Admissions

Why CPE’s 4-on-1 Super-Value Math Class (for SAT, New PSAT, New ACT, & Level 1 Subject Test) Is a Great Idea

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   For further details on the class, visit our 4-in-1 Super Value Math page Dr. Yo’s 4-in-1 Super-Value Math Class is one of those rare gems that makes excellent sense for the vast majority of high school students. The problem is, most students and parents either don’t know that it exists, or they don’t immediately see how it can prove so tremendously beneficial in their particular case. The purpose of this blog post is to redress that unfortunate situation. The concept underpinning the class is to offer high school students in grades 9-12 instruction and practice on the SPECIFIC BODY OF MATHEMATICAL […]

What is CollegePrepExpress?

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CollegePrepExpress, LLC, helps students get into their top choice colleges by focusing on the top three admissions criteria: grades, scores, and apps. That is, we help students earn the best grades they can in the most challenging courses available to them, achieve the highest scores on standardized tests—like the SAT, ACT, Subject Tests, TOEFL, and AP Exams—and prepare standout applications and admissions strategies to cast them in the best possible light before committee members. Like many other college prep companies, we do quite a bit of standardized test prep. But we are DECIDEDLY DIFFERENT from almost every other business in the industry in that we take […]

The College Admissions Process 101

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1. Get the best grades in the most advanced classes you can. The first thing college admissions officers look for in evaluating any application is your curriculum and grades. The most effective way to become an attractive candidate is to impress them with your coursework and GPA. If you need help raising your grade in any particular subject(s), our outstanding tutors can help.  2. Learn as much as you can about the application process by reading blogs and listening to podcasts. There are many pieces to the puzzle, and they cannot be figured out overnight. Carve out time to investigate all the elements […]

To Parents & Teachers: When the Carrot Beats the Stick

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This post is for the grown-ups, the parents and teachers, and fair warning, I’m going to get personal. The month between Halloween and Thanksgiving marks the peak of college application writing for CPE students—an exciting, nerve-wracking rite of passage for our university-bound teens, who are full of energy, excitement, apprehension, and wonderment about their immediate and long-term futures. It’s a precious time, psychologically speaking, when the window of vulnerability and teachability may open wider than normal. I believe it’s one of the most important times to try extra hard to be encouraging rather than discouraging. I say this from two […]

‘Twas The Night Before Early Action… A Note to PARENTS

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By Kate Cryan Let’s time-travel for a moment. Not into a time with hoverboards or flying cars, but just a few short days or weeks into the future, to the first application deadline. It’s the day before the application deadline of your teen’s first choice college, and time to click the “Submit” button on the CommonApp. If it had been up to you, this button would have been hit at least a couple of weeks ago, if not before, but, sadly, it *wasn’t* up to you. No; the task lay with your resident high-schooler who, for the last few months, has suffered from a […]

Why Playing the College Admissions Game to Win is a GREAT Idea…Beyond Getting into College

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At my most recent presentation of “College Admissions Secrets for Parents and Teens,” I tried something brand new. I took off my college coach cap for a few minutes and donned my parenting hat (I have two teens, one at college, one still in high school). I asked the parents in the room to dream with me for a few minutes. Imagine, I said, it’s the twilight of your child’s middle school years and you’re dreaming your most hopeful dream of what his or her high school experience will be like. If you could write the script—sky’s the limit—how would you map […]

College Admissions Secrets for Parents and Teens: Listen to Mom’s Advice

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By Kate Cryan, mom If you’re looking for an entertaining, informative, and inexpensive evening for you and your college-bound teens, head to Hall High School at 7pm on Wednesday March 12th, where Dr. Michael J. Youmans (aka Dr. “Yo”) of CollegePrepExpress will present a 90-minute “soup to nuts” overview of the college admissions process. College admission is a daunting process for both student and parents, and it makes no difference to the parents’ stress levels whether it’s the first or fifth child going to college.  (As a parent with one child nearly finished at college, I can vouch that starting […]

