Creating Your Late Winter Action Plan
January 31, 2019
Dear friends,
We’re thrilled to be in the last leg of admissions season for a variety of applicants, be they to boarding school, college or graduate school. Congrats to our students who’ve already garnered early acceptances to such elite colleges as Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, Cornell, Michigan, Northeastern, Vassar, and Emory, among other great places. To those still waiting to hear back, rest assured that your hard work will soon pay off!
Of course so many of our students are in no place to be resting just yet. Juniors are in the thick of SATs and ACTs, with spring Subject Tests just around the corner. Sophomores and Freshman are working hard to cultivate their character stories, and to establish rock solid academics. Our current college students are toughing things out in challenging new courses, as well as in recruiting cycles for jobs and internships. Graduate school candidates are working hard on GRE, GMAT, LSAT and MCAT requirements. We’ve taken some time to share relevant advice this time of year for students at various stages, including summer planning in all respects. Of course each story is unique—feel free to contact us to schedule a more personalized discussion.
Finally, we are thrilled to soon launch applications for the second cycle of Lakhani Scholars, our $10,000 scholarship of coaching services to high achieving low income students. We’ve shared an update below of our fantastic first scholarship winner, Lisa David, and welcome highly qualified low income high school sophomores to apply this year. Applications are due in April—please spread the word!
Hafeez Lakhani
High School Juniors: 2019 is Your Year
My advice for juniors right now is to watch the calendar, working backward from November: do you plan to apply Early Decision or Early Action (typically Nov 1 deadlines). If so, when will you have SAT/ACT complete? Will you need to take subject tests? When do you plan to “excavate” the beautiful gems that you’ll shape into your college essays? Have you set out a plan for impactful college visits?
Whew. Rather than let these questions create anxiety, our current students are empowered by a customized timeline, to separate responsibilities as much as possible. If you don’t yet have such a timeline in place, feel free to contact us to set up a meeting.
SAT/ACT progress: Most of our students take the SAT/ACT three times to reach their goal scores. Skills growth on these tests is not so different than improvement at a musical instrument. If I train for several months in the violin, I’ll value three opportunities to play in concert to hit my personal best. That said, there are only five SAT sittings between now and early applications. If you are not yet finding traction in your improvement, it is time to get moving. Contact us to learn more.
Summer: If a student has followed our timeline carefully, she’ll likely be done with testing by summer and have time to focus on two important responsibilities:
Investing wholeheartedly in one’s primary character pursuit.
Dedicating several weeks to the early drafts of one’s college essays. Hemingway famously said, every writer should burn his first novel. The same applies for first drafts of college essays—that act of “purging” opens doors to amazing second and third drafts. We advise our rising seniors to “excavate” for college essays during summer, before school competes for your attention. Our most ambitious students aspire to get college essays to 90% before school starts, leaving the early fall for seeking feedback, adding finishing touches, and finalizing ED or EA choices.
Resources:
New York Times: Considering College? Invest in a Coach.
New York Times: How To Write A Good College Application Essay
High School Sophomores: This Summer is Crunch Time
A smart split of summer is advisable for rising juniors, too, in this case allocating time to:
Sincere investigation of character pursuits. How will you take your many interests and elevate just one or two this summer? This can be in the form of a summer program, or even better, an independent project. Do you like coding? Why not find a summer program to take your skills from good to great? Or even better, code something wildly useful for society, and get it out into the world. Not sure which interests are worth furthering? Or not sure how to craft something independent? Contact us for some guidance on the character front.
Summer intensive SAT/ACT: back to the violin analogy. Will it be easy to pour tons of energy into improvement on the violin while I am juggling 5 AP courses junior year? Our students face this dilemma every year, and overwhelmingly benefit from focused ground work the summer before junior year. Intensive coaching over summer has been a pillar in helping our students achieve SAT score improvements as large as 600 points, or ACT improvements as large as 12 points. Such gains don’t happen overnight—our most successful students book 50 to 100 hours for summer intensives. Our most senior instructors get fully booked every year. Contact us to reserve time if you haven’t already.
Resources:
Redbook: How to Help Your Kid Rock the SAT and ACT
Planning for Graduate School
2019 admission: There are still two months before final deadlines for selected programs. In some cases these late round applications are a fantastic way to gain admission to start school relatively soon. Such a tight application timeline is never easy, though. Testing—GRE, for instance—winds up needing careful focus. Once that is complete, personal statements, procuring recommendations and other requirements are a priority. If you are considering a late round application, contact us to help bring order to the many requirements on your plate.
2020 admission: Now is the perfect time to begin planning for 2020 admission, with applications due as early as September 1. Start by forming a timeline: when do applications open? Is there an early round where chances of acceptance are higher? It is wise to plan ahead—getting all requirements complete—to submit in those early rounds. That means a careful process to prepare for GMAT, MCAT, LSAT, or GRE—which often require 3+ months of work—followed by “excavating” personal statements, procuring recommendations, and other application requirements. With Round 1 deadlines to some MBA programs in just seven months (and medical school apps even sooner than that) it is wise to get moving right from now. Contact us to discuss your plans in more detail.
Current College Students
Yes, your GPA matters. Especially you, freshmen. While it may be some time before you decide your after-college plans, be mindful that your GPA will almost certainly be a factor in seeking out those plans. Selective internships, graduate school, career recruiting and other tracks will all pay attention to your academic record, so be sure to put that extra effort in. In cases where you are stuck, feel free to contact us for specialized coaching. We’ve guided students in Econometrics, Organic Chemistry, Studio Art, and Comparative Politics to name a few subjects. Problem sets—no problem. Crafting a 30-page paper?—if the student wants to take it from good to great, we are here to help. Working hard as an art student?—meet with one of our Senior Art Advisors to take your craft to the next level.
Transfers: Thinking about transferring? Let’s talk and make sure it’s the right route for you. If indeed it is, deadlines are fast approaching, ranging from 2/1 to 3/15. Contact us to set up a plan.
Lakhani Scholars: Let's Spread the Word
We are enthusiastic to share an update on our first scholarship winner, Lisa David from Atlanta. An immigrant and asylum seeker from Liberia, Lisa is an active member of her school’s community service organization and is passionate about improving schools in Liberia and empowering women through education.
Over the past several months, Lisa has been working hard towards crafting a competitive candidacy for elite, private institutions. She is currently in strong consideration for The Zell Miller and Georgia Hope Scholarships, which provides 100% tuition coverage to a Georgia institution. We are all excited for what the future holds for her!
Help us reach out to students like Lisa! Lakhani Scholars is an annually awarded, highly selective scholarship providing $10,000 of our services—including intensive SAT/ACT, high school career, and admissions coaching—to high-achieving, low-income students.
We are happy to announce that the scholarship will be open for applications in February, so please help us spread the word! If you know any good candidates, or educators who would be interested in learning more about this amazing opportunity, please feel free to pass along the scholarship information.
Applications for Lakhani Scholars will be open from February 15th to April 1st. If you have any questions about how you can help promote the scholarship, please contact us directly.