The Complete College Essay Handbook

The Complete College Essay Handbook

Big news! Our essay book hits Amazon in July!
 
The Complete College Essay Handbook demystifies the entire college essay writing process with easy-to-follow directions and hands-on activities that have worked for hundreds of students.
 
Maschal, a former admissions officer, and Wood, a professional writer and writing teacher, draw on their combined expertise to help students craft a successful set of application essays for every school on their list. Supplemental essays in particular can seem overwhelming—some schools ask students to write as many as six essays in addition to the personal statement. Maschal and Wood identify four types of supplemental essays, walking students through how to write each one and then how to recycle these essays for other schools.
 
The Complete College Essay Handbook walks students through:
 
  • What makes an essay stand out, drawing on sample essays by real students to illustrate main points
  • Brainstorming activities to find the best topics for the personal statement and supplemental essays
  • How to write the two central components of every application essay: scene and reflection
  • Editing and revision—including techniques to cut down or expand an essay to hit the word limit
  • The four types of supplemental essays and how to decode the different essay prompts, using actual essay questions
  • The strategy behind a well-rounded set of application essays
The Complete College Essay Handbook is a no-frills, practical guide that will give students the confidence and know-how they need to craft the best essays for every single school on their list—in less time and with less stress.
 
We hope you grab a copy next month and let us know what you think!
 
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Free Personal Finance Workshops for High School Girls

Free Personal Finance Workshops for High School Girls

Invest in Girls, a program of the Council for Economic Education, is offering a series of virtual workshops for high school girls to learn all about personal finance and get smart(er!) about money.
With IIG’s Summer Session, students can learn how to be the CFOs of their own lives.

Topics to be covered include:

  • Creating a budget
  • Using credit cards
  • Understanding interest rates
  • Paying income tax
  • Careers in finance
Daytime and evening groups for the summer session are being formed now and will be meeting 3x a week in July 2021.
  • Groups will meet online on: 7/13, 7/14, 7/15, 7/20, 7/21, and 7/22
  • Students can choose the 11:00 a.m. (EDT) or the 6:00 p.m. (EDT) group

We believe every girl should feel confident about money matters. At IIG’s Summer Session 2021, students will meet like-minded girls and get to hear from inspiring women working in finance so they can start building their own networks and invest in themselves.

Know a teen girl or two who you think would want to know about IIG‘s Summer Session?

Please share the link to our online interest form and tell them it’s because you believe in them—and want them to be confident and feel financially empowered.
Summer Programs for Female Identifying High School Students

Summer Programs for Female Identifying High School Students

The best summer programs are the ones that help you explore your academic interests. As part of your college application, they help demonstrate your intellectual curiosity and commitment to an area of study (typically, the one you might pursue in college).

Below are some great options for female-identifying students!

CMU Computer Science Scholars

Participants will attend lectures by Carnegie Mellon faculty with expertise in various aspects of computing. They will also attend two academic seminars focused on programming and higher level mathematics. Project-based learning will supplement classroom experiences and offer students an opportunity to apply learned concepts to real-world challenges. Outside of the academic experience students will engage virtually with industry leaders to learn about the vast opportunities in the field of computing. Students will have an opportunity to be mentored by industry leaders throughout the country. At the conclusion of the program students will receive a comprehensive evaluation which can be integrated into their academic portfolios for college admission purposes.

Women’s Technology Program – MIT

The MIT Women’s Technology Program (WTP) is a rigorous four-week summer academic experience to introduce high school students to engineering through hands-on classes, labs, and team-based projects in the summer after 11th grade. WTP is designed for students who are excited about learning, have demonstrated their ability to excel at math and science in their high school classes, and who have no prior background (or very little) in engineering or computer science, with few opportunities to explore these fields. WTP is a women-focused, collaborative community aimed at empowering students from groups historically underrepresented and underserved in engineering. We especially encourage students to apply who will be the first family member to attend college, who come from high schools with limited access to STEM classes and activities, or who are African American, Hispanic, or Native American.

