5 Tips to Get High School Juniors Ready For College
November 30, 2011
Even though you are not yet through the first half of your junior year in high school, college will be here before you know it! Ask your Senior friends who already have, or are finishing, applying to schools at this very moment. Bet they can’t believe they only have a few months left in high school!
NOW is the time to take stock and start preparing for college. As a Junior, here are 5 tips to help pave the way for your college application process:
(1) Take your SAT, SAT 2’s and/or ACT tests. Plan to have all of these tests completed by the end of this year. Start your prep course (online, in-person, or simply by yourself) this month, or no later than January. This way, you will have ample time to take your first SAT or ACT in the spring, and retake your better test (i.e., the one you scored higher on) in May or June. Your goal is not to have to spend any time in your Senior year taking these tests, as waiting for your results will only slow you down. For more information about the difference between the ACT and SAT, check out our podcast; for even more info about all of the tests, listen to this podcast; and for help comparing your SAT and ACT scores, read this post.
(2) Start working on your college list. In order to develop a college list, you will need to know your GPA, class rank, SAT/ACT scores, your academic interests, the geographic location you want, and so much more. Even if you don’t have all this information at your fingertips right now, you can create a list of colleges that offer majors you are interested in, in locations of interest. Take the time now to start exploring college websites. Write down the colleges that interest you, and make arrangements to visit the campuses (if possible). Many families will high school Juniors will set aside Spring Break to tour the various schools of interest. In this competitive environment, it is more important than ever to take the time to visit campuses, so start planning now. For great info about how to create a college list, listen to our podcast.
(3) Keep your grades up. With college on your mind, now is the time to shine academically in high school. If your grades haven’t been stellar to date, apply yourself now and then write your personal statement about how you realized school is important and you rededicated yourself to your studies! Your goal is to put your best foot forward and show college admissions officers that you have what it takes to do well at their school. Also, all college applications require letters of recommendation, and doing well in a class is a sure way to be noticed by your teachers – who will remember you when they write your stellar recommendation letter!
(4) Make sure you are involved. One thing that college admissions officers love to see are extracurricular activities. Not a lot of them, just a few to which you are deeply committed. They don’t have to be offered by your high school either, as volunteer work or activities outside your school also are viewed very favorably. What isn’t smiled upon as much? Activities that all of a start in your senior year, as they obviously are being joined for application purposes! So, participate now and reap the benefits! For more tips about activities to join, listen to our podcast.
(5) Create an academic resume. In addition to your application, personal statement and other documents required for college admissions, we strongly urge our college counseling students to prepare an academic resume. This is like an employment resume, but lists your achievements in high school (or even prior). Time to toot your own horn! This document also will be handy to provide to your guidance counselor and teachers who will be providing you with letters of recommendation. To learn more about creating an academic resume, listen to our podcast.
What do you think about these tips? Have any others you’d like to share? We’d love to hear from you!
The Rise Of The Wait List (Part I)
October 25, 2011
Right now, many college seniors are in the middle of the process of applying to colleges. Some will meet the November deadline looming for applicants going the “early action” or “early decision” route. Others are gearing up for “regular way” applications, usually due in January. Once the applications are submitted, high school seniors feel relief – no more SATs or ACTs or personal statements! Once that euphoria wears off, however, the candidates eagerly await responses from the colleges to which they applied.
Some candidates will receive responses rather quickly, while other colleges will take longer to inform them of their decisions. Either way, high school seniors expect either a “yes” or “no” response. Then, their plan is to choose the one college into which they will matriculate among their acceptances (hopefully they have more than one!). This is the ideal situation.
However, the ideal situation is becoming less commonplace with the “Rise of the Wait List.” Nowadays, colleges are responding to applicants with “yes,” “no,” or, increasingly popular, “maybe.” More and more applicants are being placed on the college’s Wait List, which is tantamount to being a “maybe.”
What does it mean to be Wait Listed? What are the rules of the Wait List? In this two-part blog post series, we’ll explore the current status of the ubiquitous Wait List, where it’s headed and how best to handle the “maybe.”
According to the 2011 “State of College Admission” report recently released by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), 48% of colleges and universities surveyed used a wait list for fall 2010, up from 39 percent just the previous year. 42% of colleges reported that they placed more applicants on wait lists in 2010 than they did in 2009.
Of the colleges that use a Wait List, the NACAC study found that they place approximately 10% of their applicants into it, 56% of which decided to remain on it. On average, the incoming college freshman class of 2010 consisted of 28% of wait listed students, down from 34% for incoming college freshmen in 2009. The more selective colleges generally admitted just 11% off their wait lists.
