Score At The Top Blog

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: Essays, College Application, Application Essays, Person Statement

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Well, no. We lied: There is no magic formula for writing the perfect college application essay.

The essays in “Essays That Worked for College Applications” (subtitled “50 Essays that Helped Students Get into the Nation’s Top Colleges”) vary wildly and include “think pieces,” multiple-panel cartoons, poems, and short plays, among others. There is no prototypical essay because there is no prototypical admissions officer: they’re human beings, just like you and I are, and they have differing tastes, just like you and I do.

Topics: Essays, College Admission

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This is the third article of our three-part blog series “How to Get Into College."

Topics: Essays, College Admission, College Planning, Educational-Consulting

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With the College Board’s new summer SAT test date (August 26^th) comes an intriguing gambit for high school students who plan to apply to more competitive colleges (and even to those that may not be considered so competitive): taking up to three of the College Board’s 1-hour Subject Tests offered on that date.

Topics: Essays, College Admission, College Planning, Educational-Consulting, Subject Test

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This is the second article of our three-part blog series “How to Get Into College”.

Having dispensed with transcript, test scores, and application essay in our first installment, we follow up here with a few more “Get Into College” essentials.

Topics: Essays, College Admission, College Planning, Educational-Consulting

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A current TV ad for an insurance company ends with this innocuous line: “We know a thing or two, because we’ve seen a thing or two.” We have – seen a thing or two over the past 35+ years of advising students about their college plans and applications.

In three parts, this being the first, we’d like once again to share our acquired intelligence about those elements of an applicant’s academic and non-academic life that play a crucial role in an admissions decision. Focus on these, and you’ll have the best chance of following your dreams of experiencing a meaningful college life. So let’s begin from the beginning with what remains the single most important element of your college application. 

Topics: Essays, College Admission, College Planning, Educational-Consulting

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The Common Application recently announced changes to its application, which is now accepted by about 700 colleges and universities.

Topics: Essays, Common Application, College Application

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In Part I and Part II of this blog, we discussed the Common App’s essay prompts, and then provided you with several suggestions (with essay excerpts from successful applications) – about how you could create a good “hook” opener. In this blog, we’ll revisit the essay prompts and suggest how your personal life could provide a fountain of topics to address them.

Topics: Essays, Tutoring, Educational-Consulting

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In Part I of this blog series, we told you that it’s our philosophy that the Common App’s personal essay (also the personal statement for colleges’ own applications and for the Coalition Application) must accomplish two things to be successful:

Topics: Essays, Tutoring, Educational-Consulting

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In September this year, ACT will introduce its new essay format. Six months later, in March of 2016, the College Board will replace its current written essay with a new, optional essay.

Each testing company is migrating toward analysis and away from any possible free-form, even impressionistic renderings by students in their writing ― the College Board more so that ACT. Let’s look briefly at what we know right now.

Topics: Essays, ACT, SAT Test, ACT/SAT, Test-Prep

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