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College Planning Articles Archive

Admission Tips

StudentProspector contacted college admissions officers from a range of colleges and universities located throughout the country to solicit their best advice for high school students and their parents planning a college visit and tour this spring. Here is their collective feedback:

1. Limit your college visits to no more than two schools per day. And, if possible, visit only one school per day. If you pack any more into your road trip, you are likely to become overwhelmed.
2. Call ahead to make sure that your school will be in session during your visit. (Some colleges do not hold tours during their spring break.) If you visit a school when it isn't in session, you won't get a sense of the student body.
3. Visit the college's Web site prior to your visit. David Reiman, with Yale University's undergraduate admissions office, says that there's "a lot of info to learn on the Internet." For example, find out if you need to register in advance for a tour, which is required at some schools and not at others. Since parking can be a premium at some college campuses, learn which lots are appropriate for visitors and closest to the admission's office so that you're not hiking across campus before the official tour has even begun.
4. Avoid the biggest mistakes: Ask plenty of questions and take the formal tour. College admissions officers would like to see more families - and especially students - come prepared with questions about the school and campus life. (Some admissions advisors also recommend taking a few notes on each campus visit so that you have a frame of reference upon your return home.)
5. Speak to current students. College admissions officers overwhelming say this is the most important aspect of the college visit.
6. Go beyond the formal tour. While colleges hold the formal tour to disseminate information to students and parents, admissions officers agree that it's up to prospective students and their parents to make the most of a college visit. To help get the flavor of a school, they suggest picking up a copy of the student newspaper, talking to students spontaneously around campus, eating lunch in the dining facilities and sitting in on a class. The full experience also should include exploring the city/town where a school is located.
7. Reduce traveling stress. For those families visiting a number of schools in several days, admissions officers suggest using MapQuest or a similar Internet mapping service to plan the best route. Joanne Jensen, with Virginia Commonwealth University's undergraduate admissions department, says, "Wear comfortable shoes!" Marlyn McGrath Lewis, with Harvard University's undergraduate admissions office, notes that parents and teens should also remember to "Enjoy each other's company."

Test Preparation Information

Students need to be ready for the PSAT, SAT and various other entrance exam tests. The information below will give you some insight into what you are up against, what you can do and how to start preparing.

A junior in high school goes to the eye doctor to get his vision checked. The doctor asks him to look at an eye chart and read the letters. This is what the high school junior sees:

PSAT
ACT
SAT
SAT II

Why is this? Because the eye chart store had a sale on certain letters? No, because the student has something on his mind.

Something that strikes fear and breeds stress inside hundreds of thousands of high school students.

Standardized tests.

We know you are worried about the power these tests wield. We know you are afraid that if you don't do well you will jeopardize your chance of getting into your dream school. We know that you think it's outrageous that a few geometry questions will determine whether you would be a good journalism major at NYU, or that some ostentatious (showy) vocabulary words that no one other than the test begetters (creators) even knows has the power to peg you as a good potential accountant or not.

That is why we are here to help.

This page will detail the things you need to know about preparing for and passing the standardized tests that matter most to college recruiters. So, grab a pen and notepad, check yours eyes, and start reading.

PSATs
With more and more students becoming intimidated by the very thought of scoring lower than expected on the SATs, the ages of those who take the PSATs are rapidly decreasing. In fact, 50% of the people that take the PSATs are freshmen or sophomores in high school.

Nevertheless, all juniors are required to take the PSATs. Co-sponsored by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, the test is conducted in school for free, and is offered twice a year. Students can take it more than once, but it's only free the first time.

The test is a half-hour shorter than the SATs, and every student scores different on the PSATs than they do on the SATs. They normally score higher during the test that counts.

The PSATs are there to serve as practice, but the scores are also used to select scholarship recipients, so you should still try your hardest.

According to CollegeBoard.com, the PSATs measure:
-critical reading skills
-math problem-solving skills
-writing skills

The website also sites the most common reasons for taking the PSATs:

-To receive feedback on your strengths and weaknesses on skills necessary for college study. You can then focus your preparation on those areas that could most benefit from additional study or practice.
-To see how your performance on an admissions test might compare with that of others applying to college.
-To enter the competition for scholarships from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (grade 11).
-To help prepare for the SAT. You can become familiar with the kinds of questions and the exact directions you will see on the SAT.
-To receive information from colleges when you check "yes" to Student Search Service.

SATs
Everyone has heard of the SATs. Everyone knows what they are. While some colleges are putting less stock in SAT scores then they used to, they are still a vital part of the college admission process. If you want to go to college, you have to take the SATs, and you have to do fairly well on them.

What constitutes fairly well? Until recently, a 1600 was a perfect score. That meant you received an 800 in the math section and an 800 in the verbal section. That is no longer the case.