Why the rise in colleges’ use of a Wait List? Presumably, mainly, it is as a result of the increased number of applications. Because high school seniors are applying to many more schools, it is becoming more difficult for college admissions officers to predict how many accepted students actually will enroll in the school (technically called the “yield”). For example, one student may apply to 10 colleges and get accepted into 6. Since the student can only attend one school, that means 5 colleges will be rejected by the student. That’s 5 slots that are now opened up at the rejected colleges! The average yield has declined steadily from 49% in 2001 to just 41% in 2010. (This phenomenon largely has been fueled by the colleges’ own marketing strategies – listen to our podcast entitled “Colleges’ Dirty Little Secret” for more information.)
Therefore, colleges have to hedge their bets against the unpredictable yield. In some cases, they have increased their use of early decision and early action policies. (For information about these two practices, listen to Top-Tier’s podcast, “The Ins and Outs of Early Decision versus Early Action.”) The Wait List is another tool available to colleges to help manage the admissions process.
In the next post, we’ll go over what happens when you are placed on a college’s Wait List (or several colleges’ wait lists), and what the NACAC is working on in response to this growing practice.
SAT Results for 2011 Grads
September 21, 2011
Both the College Board, which sponsors the SAT®, and the ACT® recently released data about the scores for the high school graduating class from 2011. In this 2-part blog series, we will go inside these reports for national results, as well as those for the State of New Jersey.
The first part of this series will focus on the SAT entrance exam. Nationally, nearly 1.65 million students in the high school graduating class of 2011 took the SAT, up from 1.6 million for the class of 2010. The 2011 national average score for the SAT was 497 in Critical Reading, 514 in Math and 489 in Writing, for a total of 1500 points (each section has a maximum score of 800). The national scores dipped six points overall, as the 2010 average scores were 500, 515 and 491, respectively.
Here in New Jersey, the average student scored an aggregate of 1508, eight points higher than the national average. The New Jersey graduating class of 2011 earned an average score of 495 in Critical Reading (the same as last year), 516 in Math (an increase of two points) and 497 in Writing (the same as last year). For 2011 graduates, 78% of New Jersey students (86,515) sat for the SAT, which represents an increase of 800 students over 2010.
This year, the College Board introduced the “SAT College and Career Readiness Benchmark.” The College Board indicates that if a student earned a combined score of 1550, s/he has a 65 percent probability of achieving a B- grade point average or better in the freshman year of college. 43% of test-takers meet this new SAT Benchmark, which was developed in order to help schools, districts, and states evaluate whether more students are graduating from their high schools college-ready from one year to the next. Unfortunately, the average New Jersey high school senior scored 42 points below this SAT Benchmark.
Click here for more information about the New Jersey SAT results. Our next blog post will go over these results for the ACT.
Common Application Essay Limits Word Count
June 5, 2011
The College Board (“the Board”) has determined to reinstate a prior word limit on the Common Application (“Common App”) essay, after several years of experimenting with having no upper limit. Beginning on August 1st of 2011 (the opening of the Common App window), the maximum word count will be changed to 500. The 250 word minimum remains unchanged.
The impetus for this change appears to have arisen as a result of complaints coming from college admissions officers. As a consequence of lengthy, rambling and unfocussed essays that were submitted, Common App member colleges and universities have repeatedly pressed the Board to reconsider capping the length of the Common App essay. Therefore, as if the college application process is not already stressful enough, students must now face the added challenge of having to distinguish themselves from their peers through a more restricted platform with which to express their thoughts.
Undoubtedly, many students will hail this decision as lightening their college application burden. However, such a view is imprudent in that it stems from a dearth of guidance and a regrettably common lack of aptitude in developing composition creatively, coherently and concisely among high school students. High schoolers cheering the limitation are, perhaps, the very ones requiring the most flexibility. Without the cap, those students maintaining written competency would generally be capable of communicating effectively and succinctly, making a maximum word count irrelevant. On the other hand, applicants whose areas of strength reside more within the realms of math, science or the arts, might be hard-pressed to adequately convey a flavor of who they are by using the medium of writing.
This change to the Common App essay is notable, given that our society is moving toward shorter forms of communication. For example, microblogging sites such as Twitter only allow 140 characters per tweet, or approximately 28 words. To put this new requirement in common parlance, college applicants may be able to include the equivalent of 23 tweets in their Common App essay.
