Keys to Success

4 Tips for Using Your Vacation Wisely to Prep for Winter and Spring SATs, ACTs, and SSATs

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You’ve worked hard this semester—or at least that’s what you’ve told your parents ;-). You deserve a relaxing vacation, and at CPE we wish you a great time skiing, beaching, playing, hanging, reading, vegging, keeping your mask on and social distancing from others, and whatever else you like to do to unwind and recharge your batteries for the second semester. If you’re facing February-June SATs, ACTs, or SSATs (see dates here) and you’re honest with yourself, you know you can have a kick-butt vacation, do all the things you want to do, and/or spend LOTS of time doing nothing at […]

Why the PSAT is More Important than Ever

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As most of us know, applying to college back in the day—and by “the day” I mean right through the turn of the twenty-first century—was MUCH less complicated than it is today. We were instructed simply to be “smart, well-rounded kids.” Do your best in school, play a couple of sports, and get involved in some extracurricular activities. Community service wasn’t a big college admissions deal yet. And standardized tests were in the dark ages: those of us on the East and West coasts took the SAT and those in the Midwest and South took the ACT– ONE OR THE […]

Leaving Soon for College? Dr. Yo’s 7 Simple Tips for Guaranteed Success (What are YOURS?)

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If you’re lucky enough to have a college open to attend this fall, this one’s for you! I wouldn’t take much of the advice I have to offer. If you know me as a friend, or if you’ve been working with me a while, you know I’m full of all kinds of advice (cut it out, not just full of it). If I start telling you where to invest your money, or what car you should buy next, politely nod and walk away. Quickly, if you know what’s good for you. But when it comes to getting the most out […]

How and Why the PSAT “Counts”

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As most of us know, applying to college back in the day—and by “the day” I mean right through the turn of the twenty-first century—was MUCH less complicated than it is today. We were instructed to aspire to become the “smart, well-rounded kids.” Do your best in school, play a couple of sports, and get involved in some extracurricular activities. Community service wasn’t a big college admissions deal yet. And standardized tests were in the dark ages: those of us on the East and West coasts took the SAT and those in the Midwest and South took the ACT—ONE OR […]

Summer Goals and the College Admissions Game

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(Quick note to Moms, Dads, and other primary care givers: I know you’ve said very similar things to your kids. But, of course, they won’t believe it coming from you. So print this out and leave it on their pillows. The third-party approach often works like a charm ;-)) The most important criterion—and the most frequently heard buzz word—in today’s college admissions game is passion. Demonstrable passion. Anyone can CLAIM passion about his or her interests, but picture admissions committee as one giant D.A. from Lily Tomlin and company’s awesome kids’ show The Magic School Bus, running around with a clipboard demanding […]

Using the Summer to Gain a Competitive Edge

 tagged admissions process / freshmen / junior year / senior year / sophomores / vacation studying by

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), […]

6 Reasons and 1 Analogy Why Many CT Juniors Should Take TWO SATs in March

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Many states now require high school juniors to take either the SAT or ACT (see, for example, Education Week) for the states’ federal accountability, a fact that presents new strategic standardized testing options for college bound students. This year here in Connecticut, public school juniors will take an SAT (NOTE without the Essay, or even the option to pay for and add the Essay) on the state’s nickel on March 27 or April 4 (check with your school) with makeup dates on April 23 and 24.  For students applying to competitive colleges, the best strategy to maximize their scores and […]

When Research Isn’t Research: It’s not Just Semantics

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My work with a really bright junior at a top college that many CPE students would cut off their right arms to get into occasioned a recent epiphany: The word research means two very different things through high school and in popular culture on the one hand and in higher education and scholarly discourse on the other. Same word, but two things that are more dissimilar than similar. As early as grade school and as generally used outside of academia, research means to look into, find out, investigate, learn. I’m researching the Star Is Born movie times now. I just discovered […]

6 Reasons and 1 Analogy Why Most CT Juniors Applying to Competitive Colleges Should Take Two SATs in March

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Students/Parents to whom this post does NOT apply: Those in private schools, which do not administer the free SAT on March 21, this year’s date for the CT state public high school assessment test. (The CT Dept of Education replaced the old state assessment test with the redesigned SAT last year.) Those who know based on prior exam results that they will be sending ACT scores not SAT scores to colleges or applying only to test optional colleges. Those who already have an SAT score that is good enough to get into all the schools on their list (according to […]

What College Bound Teens Can Learn from a Bunch of 50-Year Olds

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50 may be the new 40, but it still feels suddenly different—ok, old— to many of us. I’m always wary of sweeping generalizations, but judging from conversations among my peers at a gym in West Hartford Center, many of us fifty-somethings have a significantly different definition of happiness than we did when we were in our late teens and twenties. The interesting thing about my gym group is that it’s not really a group—just an eclectic assortment of individuals whose backgrounds cut across social, ethnic, racial, and religious lines, who happen to share some level of commitment to health and physical activity, […]

7 Tips for Writing New Year’s Resolutions in the College Admissions Game

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On behalf of everyone at CollegePrepExpress, I wish you a healthy, productive, successful, and HAPPY 2017! I’m a great believer that today is the first day of the rest of your life, that you can choose to wipe the slate clean and start fresh any day you choose. But there are two ideal times for students, in particular, to pause for serious introspection and reassessment and to set new goals: the beginning of the academic year and the beginning of the calendar year. So NOW would be a great time to sit down with paper and pen, or screen and […]

2 Reasons Why CT Juniors Should Take 2 SATs in 4 Days

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Why did the CollegeBoard make their flagship exam, which was already too long to begin with, nearly an hour longer? They didn’t think very hard about it. They didn’t read any scholarly research on the subject. They value marathon runners over sprinters. They don’t care a whit about students. Don’t worry, this is NOT a rant, I just couldn’t resist. Truth be told, there is much about the redesigned SAT rolling out in March that appeals to my inner educator. But three hours and 50 minutes? Seriously? To be fair, it’s a mere three hours without the “optional” essay section, […]

Taking the ACT this weekend? 5 Tips for Cramming

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If you’re taking the ACT next weekend and haven’t been able to prepare as thoroughly as you’d like—hey, we understand, midterms, midyears, new semester starting, sports commitments, yada yada yada—do not despair. Because there’s no vocabulary on the exam, you don’t need to spend nearly as much time studying as you might think. The ACT is, in fact, a much more “beatable” test than the SAT, especially when time is short, and doubly especially compared to the redesigned SAT rolling out next month. There are two bodies of material you need to know: math (key topics in Algebra 1, Geometry, […]

Shedding Light on the Dark Ages of Junior Year

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Back when I was in school, teachers sometimes liked to call the Middle Ages the Dark Ages.  Perhaps a misnomer, the term Dark Ages was meant to suggest that during the Middle Ages—the period in Western History between Antiquity (Greeks and Romans) and the Renaissance—nothing very interesting happened as far as historians were concerned.  Hence, it was dark. By analogy, the long period in the junior year sandwiched between Oct PSATs and winter/spring SATs/ACTs might well be called the Dark Ages of the Junior year. I see it happen to well-intentioned, high-achieving students every year: not a lot going on in terms […]