Freshman/Sophomore Years


Dr. Yo’s 3 Tips for School Supplies

Quick word about school supplies. ‘Tis the season, fa la la la la. Here are Dr. Yo’s guidelines for purchasing school supplies: If your teachers recommend certain types of notebooks, paper, and other school supplies, always get what they want. It shows respect, willingness to learn their way, and who knows, they might actually have a good reason :-). If you haven’t done it their  way before, don’t prejudge – give it a shot. If you know what organizational scheme works best for your learning style (either because you’re an older high school student or a younger precocious student who uses words […]


Summer Strategies for High School Students

With standardized test preparation, application writing, and summer reading assignments ramping up as the fall looms on the distant horizon, summer is no time to go academically soft. Just as athletes lose ground without regular practice and training, students can forget math facts and vocabulary words, or begin to slip in writing skills and study habits, if they aren’t intellectually challenged through the summer months. There are three specific areas in which students can get substantially ahead during the school break: standardized test preparation, academic (math, English, and other study) skills, and summer reading. Prepping for Standardized Tests Junior year […]


Catch the Back-to-School Wave

One of my favorite things to do is bodysurf.  I remember when my dad taught me how on a Florida vacation back in the early, gulp, 1970s.  He explained how good timing enables you to harness the full force of the swell just as the whitecaps begin to break at the crest of the wave.  If you jump too early or scramble to catch up, you’ll miss it: all the puny human exertion you can muster against the wave’s weighty power proves useless if you try to fight it.  The trick is to catch the wave just right and then LET […]


Using the Summer to Gain a Competitive Edge

What are the best three things about the school year?  Duh.  June, July and August of course!  Camp, summer jobs, new friends and relationships, and, most importantly, NO SCHOOL! The long summer break is a double-edged sword, however: very few use the summer to advance their learning or to advance their chances in the college admissions game.  Given the increasingly competitive nature of the game, summertime represents a phenomenal opportunity for ambitious students not only to enhance their education (not to mention keeping up with the international competition, who are in school 10 or 11 months out of the year), […]


Dr. Yo’s 6 Tips for September Goal Setting

September is always a month of great beauty and of great energy in the academic world. The start of a new academic calendar every September—as a career academic, I’ve always put more stock in the Sept-June than the Jan-Dec calendar—is a great time for self-assessment and goal setting. If you haven’t sat down yet and made some goals for yourself for the new school year, now would be a great time. 🙂 I just did mine and posted them on the fridge where they can serve as a motivation (or admonishing reminder) of what I want to accomplish for myself in 2014-2015. […]


Catch the Back-to-School Wave

One of my favorite things to do is to bodysurf.  I remember when my dad taught me how on a Florida vacation back in the early, gulp, 1970s. (This past weekend I had the privilege of teaching my daughter at East Beach in RI–hey, never mind that her first effort resulted in a complete heels over head 360). My father explained how good timing enables you to harness the full force of the swell just as the whitecaps begin to break at the crest of the wave.  If you jump too early or scramble to catch up, you’ll miss it: […]


9th and 10th Graders: DON’T WAIT TO GET INVOLVED IN EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

Attention 9th and 10th graders! One of the best parts about being an “underclassman” is that you have more time than juniors and seniors to try new things. By the time you get to 11th and 12th grades, you’ll have harder classes and more demanding teachers; more standardized tests with higher stakes; and college visits and applications to contend with. So enjoy your relative freedom while you can and take advantage of opportunities to try new things. What new things, you ask? Good question, glad you’re paying attention. Start with your hobbies and interests—what we in the college admissions industry […]


Gearing Up for 9th & 10th Grades!

