in college decisions. Students and parents alike struggle with…
What is an SAT or ACT Superscore?
Why have the SAT and ACT become so important in the college admissions process? Basically because most admissions officers can use the objective metrics these tests provide to better evaluate more subjective data like grades and class rank. Like it or not, the SAT and ACT provide awesome opportunities for students to enhance their applications. But exams like these do have obvious drawbacks, the most glaring of which is that a given test score represents a snapshot of student performance on one long weekend morning, rather than over a longer period of time. Talk about pressure! However, various changes in both how scores are reported and how they are evaluated have taken some of that pressure off. On the testing side, both the College Board and ACT, Inc. allow students to select which test scores they wish to send. This benefit, which was a long time coming on the SAT…
Branding Yourself for College Admissions
Anyone with experience in either admissions or business can recognize the college application as a marketing campaign. Unfortunately, marketing isn’t exactly a core subject in high school. So what should students know about building a winning brand for college admissions? Marketing professional Stacey Ross Cohen recommends that students to use social media strategically to highlight their interests and aspirations, such as creating online portfolios, blogs, podcasts, or YouTube channels. Students need a “success toolkit” tailored to their unique strengths and talents and should be consistent across platforms and touchpoints like email signatures. Networking, interviewing, goal-setting, and empathy are all critical skills. Stacy advises teens to practice with mock interviews and information conversations. Setting intentional goals and strategies will help students stay on track. College admissions officers also value traits like entrepreneurship and empathy, so be sure to participate in activities that illustrate your strengths in these areas where applicable. Ultimately,…
2024-25 College Application Trends
The Common App may not be the only platform through which students apply to college, but the 1,100 colleges and universities that accept its applications represent a major constituency of schools. Consequently, the findings in the Common App Deadline update, 2024–2025: First-year application trends through January 1 illuminate trends that likely pertain to the larger high school graduating class of 2025. The broad insights tell us a lot about how competitive college admissions is at this moment: Applicant and application counts are up 5% and 7% respectively. First generation, underrepresent minority, and low-income applicants are up. Rate of domestic applicant growth exceeds growth in international applicants for the first time since 2019. Roughly half of applicants have reported test scores by January 1. Some of the greatest growth is seen in applications to public university systems, urban schools, and schools in the Southwest. Somehow, New York remains the state with…