applications

College Admissions Secrets for Parents and Teens: Listen to Mom’s Advice

 tagged ACT / admissions / applications / extracurriculars / junior year / parents / SAT / standardized tests / test anxiety by

By Kate Cryan, mom If you’re looking for an entertaining, informative, and inexpensive evening for you and your college-bound teens, head to Hall High School at 7pm on Wednesday March 12th, where Dr. Michael J. Youmans (aka Dr. “Yo”) of CollegePrepExpress will present a 90-minute “soup to nuts” overview of the college admissions process. College admission is a daunting process for both student and parents, and it makes no difference to the parents’ stress levels whether it’s the first or fifth child going to college.  (As a parent with one child nearly finished at college, I can vouch that starting […]

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 […]

Seniors, Don’t Make This Classic Time-Management Mistake!

 tagged admissions / applications / senior year by

Time is a fall-term senior’s most precious commodity. Nevertheless, year after year we see seniors making the same time management mistake as they play the college admissions game: they put application work ahead of schoolwork and test prep. Oops! It’s a mistake that has two negative consequences: first, it prevents seniors from doing their best work and getting the best grades they can (remember: colleges care more about your grades than ANYTHING else), and second, it inevitably leads to greater stress for them and their families. And their #1 accomplice in this crime? Their well-intentioned parents who simply want them […]

Getting Your CommonApp (Almost) Done Over the Summer

 tagged applications / CommonApp / junior year / senior year / vacation studying by

Jeez, school just freakin’ ended and you’re hitting me with THIS? Take a chill, Mr. Intense—er, Dr. Intense—would you? Actually, I was going to offer YOU that very advice, especially if you have the type of parents who want your whole application done the day after your last final exam (hey, try to keep in mind how much they love you :-)). Rising seniors absolutely should take a chill for a while after surviving the year-long educational torture chamber we call junior year. Having said that, we also STRONGLY suggest that you get as much work done on your CommonApp […]

4 Reasons Why It’s Important to Tell the Truth and How It Can Get You Into College

 tagged admissions process / applications / college essay by

Let’s face an unpalatable truth together, shall we? We ALL lie. Yup, when occasion suits our needs, even those of us who are honest almost all the time and pride ourselves on our integrity are still prone to exaggerate, understate, omit, prevaricate (go ahead, look it up), or explicitly speak what we know not to be true. Human beings have emotions, and to paint in broad stokes, we prefer the good ones to the bad ones; so sometimes we delude ourselves that telling a white, or sometimes black, lie will feel better than suffering the short-term pain that telling the […]

Pep Talk for Standardized Test-Taking JUNIORS

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“The truth can hurt you it’s just like the dark it’ll scare you witless but in time you see things clear and stark.” – Elvis Costello Everybody knows junior year is the hardest working year of high school. And, alas, the stark reality is the hardest part of it is the final stretch. Cumulative tests, big papers, final projects, and (gulp) final exams all conspire to make the last two to three months challenging to sleep, serenity, even sanity. Oh yeah, and then throw standardized testing—SATs ACTs, Subject Tests, and, in some cases, AP exams—into the already unmanageable mix. Thanks, adult world, […]

Parent Tip #23: Take Notes During Info Sessions

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(with thanks to Kim Brunstad, Yale Law) Parents I work with would love nothing more than to help their kids get into top colleges, but they often feel helpless to do anything useful beyond helping their teens organize their time (read: nag; see CPE’s blog post, 3 Dont’s and Do’s for Parents in the College Admissions Game). So if you’re a parent of a 10th-12th grader and planning to spend some or all of your Spring Break visiting schools, here’s a great, practical tip you can use: Take great notes during the info sessions for your child’s later use during […]

In-Coming Senior To-Do’s

 tagged ACT / applications / college interviews / college visits / CommonApp / SAT / standardized tests by

You’ve waited your whole academic career to be a senior, and now you’re finally here.  One way or another, it’s likely to your most memorable year yet, and if you’re wise and pro-active, you can make the memories predominately positive.  There are four general areas about which you can be pro-active in the waning weeks of your final high school summer: 1)   Application To-Do’s 2)   Standardized Test Plans 3)   College Fairs, Visits, and Interviews 4)   Mental Preparation for Academics and Extracurriculars 1) Application To-Do’s: By now you should have a list of colleges from your guidance counselor. a) Spend some time […]