Ultimately, this discussion is an academic one, as a decision has been made that appears unopen for debate. All 2011 applicants must prepare to submit thoughtful essays, where every word is carefully weighed and considered, owing to the constraint of brevity that is now being imposed upon them. One cannot help but wonder what outcome may have ensued, had the Board submitted this anticipated adjustment directly to the public (e.g., counselors, teachers, parents, students, etc.), as a proposal for consideration, even a mere 2 or 3 years prior to actually instituting the change. At the risk of sounding naïve, is it too farfetched to believe that an announced, upcoming reduction in word count might possibly have prompted at least some faculties to increase their emphases on writing skills preemptively? Alas, we’ll never know.
Working closely with a college applicant on his or her Common App essay, college counselors must ensure that it pithily provides a snapshot of the student’s individuality to admissions officers. This blog post comprises 500 words.
Tips for Campus Visits
November 17, 2010
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In this podcast, Mike Rivera, co-founder, college counselor and tutor with Top-Tier Tutoring, offers tips and advice for parents and students when going to visit college campuses.
During the podcast, Mike first recommends that you go on the internet and do some “virtual tours” of the colleges in which you are interested. While virtual tours cannot replace actually visiting the campus, they are a good place to start trying to narrow down your college list.
Listen as Mike gives advice about when to visit campuses (hint: during class sessions is the best time). After you have made up your itinerary, your next step should be contacting the college admissions offices and scheduling tours and your attendance at any information sessions offered. Mike explains that some colleges take note of who takes their tours, which may play a role in the admissions process. If available, during your campus visit is also a great time for your college interview, so be sure to ask about this opportunity when arranging your tour.
Mike provides excellent tips about what you should do while on campus, including eating in the cafeteria, as this food will be replacing your mom’s cooking for four years! Very importantly, take good notes and photos, as you will be referring back to these after all of your acceptances are in. Happy touring!
As always, we welcome your feedback and ideas. Please submit a comment below, send us an email or give us a call at 973-243-1212.
Strategies for Student Success
August 4, 2010
Mike and Rhonda Rivera, co-founders of Top-Tier Tutoring, are featured in “Navigating College Admissions” – a guide put together by StudentAdvisor.com. The article (which is on pages 20-21) offers 10 strategies for high school students to apply with an eye toward college admissions. Tips include start early, volunteer, take challenging courses and don’t shortchange the essays. Click here to go to this online guide.
Common App Online TODAY!
August 1, 2010
Attention all high school Seniors “to be” – the Common Application (a/k/a the Common App) is now online and ready for you! Anyone who is going to be applying to college for admission in the Fall or Spring 2011 should go to the Common App site and start working on the forms.
While application deadlines are months away, now is the time to get a head start on the forms. After all, high school hasn’t started up yet, so there’s no time like the present!
If you need help creating a school list, finding a topic for your college essay, drafting your academic resume, preparing for college interviews or anything else related to the college application process, feel free to contact us. We offer college counseling to students in our West Orange, NJ center — or to anyone over the internet via Skype. We’d love to help you achieve your dreams!
Don’t procrastinate – start working on the Common App today!
Common Application Goes Online August 1, 2010
July 1, 2010
The Common Application (commonly called the “Common App”) is going to be available to students applying to colleges starting on August 1, 2010. This is one full month later than usual so that secondary schools that close in June can use the Online School Forms System to submit their Final Reports through mid-July, according to the Common App’s website.
We highly recommend that students go to the Common App website and use the “preview” tool to review all that the Common App entails. Starting this year, the Common App has (1) a combined Activities and Work section, (2) a new Academics section with revised self-reporting testing instructions, and (3) online submission of NACAC fee waiver for students with limited financial resources and who also meet the National Association for College Admissions Counseling’s requirements for application waivers.
The Common Application membership association provides common, standardized first-year and transfer application forms for use at any member institution. Today, nearly 400 institutions are members in the association, which represents the full range of higher education institutions in the United States, including public and private institutions of every size and selectivity. With the press of a single button, you can submit your application to many colleges and universities. To see a list of all the member institutions, click here.
Many of our clients use a combination of the Common App and individual schools’ applications when applying to college. In addition, specific schools may have their own supplements that are required to be submitted in order for your application to be complete. You must pay special attention to all of the application requirements for each of your schools.
We welcome your feedback and ideas. Please submit a comment below, send us an email or give us a call at 973-243-1212.
New Service: College Counseling Over The Internet
May 13, 2010
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In this
podcast, Mike Rivera, co-founder, college counselor and tutor with Top-Tier Tutoring, introduces our listeners to a new service being offered: College Counseling over the internet! Now, students who are not geographically located near our center in West Orange, NJ, will have access to the same outstanding college counseling as those living nearby!
Listen as Mike explains the logistics of how the service will work. Using Skype, the popular web-telecommunication free software made popular by Oprah Winfrey, Top-Tier Tutoring’s college counselors will be able to work directly with your son or daughter. Students will receive the same guidance, only instead of being across the table, your child will be looking at his or her counselor live via webcam. Of course, you can feel free to sit in on the session as well!
