PrepTalk

Join us for our 30-min discussions covering the whole range of topics relating to admissions, scholastic achievement, standardized tests, and academic stress reduction. Shows tend to feature either teen experts or professional guidance counselors, admissions officers, authors, screenwriters, teachers, and professors. Available to listen on demand on this site and on iTunes.

Got ACT Soon? 5 Tips for Cramming

 tagged ACT / standardized tests / test prep by

If you’re taking the ACT in two weeks and haven’t been able to prepare as thoroughly as you’d like—hey, we understand, end of school, start of summer, yada yada yada—do not despair. You don’t need to spend nearly as much time prepping as you do for the SAT. The ACT is, in fact, a much more “beatable” test than the SAT, especially when time is short. There are two bodies of material you need to know: math (key topics in Arithmetic, Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, and ~15% of Precalc) and 10 key grammar rules. Send us a text @ […]

12 Hot Tips for SAT and ACT Game Day

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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 […]

Writing College Applications in the Sweet Spot: June, July & August

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Many college-bound students make one of two critical mistakes when it comes time to thinking through and writing college applications: they do it too soon, or they do it too late.  Too soon, you say? Clearly you haven’t met my mother. Is there really such a thing? Yes, there really is. Emphatically so. Many high school teachers and administrators, both public and private, do their juniors a disservice when they stress them out about writing college applications during the spring of junior year. It’s one thing to go through the personal essay prompts and even write a MOCK essay for the […]

Six Quality Summer Activities for Success in the College Admissions Game

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Ah, summertime. The long awaited break from the rigors of academia during the seemingly interminable haul between September and June. Time to sleep in every day and finally get to new levels in all your favorite video games and indulge all your other couch potato fantasies.  Right? Um, wrong! The last thing you want to do in the college admissions game is be a complete couch potato over the whole summer. There are plenty of productive, meaningful, and FUN things to do between final exams and back-to-school BBQs that will give you a feeling of accomplishment AND impress college admissions […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

ACTs Less Than a Week Away? 5 Pro Tips to Raise Your Scores REALLY Fast

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Good time management on the ACT, even more than on the SAT, is crucial for getting high scores. And the cool thing is, relatively speaking, it doesn’t take long to master or to see its impact on your composite score. Is a few days enough time? Yup, if you’re dedicated. It’s basically a matter of knowing the format of each of the five tests really well. You don’t want to be the kid who, when the proctor says turn the page and begin, blurts out, “Hey! There’s Science on this test?!”   Those who become students of the exam–that is, […]

Standardized Test Prep Made Simple: Tip Sheet for Preparing for SATs and ACTs

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Preparing for high-stakes standardized tests like the SAT or the ACT is not EASY, but it is SIMPLE. What I mean by that is much of the work is psychological: you need to make a decision to invest the necessary time, plan your work, and then work your plan. For years instructors at CollegePrepExpress have been helping students get high scores by showing them that preparation for these behemoth exams is really the same as that for any other test: it involves TWO basic activities: studying the material covered on the exam and taking practice tests to give you facility […]

Dr. Yo’s Top 2 Tips for Reading Comprehension/Concentration on the PSAT, SAT, ACT, Literature Subject Test, and AP Lit exams

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Reading  comprehension tests are, in most cases, a misnomer. Passages on the SAT, ACT, Literature Subject Test, and AP English exams do not typically test students’ ability to COMPREHEND the material; they test students’ ability to pay attention to what they’re reading. This is a very important distinction, particularly when it comes to confidence. When students perform poorly on a reading comprehension test, or at a level less than they’d expect,  the reason is not likely that they can’t COMPREHEND the passage, but rather than they weren’t paying close enough attention; that is, they weren’t concentrating on what they were reading. […]

Dr. Yo’s Short- and Long-Term Steps to Higher SAT Scores

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There are basically two ways to prep for the SATs and ACTs, otherwise known as the college entrance exams: slow-and-steady and cram-like-hell. Know which one’s better? BOTH.  If your goal is to be competitive at the nation’s top colleges, I recommend you prep slow-and-steady over the long haul (one to two years for most) AND cram like hell at the end. For those with less ambitious goals or where there are constraints of time and/or budget, you may choose to select a one vs. the other approach. This week I offer you CollegePrepExpress’s plans for short- and long-term prep for the SAT for students sitting for the exam between October 2014 […]

College Admissions 101 for Mom & Dad

 tagged admissions / applications / CommonApp / parents / SAT / standardized tests / strategies / test anxiety by

Online Education Radio at Blog Talk Radio with CollegePrepExpress on BlogTalkRadio Recorded LIVE, 6:30-7:00PM ET on 2/27/14 …or listen to this or any other PrepTalk with CPE show on… Do you you really want to help your kid but you’re just not sure how?Parents! Is your high schooler going to college? Is this the first time since your own college days that you’ve dealt with the admissions process? Do you have so many questions you don’t know where to start? Then this show is for YOU! Join Dr. Yo, J.D. Rothman (aka, the Neurotic Parent’s Guide to College Admissions), and a panel […]

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 […]

Got ACT on 9/21? 5 Tips for Cramming

 tagged ACT / standardized tests / test prep by

If you’re taking the ACT next weekend and haven’t been able to prepare as thoroughly as you’d like—hey, we understand, end of summer, start of school, 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 do for the SAT. The ACT is, in fact, a much more “beatable” test than the SAT, especially when time is short. There are two bodies of material you need to know: math (key topics in Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, and a wee bit of Trig) and 10 key […]

Gearing Up for 9th & 10th Grades!

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  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 […]