College Essay Tips & Fall Test Prep
August 27, 2019
Dear Friends,
Welcome to application season—just 2.5 months to Early college deadlines. While our surrounding world enjoys the lazy days of August, families with students applying to programs this fall are in the thick of responsibility. Rising seniors are working hard excavating the most meaningful threads for college essays, in pursuit of that elusive goal of having college essay drafts at 90% before school starts. Many students are making a final push in SAT, ACT, or Subject Tests, before turning full attention to applications. Others are fitting in final college visits, eager to decide upon an ED or EA choice. Indeed, it is this careful orchestration over summer that has empowered our students who’ve landed at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and Cornell—among a slew of other great schools. See below for more specific guidance, including college essay tips.
Older students meanwhile are racing toward early round business school and law school application deadlines. In some cases, final GMAT or LSAT sittings are fast approaching, and it’s a pleasure to see the focus with which our students are tackling these responsibilities ahead of personal statements.
I commend our rising juniors, too, who have been putting in herculean efforts utilizing summer for skills growth in standardized testing. Indeed, this is how our 600 point SAT gains have been built: through day to day hard work. While some of these juniors are on track to be done with SAT or ACT responsibilities by December, there is indeed time this fall for vast improvement among juniors who have not yet begun preparation. Contact us to discuss your diagnostic level and goals you may be seeking.
August is our busiest month but it’s also our most fulfilling: my team and I are continually inspired by the granular work our students are putting in toward their admissions goals. If by chance a family has not yet ramped up focus surrounding upcoming applications—be it in cultivating powerful essays or personal best test scores—the good news is that there is still time. See below for more specific guidance.
In other news, I was pleased to contribute a few weeks ago to a parents.com feature— Everything You Need to Know To Get Your Kid Into College —which is a fantastic survey of need to knows, including commentary on the new College Board Adversity index.
Finally we’ve included below another standardized testing problem of the month, this one is a challenging ACT Math question. Happy solving!
We’ve shared tips below for various responsibilities, but as always, feel free to contact us to discuss your specific ambitions in more detail.
Hafeez Lakhani
Rising Seniors: T-minus 2.5 Months
Our seniors are hard at work preparing for November 1 ED and EA deadlines, focused on several important tasks. Contact us if you need guidance in any of these respects.
1) Finalizing one's short list: In some cases final testing will determine an EA or ED choice, but now is the time to begin to whittle down options, as you will soon want to begin crafting supplemental essay drafts by school. Contact us if you'd like to discuss relative merits of various schools, including feasibility of acceptance.
2) Setting up Common App, or other application portals : As many families are aware, common app went live on August 1. I encourage all students to set up their account, including most importantly:
a) Drafting and editing one’s Activities List, and most crucially the 150 character descriptions of each activity. Focus on being earnest and specific rather than impressive.
b) Drafting and editing one’s Academic Honors, including descriptions.
c) Building your “school list” on Common App and beginning to complete initial school questions, such as which internal program you may apply to (where relevant), and intended areas of study.
Once your schools are populated, you’ll be able to assess what supplemental writing questions each school demands. Note: for some schools, supplements are shown under a “Writing Supplement” section to the left, while other schools include them under the main “School Questions”. Answer all questions to be sure relevant supplements have populated.
d) Note: Several great universities are not on Common App, such as UC system schools, MIT and Georgetown. Those require setting up respective application portals.
Recommendation requests: If you haven’t already made recommendation requests, the start of the school year is high time. Contact us to discuss potential options for your recommenders, as well as ways to make this task as painless as possible for teachers.
Excavating drafts of college essays: Flannery O’Connor once said that she never knew what she thought about something until she wrote about it. Accordingly, our seniors are hard at work “excavating” from their experiences the most meaningful anecdotes—and in the process undergoing fantastic new levels of self understanding.
As students begin to shape more structured drafts of their common app essay—a vital window to your character story —as well as various school supplements, we have three metrics that we recommend to test a strong essay:
1) Does it serve as an answer to, “(s)he’s the one who…”
2) Does it show an anecdote of "life in the student's shoes"?
3) Does it in some way reflect the student’s most sincere ambition?
A number of students are aiming for “90% drafts” by the time school starts, but if you haven’t begun, don’t worry. The key to the most successful essays we’ve coached is simple: time to excavate, and time to process. Contact us to book one of our expert college essay coaches to begin the all important free writing process.