A Reply To Recent Article About College Prep Advisors
April 7, 2010
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Mike Rivera recording this podcast
In this podcast, Mike Rivera – co-founder, tutor and college counselor with Top-Tier Tutoring – responds to a recent article published on SmartMoney.com, which has been picked up and disseminated on the web in various forms. The article, entitled “10 Things College-Prep Advisors Won’t Tell You” identifies ten allegedly deceptive practices of the college counseling industry. To read the full article, click here.
In his rebuttal, Mike debunks each of the ten topics brought up in the article. For example, in responding to the “your high school guidance counselor can do this for free” argument, he references the study by Dr. Patricia McDonough that determined a high school student will spend approximately 38 minutes per year with his or her guidance counselor for college advising. Click here to read Dr. McDonough’s comprehensive study. He also points to the recent Public Agenda report, “Can I Get A Little Advice Here?” This report finds that six in ten young adults who had gone on to further education gave their high school counseling poor grades for college advice. To go to the Public Agenda report, click here. Clearly, you get what you pay for.
This podcast is not a rant, but rather a thoughtful reply to a superficial article. Mike points out when the article is correct, but wants our listeners to understand the limitations of the guidance department – and those of independent counselors as well.
As always, we welcome your feedback and ideas. Please submit a comment below, send us an email or give us a call at 973-243-1212.
College Prep Boot Camp – May 16, 2010
March 9, 2010
On Sunday, May 16, 2010, Top-Tier Tutoring is offering a one-day intensive, interactive workshop series that will give your high school junior a jump start on the college planning and application process, at College Prep Boot Camp. For much more information about the weekend that will change your child’s future, click here!
Guidance Counselor Realities
February 24, 2010
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Is 38 Minutes Enough?
In this podcast, Mike Rivera poses the question: “Is 38 minutes enough?” This question derives from a study by Dr. Patricia McDonough that found that an average student will spend only 38 minutes per year with his or her high school guidance counselor discussing college counseling and/or career counseling.
Now, this fact is through no fault of the high school guidance counselors themselves. It is based upon the realities of numbers. While the American School Counselor Association recommends 1 guidance counselor per 100 students, the national average is 1:315 (or much more) in public high schools and 1:241 in private schools.
During the podcast, Mike offers questions for parents to ask the high school office regarding this issue. He also recommends seeking external college counseling to best position the high school student for success in college and beyond.
Source: Sanders, B. (2008, January 18). Parents – Guidance at School May Not be Enough. Retrieved January 18, 2010, from http://ezinearticles.com/?Parents---Guidance-at-School-May-Not-be-Enough&id=935539
As always, we welcome your feedback and ideas. Please submit a comment below, send us an email or give us a call at 973-243-1212.
Year in Review: 2009
December 30, 2009
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In this podcast, Mike and Rhonda Rivera discuss the successes and challenges they faced at Top-Tier Tutoring over the past year, its first in operation. From starting a business from scratch, getting known in the community, to wonderful success stories, the co-founders of Top-Tier Tutoring share their ups and downs with their listeners. Listen to the podcast to see how far the company has come in one year, and what the new year has in store!
As always, we welcome your feedback and ideas. Send us an email or give us a call at 973-243-1212.
Your ACADEMIC Resume
October 27, 2009
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In this podcast, Mike Rivera discusses a unique way students can stand out in the college admissions process: providing an academic resume. Make sure to listen to the podcast for a special offer just for our listeners!
In this twist on the traditional job resume, your academic resume markets you to colleges. It focuses on your strengths and shows how you will make the most out of what the university has to offer. Your academic resume lists your interests and identifies what you intend to do after college.
Also, do not shy away from your weaknesses; your academic resume is your opportunity to show how you are working to rectify a possible perceived flaw. For example, if you have a low GPA or SAT/ACT scores, indicate that you are taking summer courses or tutoring to improve your results. Have historically few volunteer experiences? Create a solution by listing a new volunteer position you have just begun.
We welcome your feedback. Send us an email or give us a call at 973-243-1212.
Tips on Writing an Effective College Application Essay
October 7, 2009
So, you’re sitting down before a blank computer screen, trying to figure out what to write for your college application essay. You’ve already written what seems to be hundreds of essays for your high school teachers, but this one is different. You’re not summarizing a book, or commenting on a news event – you’re trying to write the most persuasive essay about yourself possible; one that will make you stand out, get noticed and hopefully accepted by the college of your choice!
In an effort to try to help you write an effective college application essay, we’ve compiled the following tips: Read more