The College Board has redone the test, adding a writing section to it, and the highest score is now a 2400. Still very much achievable, but a little more daunting. Let's dissect the new requirements.

The New Verbal Section
The verbal section of the test, now called the critical reading section, eliminates the much hated analogy questions to make room for paragraph-length critical reasoning questions. These new questions join sentence completion and reading comprehension components on any topic from science to literature.

The New Math Section
Quantitative comparisons have been removed from the test, replaced by Algebra II material designed to test what students directly lean in high school. The other two current types, 5-option multiple-choice and student-produced responses, remain intact.

The New Section - Essay Writing
As written on Education.Yahoo.com, "The biggest change to the SAT will be the introduction of a new Writing section. The Writing section will consist of two parts: an essay and a multiple-choice section. Students will be given 25 minutes to respond to a prompt and construct a well-organized essay that effectively addresses the task. The essay question may require students to complete a statement, to react to a quote or an excerpt, or to agree or disagree with a point of view. In any case, a good essay will support the chosen position with specific reasons and examples from literature, history, art, science, current affairs, or even a student's own experiences.

The New Section - Multiple-Choice
Also written on Education.Yahoo.com: "The Writing section will also include multiple-choice grammar and usage questions. Some of these questions will call upon students to improve given sentences and paragraphs. Others will present students with sentences and require them to identify mistakes in diction, grammar, sentence construction, subject-verb agreement, proper word usage, and wordiness."

The Fake Out
In addition to the scored sections of the test, there is a 25-minute-long variable section that doesn't count at all to your final score. It may be critical reading, math, or writing - you may never know - and is used to test new questions for future editions of the SAT. That's right, you become the College Board's guinea pig. Enjoy.

Other Important SAT Information You can take the SATs as many times
as you want, just as long as you realize that you will be paying about $30 each time. It is worth it to take the test more than once because they take your highest score from each section and marry them all. So for example, if you take it one time and score a 720 on your math and a 530 on your verbal, and then take it a second time and score a 650 on your math and a 700 on your verbal, your final score will be a 720 for math and a 700 for verbal.

If you plan on taking it multiple times, however, keep in mind that your last chance to take the test and still be eligible for admission to college in the next academic year is in the fall of your senior year of high school. Don't keep postponing it and then end up not being able to apply to any schools.

In fact, you should register for the SAT as early as possible, because only certain places administer the test, and they can fill up quickly. If you miss it one term you'll have to wait a few months until it is administered again.

Preparing for the Test
There are many classes you can take and books you can read that are supposed to help you prepare for test day. They give you tips, tricks, and advice, and train you to think the way the test administrators think. Do they really work? That's up for debate. HowStuffWorks.com has this to say about it:

"The College Board stops short of endorsing the use of test prep services, which can charge hundreds of dollars per person per prep course. Board officials maintain that the nature of the SAT makes it difficult to study, or 'cram' for and that your best bet is to take academically challenging, pre-collegiate courses in high school and to keep your study habits strong and your grades high. The College Board suggests that taking the PSAT/NMSQT is a good way to prepare (it also gets you on college mailing lists) as are studying the types of questions in the SAT and taking the sample SAT I, which is provided free at high schools.

On the other side of the fence sit test prep giants making millions of dollars each year offering courses designed to help students boost their performances on the SAT, PSAT, ACT and a variety of other academic and professional tests. These companies resent any implication that they teach students test-taking "tricks," saying that their businesses spend a lot of money on specialized research aimed at learning what it takes to get good test scores and that they pass those findings on to course-takers. Some test-prep companies even guarantee specific score increases. If the scores aren't there, these firms offer cash back or, more often, a free repeat of the course. (There are many of these services, so cruise the Internet and your local telephone directory if you're interested.)"

Whether you attempt to "study" or not, an important thing to remember when taking the SATs is that you only lose points if you answer incorrectly. So if you have absolutely no idea what an answer is, you can't even narrow the multiple-choice options down to two, then just skip the question. It will benefit you greater than if you answer incorrectly.

ACT
The little know sibling of the SAT is the ACT, another college entrance exam that is accepting by just as many colleges as its more famous counterpart. While more information about the ACT will be coming soon, right now you can check out the test's homepage (http://www.act.org/aap/) to learn information like, "it assesses high school students' general educational development and their ability to complete college-level work. -The multiple-choice tests cover four skill areas: English, mathematics, reading, and science.
-The Writing Test, which is optional, measures skill in planning and writing a short essay."

And that's all our wisdom for now. We will constantly be updating this page with more information and more advice, so as long as these words aren't morphing into SAT, ACT, II, PSAT, then keep checking back with us SAT to see if ACT we can further help you with you test prep PSAT.