How to Approach Test Optional Policies & Application Planning
Dear Friends,
As we plunge into July, and as we enjoy the warm weather and long days, it’s a pleasure to see the balance with which our students are approaching this unique summer. There is fun, there are remarkable work-from-home character pursuits —from political action to independent coding to online projects for charities—and there is commitment : students who will be applying this fall, be it to boarding school, college or graduate school, are putting in serious work wrapping up standardized testing, and beginning to excavate powerful essays ahead of applications. Law school and business school candidates are especially shifting focus to personal statements ahead of first deadlines in as little as two months. Rising seniors are right behind them, diving deep into the reflective process of college essays alongside final testing on July 18 (ACT) or August 29 (SAT and Subject Tests). Rising juniors are razor focused, putting in intensive effort in SAT or ACT skills growth—this phase in our work so important in nurturing score gains as large as 600 points on SAT and 12 points on ACT. As we move steadily toward fall, I encourage every student to know your deadlines and to know your goals.
Rising seniors—the group perhaps most affected by COVID interruptions—are rightfully asking what to make of the “temporary test optional” policy numerous colleges have enacted due to coronavirus. Does optional really mean optional? Does excellence count as extra credit? The advice we’re giving students is to remember that selective admissions will remain selective. You don’t get into Columbia, for example, doing the bare minimum. You must earn a spot in the good pile, then you must stand out from that good pile. Specifically, you will not be penalized for not having access to an SAT or ACT, but in cases where scores—a proxy for Problem Solving Ability —are not available, colleges will focus all the more on Academics and Character. If you have been so fortunate to take one or more SAT/ACT, look at submitting a score as an “all or nothing” pursuit. That is, if you can put in the work to raise your scores near medians for a school of interest, send them on. If your scores fall below, consider how your Character and Academics—including a potential pass/fail term junior year—will instead speak to your candidacy. In cases where testing is simply not feasible, we recommend poring extra attention on your recommendations and Overall Narrative, the cohesive story you’ll want your college essays to reveal. Families are welcome to contact us to schedule one of our powerful Overall Narrative meetings, or to read more at our blog post, What Test Optional Policies Mean for Rising Seniors.
Finally, we’ve included below another standardized testing problem of the month, this one from the SAT Reading section. Happy solving!
Some specific guidance shared below. As always, feel free to contact us to discuss your unique ambitions.
Hafeez Lakhani
Rising Seniors: t minus four months
Our students are hard at work preparing for November 1 ED and EA deadlines, focusing on two main tasks:
1) Excavating drafts of college essays: Our ultimate test for a strong college essay is as follows: imagine that we are admissions officers sitting around a table late in the afternoon. We must decide today on a pile of 500 student applications, all of which we reviewed on our iPads, in some haste, the previous week. The successful application will be one for which, when it’s time to discuss our student, someone at that table, even if tired, even after having discussed hundreds of candidates, will say: “Oh, Ella… She’s the one who…”
Many of our rising seniors have already begun our college essay excavation process by freewriting from a range of meaningful experiences, in search of the “she’s the one who..” anecdote—a moment of life in our shoes that reflects our most sincere ambition. We’ll soon shift from penning this raw material to turning it into structured drafts for common app prompts—which our most successful seniors will have complete by the time school starts. The key to the most successful essays we’ve coached—including those that have helped students secure admission to Harvard, Stanford and Yale—is simple: time to excavate, and time to process. Contact us to book one of our expert college essay coaches.
Recommendation Requests: As part of our college essay excavation process, our coaches guide students in creating a concise personal bio and resume to share with recommenders—to provide useful context for those teachers graciously writing letters for students.
2) Wrap up Testing: ACT is especially trying to accommodate students given all the COVID interruptions. There is a likely roll out this fall of online testing (check act.org for updates), plus additional in person dates. For students who will apply Early Action or Early Decision, the following test dates remain:
SAT or Subject Tests: 8/29, 9/26, 10/3
ACT: 7/18, 9/12, 9/13, 9/19, 10/10, 10/17, 10/24, 10/25
For remaining SAT or ACT work, the key is to set aside concerted time to work on 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 Good College Application Essay
Grown & Flown: How Your Teen Can Snag a Powerful Letter of Recommendation for College Applications
What Test Optional Policies Mean for Rising Seniors
Rising Juniors & Underclassmen
Summer Intensive SAT/ACT: What remarkable focus we are seeing from our rising juniors investing time in problem solving skills growth. The analogy to sports never gets old. If I’m training to become a great basketball player, I better put the time in on fundamentals when school is not competing for my attention: dribbling, passing, layups, shooting, defensive stance, conditioning and more. But will I be ready to compete after simply becoming oriented to the above skills? No. It will take practice, discipline, repetition. Which is what our hardworking juniors are putting in currently, dissecting ACT and SAT sections and subsections for the numerous skills we need to build in order to reach excellence—the laborious “formula” that has helped our students raise SAT scores by as many as 600 points and ACT scores by as many as 12 points. There are no shortcuts—in our book, hard work is the only way to capture these gains. Contact us to customize a coaching program if you haven’t already.
Resources:
Here's Exactly How to Slay the SAT and ACT
Graduate School Candidates: t-minus 2 months
Law School: Rolling applications open as early as August, with final deadlines just after the new year. If you are thinking about applying this fall, you should be moving toward completion on LSAT or GRE (including test-from-home options), to leave 1-2 months for work on personal statements.
Remaining 2019 LSAT dates: 7/12 (LSAT-flex), 8/29, 10/3, 11/14.
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.
Business school: first round submission deadlines are in early September, so a plan of action needs to be in place from now to reach GMAT or GRE goals, and to then formulate an appropriate school list and excavate intriguing personal statements for applications. Remember that the GMAT requires waiting 16 days to retest and the GRE requires 21 days. If you plan to apply in Round 1, we recommend having testing—which often entails multiple sittings—complete no later than August 1.
Medical school: AMCAS applications have been open for submission for over a month, which means time is scarce if you aspire to be a serious applicant. Our med school coaches are on call to help students take personal statements to the finish line.
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, and working on personal statements and other components such as recommendation requests. In many cases candidates will also dedicate time to elevating a writing sample or portfolio. 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 standardized testing to be submitted with applications. As with any standardized test, skills growth on these 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 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: SAT Reading
Consider the following excerpt from Richard Florida’s The Great Reset:
“The coming decades will likely see more intense clustering of jobs, innovation, and productivity in a smaller number of bigger cities and city-regions.”
As used in the line above, “intense” most nearly means
A) emotional
B) concentrated
C) brilliant
D) determined
Source: College Board