Barnard Pre-College

Experience Summer in New York City at Barnard. With distinct programs to choose from, ranging from entrepreneurship to STEM, you have the unique opportunity to explore an area of interest on a deeper level through both in-class discussions and city exploration. As part of the learning experience at Barnard, you will get a taste of both college life and the city that never sleeps!

Inspiring Girls Expeditions

Leadership adventure programming! Tuition-free multi-day expeditions for high school girls that interweave science, art, and backcountry travel. Expeditions are led by professional women scientists, artists, and wilderness guides. Throughout each expedition, the team engages in scientific and artistic inquiry about the environment around them. In small groups, participants design and conduct scientific projects, which they present to the public on the last full day of their expeditions.

Girls Who Code

Clubs, summer immersion programs, and college loops!

Girls Teaching Girls to Code

Events and programs vary from year to year. Check their site for more information.

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For High School Counselors: Virtual Letters of Recommendation Workshop

For High School Counselors: Virtual Letters of Recommendation Workshop

Hosted by the JHU Admissions Office:

Join our admissions committee for one of our virtual letters of recommendation workshops, where we’ll share tips on how to write an effective and efficient letter of recommendation. Register for the date and time listed below that works best for your schedule.

Our admissions officers will share examples of what context best serves students in the holistic review process and how that context can be shared in your letters or school profiles.

Register here for June 8, or here for June 10.

Online Event for Parents: Navigating the College Process, Preparing for SAT/ACT, Raising Scores & Reducing Stress

Online Event for Parents: Navigating the College Process, Preparing for SAT/ACT, Raising Scores & Reducing Stress

Essential Information For Jewish Day School Parents: Navigating the College Process | Preparing for SAT/ACT | Raising Scores & Reducing Stress
 
Gain Effective Strategies & Get Your Questions Answered! 

Featuring:

Alan Dorfman, M.S., M.A., Founder of Elevation Tutoring
Alan directs an experienced tutoring team featuring top 1% SAT/ACT scorers that empower students to take tests with confidence and raise scores. He has helped hundreds of students over the last 15 years and graduated from The University of Pennsylvania.
alan@elevationtutoring.com | elevationtutoring.com

Dr. Brittany Maschal, Founder of Brittany Maschal Consulting
Brittany held positions in admissions and student services at Penn, Princeton, and Johns Hopkins University before transitioning to independent college counseling in 2012. Her small team of counselors and essay experts work with students and families eager to find best-fit schools with less stress.
hello@brittany.consulting | brittany.consulting

May 26, 2021, 8:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)

REGISTER HERE!

 

Planning for an MBA? Here’s When You Should Take the GMAT or GRE

Planning for an MBA? Here’s When You Should Take the GMAT or GRE

If you are planning to obtain an MBA, you’ll need to take the GMAT or GRE. When should you do that? The short answer is that sooner is generally better than later. In fact, you should consider studying for these exams while you are still in college. Your senior year is often the perfect time to take the GMAT or GRE.

MBA program applications are evaluated based on a variety of factors. Undergraduate GPA, professional progression and responsibilities, leadership, community service, and GMAT or GRE score all play a role. Many undergraduate students who know they may want to someday earn an MBA assume that the best time to study for the GMAT or GRE will be a few years before they apply. They just meld GMAT or GRE prep with the process of submitting an MBA application in their minds. But, one can take the GMAT or GRE long before they actually fill out an MBA application. Still other undergraduate students have a vague sense that getting an MBA might be something they consider in the future but have no idea if they’ll actually pursue one. These students may not even have thought about the GMAT or GRE at all.

In this article, we’ll explain why studying for an taking the GRE or GMAT while you are still in college is a reasonable way to improve your score and chances of admission to a top MBA program. And really, the same logic applies to any sort of graduate school program (which would then require the GRE, not the GMAT).

Why Could Taking the GMAT (or GRE) While You are Still in College Improve Your Score?

There are two basic reasons that studying for standardized tests while you are still an undergraduate can improve your score.