  Popular Education Internet Radio with CollegePrepExpress on BlogTalkRadio The first two years of high school are both exciting and more important in the college admissions game than most people think. Join Dr. Yo and his panel of teen experts, including Zach Mendelovici (KO ’15), Amanda Youmans (Hall ’16), and Sophie Gibson (Hall ’16), as they share their experience and wisodm of living through 9th and 10th grades. Topics include: Grades, courses, and academic positioning for college in early high school Getting involved in school: Sports and Extracurriculars Getting involved out of school: Community Service Standardizing testing in early high […]


Parent Tip #17: Buy Your Kids’ Subject Test and/or AP Test Prep Books EARLY IN THE SCHOOL YEAR

The best prep for either a Subject Test (the one-hour, subject specific tests required by many top schools) and the more rigorous AP Exams (given in May, near the conclusion of each AP course) is a well-designed class and a good teacher. Sometimes students get lucky and need little extra prep because their class was so solid; MOST students, however, need to prepare for each Subject Test and AP Exam in much the same way they do for the SATs and ACTs, that is, by purchasing a book (or two or three) and learning material and taking practice tests.   […]


Attention Underclassmen and Parents: CommonApp 101 & Hot Tips for Extracurrics

                “Passion is no ordinary word” – Graham Parker  One of the most common words bandied about in the college admissions game is “passion,” and not without good reason. Indeed, one of the keys to writing successful applications is effectively communicating areas in your life–whether academic, athletic, extracurricular, or volunteer and work experience–about which you are passionate. These days committees aren’t as impressed with “well-rounded” as they are with “depth of interest,” in other words, passion. So how and where can you communicate your passion on the CommonApp?  Good question, glad you asked. Many mistakenly think it’s only the “Personal […]


Choking: Testing and Performing Well Under Pressure

Listen to internet radio with CollegePrepExpress on Blog Talk Radio   Have you ever choked on a big test? Have you ever done a bunch of practice tests and felt confident going into the SATs, ACTs, or a final, only to get far worse results on the actual exam? Have you ever missed a goal with a wide open net when the team was counting on you to put it in? Find out why and what you can do about it as Dr. Yo discusses the phenomenon of underperforming in high stakes situations with Dr. Sian Beilock, Ph.D., Professor of […]


Getting Off to A Great Start in School

Listen to internet radio with CollegePrepExpress on Blog Talk Radio   Dr. Yo is joined by three teen experts, all high school seniors, including Sam Udolf (KO ’12) and Hunter Margan (KO ’12), as they discuss how best to get ready for academic year!   Topics include: School Supplies Getting and staying organized in all your classes Developing good study habits Tips for those planning to take Subject Tests and APs Getting involved in extracurricular activities and school spirit School sports and outside-of-school sports Making friends and social life Goal Setting   And, of course, we invite YOU to pose […]


Introducing CPE’s “Finishing Strong” Workshop

It’s a fact that THE MOST important criterion for college admissions is your grades. And the most important quarter of the year for determining your final grades is the 4th quarter, i.e., now to the end of the year. Want to ensure you get the very best grades you can by staying focused, motivated, and on top of your final essays, projects, tests, and exams without having to pay for private tutoring? For as little as $27/hr (!!), enroll in CollegePrepExpress’s Finishing Strong Workshop today! What is CPE’s Finishing Strong Workshop? CollegePrepExpress’s Finishing Strong Workshop is a series of 4, […]


Standardized Test Planning, Grades 9-12

Don’t let the title of this week’s blog fool you: the most significant thing you can do in any grade for college admissions is to take the most rigorous classes available to you and earn the best grades you can in them.  Period. So as this year begins, keep your eye on the prize: A’s in school! Having said that, another important component in the college admissions game is, for better or worse, standardized test scores.  Consequently, it’s never too early to start to plan which ones you’re going to take, and when you’re going to take them.  Forewarned is forearmed, […]


Summer Reading

Now that summer is well under way and most of you have wound down from the rigors of the past academic year, it’s a great time to start executing a summer reading plan.  Whether or not your school requires summer reading, it’s a great, relatively painless, and highly productive way to keep your intellectual wheels oiled and to position yourself to have a great start to the next academic year. If you have a choice of some or all of your summer reading books, I recommend choosing classics.  That is, pick books that you want to have read, even if […]