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Initial Consultation
90-minute, family overview of the entire admissions process, including academic, extracurricular, testing, and community service strategies.
$299
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CommonApp Boot Camps
$2250 (15 hrs)
CommonApp and Supplement Review Services
Start at $299
Founded by Michael J. Youmans, Ph.D. (aka “Dr. Yo”)—creator of CommonApp Boot Camps and author of The CommonApp Handbook—with degrees from Harvard, Middlebury/Oxford, and Boston College School of Ed, CollegePrepExpress provides individualized, comprehensive strategies for playing today’s ultra competitive college admissions game to WIN!
CPE Scholarship for Juniors
CPE is thrilled to announce the 2026 Recipient of the CPE SCHOLARSHIP FOR JUNIORS… Tuesday, February 10, 2026, 6:00-6:10pm ET 2025 Recipient from Northwest Catholic High School, West Hartford, CT: Marco Cornejal CPE is Committed to Helping Level the Educational Playing Fieldin College Admissions! CPE is indebted to Covenant Prep’s Kela Perkins and Nikki Canavoc and their ace search committee! Since 2019, CPE has been offering a full, free ride annual scholarship for one lucky junior among deserving nominees nationwide. The recipient gains complimentary access to any or all of the following: Up to 10 hours of private consultations for strategic panning and working through college applications supplements Up to 10 hours of academic tutoring with Dr. Yo or CPE-certified instructor CommonApp Boot Camp as a rising senior Unlimited standardized test prep classes All CPE’s virtual and printed resources Unlimited Academic Stress and Test Anxiety Workshops To nominate, email DrYo@CollegePrepExpress.com and include the student’s name, contact info, school, and school candidate (usually the best choice is someone in the college counseling department). Thank you in advance! https://youtu.be/-NjtRtzKBjY 2020/2021 Announcement/Ceremony, November 12, 2020 Left to right: Sonia Tamburro, Hartford Magnet Trinity College High School guidance counselor, Dr. Yo, Cyani Irizarri (2019-20 CPE Scholar), Cyani’s mom
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Results
REFERENCES To email or talk to former students and parents about CollegePrepExpress, LLC, email or call/text (413) 329-7540 for contact info. We’re happy to connect you with past families — just reach out! MORE RESULTS —>
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Becoming a Vocab Sponge: Learning Digital SAT Vocab Quickly and Effectively
In the biggest SAT redesign of the 21st century back in 2016, the CollegeBoard did away with “Vocabulary” questions, replacing them with much fluffier “words in context” items. Instead of having to memorize the definitions of words like perfunctory, intractable, and circumlocution, students could use contextual clues to determine which of four much easier words fit in a given context. Quite surreptitiously (to use a favorite old school College Board word), they’re been slowly bringing back more and more of their favorite words that used to appear on the SAT for decades. So the bad news is that it’s no longer accurate to say “there isn’t any vocab on the digital SAT.” But the good news is, from someone who’s seen every question on every official digital SAT available on the Blue Book app, the test writers are using the very same word bank they’ve been using since the last millennium. Wouldn’t it be great if we all knew what those most commonly appearing words on the SAT were? Hey, guess what? We do 😉 For starters, see the slides above! The sticking point for most students isn’t lack of access to the set of vocab words that appear over and over again on the SAT but rather an approach to studying them such that they’ll stick. If you’re like most students, you probably have little trouble memorizing vocab words for quizzes and tests. The night before the quiz—be honest, sometimes the period before—you cram the words into your brain and you do just fine. But three days later, they’ve all somehow vanished from your memory, leaving you with that uncomfortable feeling the next time you encounter one of them (say, on the SAT) that you should know the word but alas, you don’t. D’oh! So the question is, how do you learn words and NOT forget them? Fortunately, there are several good tricks to this trade. First, while you’re in training for standardized tests and acing high school in general, become a vocab sponge. Look up and write down (or word process) any word you encounter that you do not know. Make it a matter of pride: NOBODY uses words you don’t know, and when someone does, it gets to you and you won’t let it happen again. 😉 If you want to work out of a great vocab book, the best high school/SAT prep book on the market is Princeton Review’s Word Smart. One of the oldest and most reliable pedagogical technique is repetition (do you know the word pedagogical/pedagogy? If not, write it down!). Reviewing a little bit every day is THE KEY to long-term retention. That is, rather than cramming for an hour once in a blue moon, you review your word list for just a few minutes once or twice a day. Whether you use flash cards or simple vocab lists, another key is to group them not alphabetically (as most books do), but by synonyms. You know how your brain works: sometimes you remember exactly where on the page you read something (e.g., the lower left-hand side) or which words are above and below the word on some list you’re trying to remember. So if the words above and below the word you’re trying to remember all mean roughly the same thing, you’re golden! CPE students know that’s the fastest way to learn vocab is with SYNONYM CLUSTERS!
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