Score At The Top Blog

…which we could have subtitled Here’s How You Can Beat Your Competition in College Admissions, because if you do “it” better than they do, you’ll have a vastly better chance of gaining admission to the schools that you want to attend. And there’s nobody better at helping you excel at “it” than we are: That’s why 95% of our counseling students gain admission to their top-choice colleges.

Topics: College Planning, College Admission

By the start of their second semester, most high school juniors have begun creating and honing a prospective college list, and scheduling college visits. What most don’t realize is that it’s also the ideal moment to begin working on college applications, especially the often-dreaded college application essay (commonly known as the personal statement). Where to get started? What’s the perfect topic? What are college admission readers looking for? These and other student questions oftentimes result in panic and procrastination: I’ll worry about it this summer! Then suddenly, it’s September….

Topics: Application Essays, Person Statement, Essays, College Application

Last August 13^th, we posted a blog titled “Forget the Worm: The Early Bird Gets Admitted.” That’s why we’ve chosen our title here (“The Past as Prologue”), because what has already happened should dictate our current actions. Here’s the connection: In that blog, we detailed a long-term trend – what has been happening – favoring those who apply to colleges via Early Decision (ED) and Early Action (EA) over those who apply Regular Decision (RD). That trend has continued, and because ED and EA benefits both colleges and students in unique ways, there’s every reason to believe that it will continue – at an increasing pace – for the foreseeable future.

Topics: Early Action, Early Decision, College Planning, College Counseling, College Admission, College Application

Students who took the October PSATs have had their results for a few weeks, and while that’s mostly good, there’s also some bad and ugly involved. Before we explain, here’s some germane information.

Topics: PSAT, SAT Test, College Board

When your GPA is NOT your GPA

Topics: AP Exams, IB, AICE, College Admission

Good grades and high standardized test scores help get your application into the room where the admissions committee will make its final decision – and for many years they’ve been the top two criteria for evaluating applicants. As we pointed out in a blog we published in January 2013,

Topics: Common App, Common Application, Coalition App, College Application

The Bright Futures Scholarship program rewards Florida high school graduates for their academic achievements – and isn’t need-based. Money is available for use at almost all undergraduate schools in the state of Florida.

Topics: Bright Futures, Investment, ACT/SAT, Florida Public Schools

Most colleges¹ admit a far greater percentage of students who apply Early Decision (ED) or Early Action (EA) than they do of students who apply Regular Decision (RD). In fact, an article posted on usnews.com in December 2010 contains data on 52 colleges for which that was true. At that time the increased chances of gaining admission to those colleges by applying ED or EA instead of RD ranged from 1.41 to 2.98 – or an average of 1.88. In short, students who applied ED or EA to those colleges were, on average, almost twice as likely to get accepted as were those who applied RD.

Topics: College Counseling, College Admission, Early Decision, Early Action

One thing that you absolutely DO NOT want to do is confuse college admissions officers by presenting contradictory – or inconsistent, and, thus, possibly contradictory – information about yourself in your college applications. And there are multiple opportunities for mistakes in most college applications.

Topics: College Application, College Counseling, College Admission, Activity Resume, Resume

In our recent blog entitled Clearing Up Confusion About the College Application Personal Statement, we explained that “It doesn’t matter in the slightest what you write about for your Common and Coalition Application personal statements — as long as it’s about you. What does matter is what you say and how you say it, because you should have clear objectives, and we’ll provide you with advice on that matter in future blogs.” Here’s the first installment for you.

Topics: Essay, Person Statement, Application Essays, College Admission