Working & Fighting With the CommonApp

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(Please note there’s about 30 seconds of dead air before this episode begins….) Popular Education Internet Radio with CollegePrepExpress on BlogTalkRadio How frustrated have yo been trying to exercise patience while working with the NEW CommonApp? Are you ready to scream? Throw your computer out the window? Relax, Dr. Yo and his team of teen experts from Kingswood Oxford School and Conard High School and an experienced mom, Kate Cryan, will pass along tips and tricks to taming this beast and to answering as many questions as they can in 30 minutes on the air. Ok, and we might just […]

Winning the Battle of CommonApp ’13

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If you’re a high school senior, the last few weeks might have been more fraught than you’d anticipated, even taking into account that college application season is never a relaxed time. Halloween party planning or watching the Red Sox’ march to victory in the World Series could have taken a back seat while, instead, you spent your evenings in front of the computer, watching the Spinning Beach Ball of Death on the screen and hoping that – this time, please, please, please – the CommonApp would cooperate and accept your college application before the deadline. Or before you hurled your […]

4 Reasons Why It’s Important to Tell the Truth and How It Can Get You Into College

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Let’s face an unpalatable truth together, shall we? We ALL lie. Yup, when occasion suits our needs, even those of us who are honest almost all the time and pride ourselves on our integrity are still prone to exaggerate, understate, omit, prevaricate (go ahead, look it up), or explicitly speak what we know not to be true. Human beings have emotions, and to paint in broad stokes, we prefer the good ones to the bad ones; so sometimes we delude ourselves that telling a white, or sometimes black, lie will feel better than suffering the short-term pain that telling the […]

ADMISSION: The Book, the Movie, and Application Packaging

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Listen to internet radio with CollegePrepExpress on BlogTalkRadio   Application packaging, one of CollegePrepExpress’s THREE specialty areas, is arguably THE single most important criterion for college admissions. Join Dr. and special guest Jean Hanff Korelitz, author of Admission, the fabulous novel on which the recent Tina Fey and Paul Rudd movie is based. Their discussion about her book, the movie, and her experience as an application reader for Princeton University will help you present yourself in the best possible light in your applications. Topics include: Given the primacy of grades and tests scores, how important are the applications themselves? What […]

Parent Tip #23: Take Notes During Info Sessions

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(with thanks to Kim Brunstad, Yale Law) Parents I work with would love nothing more than to help their kids get into top colleges, but they often feel helpless to do anything useful beyond helping their teens organize their time (read: nag; see CPE’s blog post, 3 Dont’s and Do’s for Parents in the College Admissions Game). So if you’re a parent of a 10th-12th grader and planning to spend some or all of your Spring Break visiting schools, here’s a great, practical tip you can use: Take great notes during the info sessions for your child’s later use during […]

3 Don’ts and Do’s for PARENTS in the College Admissions Game

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One of the great pleasures of working with students at CollegePrepExpress is that I also get to work with dedicated parents who consistently demonstrate they want the very best for their kids. Every year I am inspired by the lengths to which CPE parents are willing to go to help ensure the very best future for their children. Sometimes, though, parents’ heartfelt convictions and best of intentions turn awry, get misinterpreted, and cause strife and household tension antithetical to their goals. Here are three common pitfalls I see parents, again with the best of intentions, falling into, and some words […]

Summer Opportunities in the College Admissions Game

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Listen to internet radio with CollegePrepExpress on Blog Talk Radio Dr. Yo will be joined by Barb Levison from Tips on Trips and Camps to discuss a huge range of summer opportunities for students, including:   domestic and international travel academic programs, including CPE’s Smart Summer Sessions camps language programs internships community service, and more   These summer ideas are fun, educational, and play well in the college admissions game!   And of course we invite YOU to join the conversation, too! Add your experience or ask a question to win a FREE SAT Prep Pack!