5 Meaty Tips for Writing an UnCommonApp
See also: CommonApp Boot Camps, Dr. Yo’s CommonApp Handbook, and CPE’s CommonApp & Supplement Review Services
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The Three Most Important Qualities to Impress College Admissions Committees
Successful applications in today’s ultra-competitive college admissions game tend to be as varied and unique as the individuals who write them. If you’re planning to have AI do the heavy lifting for you, I’m sorry to inform you there is no algorithm to generate ideal answers to any of the writing prompts, let alone a compelling overall application (for more on this topic, see How Telling the Truth Can Get You Into College). Nevertheless, underpinning this great diversity among applicaitons that work are three common features. If you are a fan of the SNL skits in the early 90s, you […]
TWO Crucial CommonApp Questions for Second Semester Juniors
How to prepare an… …that will bolster your candidacy and help you get in wherever you apply! Question #1: When should I register on Commonapp.org? Short Answer #1: As soon as possible. Question #2: When should I focus on actually writing my CommonApp? Short Answer #2: Between your last final exam this year and the first day of school in the fall. Why Register Early? There is absolutely NO DOWNSIDE to registering sooner rather than later, and there is tremendous upside to sooner. All you need to do to register (commonapp.org) is to spend five or so minutes completing a […]
Test Prep in the Flow of the College Admissions Game
Much has changed in U.S. secondary education for college-bound students over the past half century, from values to curriculum to graduation requirements. But one thing that has remained largely the same is the overall academic flow of the formidable rite of passage of junior year and the crush of fall semester senior year. As busy as juniors may think they are now, or are going to be shortly, most are in for a rude awakening. I say this not to derive any joy or instill fear, but to share a vast experience of working with students through this specific period. […]
Darn it, *&#$%, I Got Deferred! Now What?
Wrong reaction! I mean, there are no wrong FEELINGS, but if you’re THINKING that getting deferred is bad news, think again! Today’s insanely stingy admissions rates, many below 10% even for early application (Harvard was around 3% last year), are NOT fake news. These single digit numbers are VERY REAL. Obviously, you were hoping to get in since you applied in November, especially since you applied EARLY, but understand what getting deferred actually means in the college admissions game. It means two things in particular, and they’re both good news: Despite this good news, I also want to suggest your […]
AI and College Applications: A Deeper Dive
I’m not gonna lie, I love AI. I don’t love everything about it, but overall I see it as mostly gold. Nevertheless, if you’re reading this for advice about using AI to write your college applications, I bring bad news. It won’t, and it can’t. I’m not an expert in all the educational AI tools out there—can anyone keep up?!—but I’ve played with a good half dozen or more different tools and even got hooked into a Coursiv course on mastering the higher-level optional features across the most popular AI’s today. I suspected a lot of it would be fluffy—and […]
Got Feb ACTs? We Got 5 Tips for Cramming
If you’re taking the ACT in February and haven’t been able to prepare as thoroughly as you’d hoped up to this point—hey, we understand, winter vacation, start of new semester, yada yada yada—do not despair. The ACT is, in fact, a highly beatable exam, and cramming does bear college admissions fruit. Even though there are FOUR (4) separate tests—English, Math, Reading, & Science—are only TWO (2) bodies of material you need to know: Math (key topics in Arithmetic, Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, and ~15% of Precalc/Trig) and 10 Key Grammar Rules. Email Dr. Yo or send a text at […]
5 Reasons and 1 Analogy Why Many Juniors Should Take Two SATs in March
Many states today require high school juniors to take either an SAT or ACT (ACT & SAT Mandated States) for federal accountability, a fact that presents strategic standardized testing options for college bound students. In CT, for example, public school juniors will take an SAT on the state’s nickel in late March to early April 2026 (check with your school), historically around 10 days after the CollegeBoard’s national SAT in early March, this year on March 14, 2026. For students applying to competitive colleges, the best strategy to maximize scores and therefore admissions chances, especially for those who prepare, is to take […]
TOP-NOTCH College Application Writing Advice via…Ernest Hemingway
Back in 2008, I posted about an article from the FRONT PAGE of Wall Street Journal that terrified college-bound students and families from beginning to end, starting with its very title: “High School’s Worst Year? For Ambitious Teens, 11th Grade Becomes a Marathon of Tests, Stress and Sleepless Nights.” I’m not at all happy to report that the situation for juniors AND seniors hasn’t improved in the last nearly 18 years. Perhaps the most frighting moment in the article came in the form of an audio recording of several minutes of an actual 11th-hour admissions committee meeting at a top college […]
The Secret Magic Formula for SAT/ACT Success
From your very first test prep session with a CollegePrepExpress instructor, you are trained to think of standardized test preparation as a twofold proposition: 1) study the specific material covered on the test, 2) take practice sections under test conditions (i.e., using bubble sheets, timed, etc.). Like prepping for the state championship, it’s a matter of scrimmaging (i.e., practice tests), and doing drills on what needs work (i.e., studying material you get wrong or leave blank). In another blog post—How Much Should I Study for Standardized Tests?—I suggested that, solely from the perspective of getting into the college of your choice, you […]
Slow and Steady Wins the Standardized Testing Race
We’ve posted before about what to do when your standardized test scores surprise you—not in the good way. If you were disappointed with your fall SAT or ACT results, we hope you’ll channel your energy in a positive direction and redouble your efforts over the next few months. Every SAT or ACT you take gets easier from experience, and if you put in a regular effort executing a well-planning routine of study and practice, you can reasonably expect to go up. There’s one thing I can tell you with certainty from more than 30 years of prepping students for college […]
Juniors: The Unsung Heroes of High School
Counting my four years as a student (1978-1982), I’ve been living on and around high school campuses and among 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th graders for nearly half a century (had to check the math several times before I could believe it). From various perspectives as a classroom teacher, coach, activities coordinator, tutor, and college admissions consultant, I’ve come to know and love the unique flavor, energy, and role each grade plays in the drama we call high school. And the way I see it, juniors play the role of the unsung hero. Academically, juniors typically find themselves taking the […]
Shedding Light on the Dark Ages of Junior Year
Back when I was in high school, revisionist history notwithstanding, teachers sometimes referred to 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 European Renaissance—nothing very interesting happened as far as historians were concerned. Hence, it was dark. (Sidebar: Readers of Dan Millman’s Way of the Peaceful Warrior know there’s something interesting happening every moment, but the term was coined long before that book was written ;-)). By analogy, the long period in the junior year sandwiched between […]
To Use or Not to Use AI on College & Grad School Applications
As is often the case with questions offering a false dichotomy of answer choices, the answer to the trick question, Is it better to use AI on your college applications or not to use it?, the right answer is a snarky yes! But if not cornered into snarkdom by a presentation of black and white answers amid so many shades of gray, a better answer might look like this: It is better NOT to use AI at all than to ask a generative AI tool (like, say, Chatgpt or Claude or Gemini) to produce a response to an application question […]
12 Hot Tips for SAT & ACT Game Day Management
If you’ve been preparing over weeks or months for an ACT and/or SAT, then you’ve probably spent most of your time learning and reviewing all the math and English grammar covered on them. If you’re shooting for a competitive score at the most selective colleges on your list, I bet you’ve also been taking practice tests to develop effective strategies and recognize common question types. In the end, your SAT or ACT score won’t likely correlate with any meaningful aspect of your future, but it WILL be an accurate measure of two things: knowledge of highly refined academic material and […]
