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,…
7 Steps to a Terrible College Essay
While grades represent the most important factor in college admissions for the typical applicant, other factors provide holistic insight into the student behind the application: Test scores put grades in context and measure college readiness. Extracurricular activities speak to interests, excellence, and leadership. Recommendations describe integrity, character, and academic curiosity. The application essay along with the various supplements play a more strategic, subtle, and subjective role than the other factors. The essay also has the most potential to capture the imagination–and passionate support–of application readers, at least if done right. But what about when the essay is written badly? We’ve shared plenty of resources on how to write amazing college essays both on the Chariot Learning blog and on the Tests and the Rest podcast. As a change of pace, I shared 7 Steps to a Terrible College Essay with my friend Dave the Scholarship Coach: 1. Write about someone…
Submit Your College Applications Before Pumpkin Pie
Our friend and colleague Kristin Cocquyt of Cocquyt College Consulting offers student-centered, fit-focused college counseling in Webster, NY and through the Zoom-verse. This guest post promotes the benefits of finishing those college applications early! To procrastinate is to be human, but to tackle the college application process with fortitude and precise planning is…. well, hard. The college search and application process is full of details and deadlines and for most teengers is straight-up intimidating. If you’re in the midst of the college search and application process, it can feel like another varsity sport or AP class (or two) with the required time investment and homework. Your color-coded spreadsheet of deadlines and usernames and passwords is intense, and you have multiple Google Docs going with essay drafts. The college application process can sort of take over and distract you from the other glories of senior year. I’ve coached over 600 students…
What is a “Hook” in College Admissions?
A hook is useful to have on hand (definitely not in hand, though) in all manner of scenarios from fishing to songwriting. Surprisingly, the newest market for hooks happens to be in college admissions. This begs, the question, of course, “What is a hook?” Hooks are basically all the factors beyond grades and test scores that might engage interest and secure college admission. We’ve always recognized that certain traits or activities helped applicants stand out from the crowd. What may surprise you is just how many hooks there are. College expert Aly Beaumont of Admissions Village joined me on the Tests and the Rest podcast to share what may be the world’s most thorough inventory of application hooks: Okay, so let me start first with what an institutional priority or a hook is. So I think of things that are beyond academics, test scores. There’s both inherent ones that are…
Writing a Strong College Application Essay: Revision and Completion
Once you’ve brainstormed your options and decided which initial draft is your winner, the final step in writing a really strong college application is to read, rewrite, rework, and rethink your essays over and over again. This revision process can be a hard journey to travel alone. Like any formal writing project, it helps tremendously to have someone read your work and comment on where the writing is clear and where it isn’t, where the language is strong and memorable, and where it is weaker. Aside from the usual writing help, a college-essay coach can and should also help you stay mindful about the specific genre of writing this essay falls into. This essay is different from any other essay you will probably write in your life. You not only want your essay to display the usual hallmarks of good writing–lively word choices, sustained focus on a central idea, correct…