First, you probably have more time to prepare during your senior year of college than when you are in your second year of your first job. You might feel extremely busy when you are in college, particularly if you hold a leadership position in one or more organizations or are still looking for a job. However, although you can’t realize this while still in college because you can’t peer into your own future, you’ll likely be even busier when you are working full-time (i.e., with increasing amounts of responsibility, perhaps a new spouse and/or other family responsibilities, etc.). If you have more time to prep, it will be easier to build GMAT or GRE prep into your weekly schedule and consistently spend time on it.

Second, some, not all but some, of the skills you’ll need to excel on the GRE or GMAT will be much fresher when you are still in college.  Both the GMAT and the GRE test things like: mathematic ability, vocabulary skills, knowledge of grammar, problem-solving, logic, and reading comprehension skills. Although these exams are much less like academic math tests than many people believe, you’ll still need to know the rules of algebra, probability, and geometry.  If the last math class you took was 6 months ago instead of 6 years ago, you’ll be much better positioned to absorb the conceptual material so you can focus on test-taking strategy. If you haven’t taken a math class for nearly a decade, you might quickly find yourself considering a GMAT tutor.

So, if you know you want to get an MBA someday, you should strongly consider taking these exams while you are still in college. But perhaps more importantly, even if you don’t know whether you do or don’t want to get an MBA, you should still consider taking one of these exams while you are still in college.

How Long Are GMAT or GRE Scores Good For?

The astute reader might point out that GRE and GMAT scores have a shelf-life. They are not valid forever. Your GMAT score will be valid for five years from the day you take the test.  When you are applying to a top MBA program, they will treat your GMAT score the exact same whether you took it 1 month before applying or 59 months before applying. GRE scores are also valid for five years.

The fact that your GMAT or GRE score is only valid for five years is obviously relevant. You certainly don’t want to spend 12 weeks studying for the GMAT, get a great score, and then not apply to an MBA program within five years. If you follow that path and then decide you DO want to get an MBA, you’ll have to take the GMAT all over again. However, although it varies over time, typically 2-4 years of professional experience is more than enough to put forth an excellent MBA application. In fact, if you wait for 5+ years before applying for an MBA program, you can quickly become one of the older applicants. So, taking the GRE or GMAT during your senior year sort of forces you to prepare for applying to an MBA program within 5 years, which is not a bad plan.

Furthermore, many admitted students can defer matriculation for at least one year. So if you have an expiring GMAT score, you can apply, get admitted, and then defer for one year.

Should you take the GRE or GMAT?

Are you convinced you should take the GRE or GMAT during your senior year of college? Great! But which should you take? Top MBA programs all accept both. The question is how many truly treat them equally in the application review process. MBA programs typically place a slightly higher degree of importance on GMAT or GRE quant performance. And the GMAT is an MBA-specific exam that tends to be more challenging from a quant perspective. So, if you are serious about getting an MBA and want to demonstrate that to MBA programs, you might consider the GMAT. On the other hand, if your quant skills aren’t the strongest, the GRE might allow you to put a much strong foot forward. Schools may marginally prefer the GMAT, but if they see a 90th percentile GRE quant score and a 70th percentile GMAT quant score, that GRE quant score is going to be considered much more impressive.

And of course, if you are considering other types of graduate programs, the GRE makes perfect sense, since it’s accepted for MBA admissions and many other types of graduate school programs. For the college senior who really isn’t sure what the future holds, taking some time to study for the GRE is a fantastic use of time.

Conclusion

Generally speaking, the sooner you can take the GMAT or GRE, the better. The older we get, the busier we tend to get, and the more responsibilities we have (and therefore we have less time available to study). And the older we get, the longer it’s been since we engaged with the academic coursework these exams will ask us to recall.

About the Author

Mark Skoskiewicz is the founder of MyGuru, a boutique provider of private GRE tutoring and test prep for a wide variety of exams. He holds a B.S. from Indiana University and an MBA from Kellogg at Northwestern University. 