Wrap up Testing: For students who will apply Early Action or Early Decision, the following test dates remain:
SAT or Subject Tests: 8/24, 10/5, 11/2 (some schools accept November; others don't)
ACT: 7/13, 9/14, 10/26
For remaining SAT or ACT preparation, the key is to set aside concerted time for skills growth. Just as one cannot become a great tennis player overnight, one needs diligent practice to grow problem solving skills. All the better if this practice can be guided by an expert coach. Contact us to learn more.
Resources:
New York Times: How to Write a College Essay
New York Times: Considering College? Maybe You Should Invest in a Coach
Rising Juniors and Underclassmen
SAT/ACT: A vital tool right now for our rising juniors is our customized timeline, in which we map out the short 14.5 months until you will be submitting your first college applications. Take heed of what your senior friends are juggling! Most important is to know that most high achieving students will take the SAT or ACT roughly 3 times—because colleges are great about considering your personal best from those scores. In many cases, colleges even super score your best sections. It’s important to evaluate then whether you’ll want to take Subject Tests—recommended for the most elite schools—and when you’ll fit them in. In short, every junior should start the year knowing a target for not only her first official SAT/ACT, but a rough sketch of when a 2nd and 3rd sitting may fit in, as well as whether you’ll want to take Subject Tests in spring of junior year.
Summer intensive: We are in the final weeks to fit in summer intensive SAT/ACT improvement, and what remarkable focus we’re seeing from our students, some of whom are already up 400 points from their diagnostics. Bravo. The analogy to sports never gets old: just as I cannot study all night tonight and be a great tennis player tomorrow, I must work diligently—and put in the hours of practice—to improve my problem solving skills.
School year skills growth: For those who have been occupied this summer cultivating incredible character stories, not to worry. Many a successful junior has managed to undergo this skills growth during the academic year. The key is to plan accordingly: a first sitting in no less than three months, to put into place a rigorous coaching routine—4 to 6 hours a week—and to make a plan for when to shift from skills growth to practice tests. Contact us to iron out a plan specific to you.
Resources:
Redbook: How to Help Your Kid Rock the SAT and ACT
Parents: Everything You Need to Know to Get Your Kid into College
Graduate School Candidates: Applications are Open
Business school: First round submission deadlines begin as soon as September 4—just 3 weeks away—and second rounds are closer to January 1 for those still finalizing GMAT or GRE. A plan of action needs to be in place from now deciding which round is right for you, including a target date to have testing complete. From there, vital responsibilities include an appropriate school list, recommendation requests, and perhaps most importantly, excavating intriguing personal statements . Contact us to discuss a plan of action—including the all important consideration of how your work experience will affect your candidacy.
Law School: rolling applications have begun to open, with final deadlines just after the new year. If you are thinking about applying this fall, you should be moving toward completion of LSAT or GRE, to leave 1-2 months for work on personal statements and recommendation requests. Remaining 2019 LSAT dates: 9/21, 10/28, 11/25. We encourage submitting applications as early as possible in the rolling period. Contact us for guidance on reaching final testing goals, and to begin mapping out a unique story for personal statements.
Medical School: For those candidates beginning to receive interview invitations, our med school coaches are on call to help you prepare.
Other Graduate Study: As with any admissions goal, it’s wise to get testing out of the way before finalizing a program list, making note of deadlines—which can vary from September to March, but often hover around January 1—and working on personal statements and other components such as recommendation requests. Contact us to create a customized plan to reach your desired program.
Boarding School and Independent School
Most boarding schools and independent schools require SSAT or ISEE test scores to be submitted with applications. Fall dates for SSAT include 10/19 and 11/16. ISEE dates vary by availability of “appointment” testing. It’s wise to schedule from now, because as with any standardized test, skills growth requires persistence. A number of our students are already in full swing with coaching, nicely separating the task of testing from applications, essays, visits and interviews to come later in the fall. Independent and boarding school applications can be due anywhere from November 1 to February 15. Contact us to discuss test preparation, a school list, visits, and a detailed plan of action.
Resources:
New York Times: Considering College? Maybe You Should Invest in a Coach
Problem of the Month: ACT Math (calculator permitted)
A bullet train is scheduled to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco at an average speed of 225 mph over 400 miles. If on the first 90 miles of the journey there is construction on the track, limiting the train to 125 mph, which of the following is closest to the average speed for the balance of the journey?
A) 250 mph
B) 264 mph
C) 275 mph
D) 293 mph
E) 325 mph
Click here to see the answer