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Take a College Personality Quiz

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Often, when starting to discuss college admissions and choices with students, I am sad to see so many things become more important than their own needs! Sure, finding a college that is prestigious may seem necessary and certainly you want to make family and friends proud. Yet, all of this should be secondary to an understanding of your unique academic personality. The quiz below is a great resource in looking internally see assess your academic, social, and personal consciousness.
This quiz is important to keep in mind as you move forward in assessing goals and needs from a school. After looking in, then you can look outwardly to see what schools match you! Only then is it time to start applying and proving your worth in securing a place in an incoming class.

Price Check in Aisle Ivy

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My dad always wears the Princeton baseball cap that I gave him freshman week, right when I started school. Whenever people ask about the tattered, sweat and bleach stained thing, he has the same response;“I paid to wear this hat”. It is probably the most expensive piece of clothing he owns! When considering a student’s four year college experience and the financial commitment necessary for a degree, images of a second mortgage may cause uneasiness in every parent. The Ivy League especially is preconceived to mean an even larger price tag. I am not here to take sides on how much an Ivy education should be worth. I do however know that financing it will work if you want it to!

A scholarshipis money that a university may offer a student based on their performance. This may be merit-based in academics, or for another arena, such as sports or the arts. In the world of athletics and the arts, Division 1 and 2 schools may offer scholarships. The only exception is the Ivy League. No, the Ivy League does not offer athletic scholarships. Yes, I am sure. Yes, the person who told you someone got a full athletic scholarship to an Ivy is wrong.
If the Ivy League were allowed to offer any type of performance based scholarship, imagine the difficulty in finding which students would deserve money based on sports or their academics! Every year, many perfect 2400 SAT scores do not get into these top schools. With acceptance rates under 10%, every student admitted might be deserving of some type of performance-based scholarship elsewhere, but rest assured, these schools will fill their seats without any scholarship offers.

That does not mean that acceptance to an Ivy immediately means giving up your retirement fund! The Ivy League, given huge endowments to work with, wants to ensure that once a student is admitted to their institution it becomes a manageable expense. All 8 schools have a need-blindadmission process to promote low-income students to apply, without concerns of the expenses. Additionally, all the aid available is used on a need basis. Need in Ivy terms may not seem “needy” to our preconceived notions. Across the board, all the Ivies offer some type of need-based aid to 50-60% of their students. Princeton has a no loans policy, allowing all students to graduate debt-free [FinAid]. In 2008, Dartmouth eliminated tuition for students from families with incomes of under $75,000 [Dartmouth Public Affairs]. Harvard and Yale have incremental expectations of how much a student should pay, from 0 to 10 percent, with family earnings of $60,000 to $120,000 a year [Fitzsimmonsand Yale Public Affairs].

While the Ivies may be prohibited from offering talent based awards, they certainly ensure the cost of tuition will be manageable; given it is a worthwhile endeavor for the student. Students are free to win merit based scholarships from outside institutions and organizations. Sure, my middle class parents were uneasy at first, but slowly we saw as a family how this worthwhile investment could become manageable. Overall, my first year of tuition was cut in half with a diligent search for a variety of national and state scholarships. Additionally, combining a part-time job, my parents’ contributions, and a very accommodating aid package from Princeton, I am looking forward to law school with no debt!

Sure, it can be a blow to feel desired elsewhere and be offered nothing but admission to the Ivies. Yet, long-term, I felt Princeton offered me the opportunity to reach my potential athletically, academically, and personally. To me, it seemed like an opportunity many are not granted and I would be foolish to pass up. If it’s worth it, the investment works out – I promise!

Attend CollegeWeekLive Spring Show. The World’s Largest College Fair!

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Join CollegeWeekLive for the world’s largest college fair on March 21st & 22nd from 10am-10pm EST, where you can have live conversations with universities of interest to you, and gain advice from admissions experts. Watch live video presentations from current college students that have already been through the college search process… And enter to win a $1,000 scholarship!

The SAT vs. The ACT and SuperScoring: How to Do It Right

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Guest blogger and President at http:///www.TestPrepAuthority.com Anthony-James Green offers students some pertinent advice for the upcoming SAT and ACT season:

We all know that you can take the SAT and the ACT more than once.  For most students, taking these exams multiple times is a wise call, since as they continue to study, they continue to see score improvements.  But if you’re one of many who’s planning on taking multiple SATs or ACTs, make sure you know HOW your scores will be submitted to colleges when you take multiple tests.

The SAT SuperScore:

When you take the SAT more than once, you get the best of all three sections submitted to your colleges of choice.  Let’s look at an example:

On your first SAT, you get a 750 in Math, but a 500 in Writing and a 500 in Critical Reading.

On your second SAT, you get a 680 in Math, a 600 in Writing, and a 410 in Critical Reading.

On your third SAT, you get a 710 in Math, a 580 in Writing, and a 610 in Critical Reading.

Your total score submitted will be: Math:750 Writing: 600 Critical Reading 610

Colleges do see that you’ve taken multiple tests, but at the end of the day, most of them don’t care so much.  You obviously shouldn’t take 14 SATs and expect universities not to notice, but if you take 2-3 exams, you’ll probably be seriously boosting your chances of admission.

The ACT “SuperScore”

The “little cousin” of the SAT isn’t quite as generous when it comes to retakes, but it’s still very, very worth your time to repeat the ACT if you weren’t happy with your first round of scores.

While ALL colleges take the best scores from each section of the SAT, on the ACT, most colleges just take your best overall score.  So if you take these two tests:

Test One:

Reading: 26
English: 20
Math: 20
Science:20
Comp: 21

Test Two:

Reading: 20
English: 22
Math: 25
Science: 28
Comp: 23

You’re only getting a boost of two points, even though you did much, much better in multiple sections.  This is because the overall score on the ACT is calculated using a formula that’s more complicated than simply adding the three 200-800 scores that you get on the SAT.

It’s important to note that SOME colleges do “SuperScore” the ACT as well, and you’ll need to call their admissions offices to find out whether or not they do.

You can find out the expected SAT and ACT scores of America’s top colleges by using our free SAT/ACT score generator at any time.

What This Means For You:

Once you understand how multiple scores are combined, you have one big advantage: you’ll know what to study before you take your second or third test.

On the SAT, focus specifically on your worst score and put ALL of your effort into it./ Of course, if you have something like a 520/510/530 split, then you can do an overall effort.  But if you have a 670/500/780, you should be putting almost all of your time into studying for the “500” section.  

Since you’ll keep your old, good scores, you’ll want to focus exclusively on bringing the bad sections up to par.

On the ACT, you’ll need to focus on the entire test.  You’ll still have the most room for improvement in your weakest areas, but you can’t let everything else falter without risk.  Call your target schools and see if they SuperScore or not – if they do, you can treat your ACT just like an SAT, but if not, you need to be more holistic.

However, At the end of the day, you should still spend most of your time on your weakest areas, since that’s where you have the most opportunity to improve.

Visit Anthony’s website, Test Prep Authority, for more free SAT and ACT practice and advice .