Sophomores and Juniors: Independent Study

Sophomores and Juniors: Independent Study

COVID is still hindering in-person learning, forcing clubs to meet online (if not canceling them outright), and may even throw a wrench in in-person educational and extracurricular planning for the spring and summer. A primary focus of our work with 10th and 11th graders is extracurricular planning, and there’s one that is almost never dependent on needing to be anywhere in person: the independent study. 

Independent studies (IS) can be done anywhere and work with almost any area of interest, which is why in such uncertain times, they are our go-to EC. Like the “purpose” or “passion” projects many of our students undertake, the IS is a create your own educational opportunity, so there’s no one size fits all model to follow or template you can use to just plug and play. Below are some of the details we suggest thinking through if you are interested in conceptualizing an IS.

Who

The IS requires the student to have an area of interest that they want to explore (or explore more), as well as the time, energy, and foresight to plan it on their own. However, students may want to seek out support from a teacher at their high school or a mentor from outside of school if they desire to formalize it or have some guidance or check-ins along the way. 

What

Anything goes! But we suggest an area of academic interest related to what you may pursue in college. It might be a new topic, or it might be an extension of a topic you have already researched. The bottom line is, it should 1) be a topic/area you choose because you will need to be into it to make the work happen on your own and 2) if possible, it should work with your academic narrative (the academic story that unfolds in your college apps). 

Where

Planning the IS as a remote activity is a good call given the uncertainties around COVID. Doing so also provides the flexibility to add on other activities/formal programming or have time for a job if that suits you while still working on the IS, as well as plan something like travel (college visits?) if that becomes reality again! 

When

Winter break or early in the new year is the perfect time for students to start planning their independent study. As for an ideal start time? Many juniors are busy with testing so we suggest it as a summer activity, although students who may not have AP testing in May or who have finished or not yet started ACT/SAT testing could realistically start in the spring if their courseload allowed. The classes that appear on your transcript will always be the most important to colleges, so you don’t want your IS to get in the way of excelling in those courses. 

Why

Beyond how the restrictions that might be in place around COVID make it an ideal activity, an independent study helps demonstrate to colleges your commitment to learning, your intellectual focus and curiosity, and that you are a self-directed learner interested in charting your own course and not limiting yourself to what you can take in school (or afford to take outside of it). 

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Prepping for AP Exams

Prepping for AP Exams

Yes, you should prep for AP exams!

US News posted a short 4-week self-study plan that you can find here. We agree that four weeks is typically sufficient, but also sense APs could become more important, so a six-week plan might not be a bad idea if you have the time. 

We also suggest going beyond self-study if you struggled in class, or after taking a full-length practice test, notice some gaps in your knowledge. The AP curriculum is not taught in the same way by every teacher, and it’s not uncommon to have not covered every single thing on a test. The good news is, prepping for an AP test is not nearly as time-consuming as prepping for the ACT or SAT. 

Reach out to us for some tutor recommendations so you can get started by early April!

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Free Online Courses for High School Students

Free Online Courses for High School Students

I have been suggesting free classes via edX and Coursera for a while now. They are the perfect way for students to build their academic narrative, which is a must when applying to selective colleges. If you did not jump on this suggestion already, this summer is a great time (if you don’t have a lighter EC load right now!

Below are some of my current favorites from both platforms. Click on the course title for a direct link.

Specializations (Multiple Courses)

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The Best Summer Programs for High School Students

The Best Summer Programs for High School Students

Guess what? There is no such thing as a “best” summer program.

The best programs are the ones that help you explore your academic interests. As part of your college application, they help demonstrate your intellectual curiosity and commitment to an area of study (typically, the one you might pursue in college or at least indicate that you might pursue in college on your app).

That said, the best way to spend your summers, if you have these aims in mind, might not be a summer “program” at all. There are a few very competitive and highly-regarded summer programs for high school students, but most pre-college programs are not selective. In future posts, I will be sharing some of my favorite summer programs for students with specific academic interests (business, engineering, computer science, etc.) as well as some ways to explore interests that are not formal pre-college programs (for the most part, free options!). These other options will include activities that you can participate in all year, so if you want to get started now you can.

Stay tuned…and if you want an email alert when these lists are posted, please subscribe!

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