Starting Early

1.     Take either the ACT or SAT as a high school sophomore, if only to practice, get on some college mailing lists, and determine your relative strengths and weaknesses as compared with students throughout the country, students against whom you may be competing for college admission. Take both the ACT and SAT, after preparing diligently for them, in your junior and senior years.

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Admissions Stories: Bribery Attempts, the Unbearable Pushiness of Parents, and Other Admissions Tales

Bribery Attempts, the Unbearable Pushiness of Parents, and Other Admissions Tales
By ALVIN P. SANOFF

While visiting colleges in the Northeast last year, Andrew N. Lazar had the kind of campus tour that gives admissions deans nightmares. As the tour began one morning, a car pulled up and four young men dressed in black jumped out, grabbed the student guide, and tossed her into the trunk. A fifth young man emerged from the vehicle and announced that he was the new tour guide.

Tips: Taking the SAT

Taking the SAT is stressful for any student. The only way that you can be fully prepared is to study until it hurts. However, there are a few other SAT prep tips that can help you ace the test. (Note: some of these tips may seem simple, but on test day people tend to panic and forget the basics. Stay focused.) 

SAT Test Centers 

Make sure that you know exactly where the SAT test center is an

Tips: 5 Tips to Organize Your College Search

5 Tips to Organize Your College Search

By JULIE MAYFIELD, LINDSEY MAYFIELD

There are no shortage of places to gather information about colleges. But what do you do with the information once you have it?

Here are some tips for organizing your college search:

Tips: Dirty Secrets of College Admissions

The Dirty Secrets of College Admissions

Author: 

Kathleen Kingsbury 

In a Daily Beast exclusive, college admissions officers reveal the shameful truth about the selection process. Rich kids from New York, boring Asian math geniuses, and oboe-playing poets need not apply.

Tips: Admissions Applications

Your Student Profile: Hold Nothing Back on Your College Application

High school students often have difficulty putting their best foot forward. Sometimes this is a matter of modesty. Sometimes it's a matter of low self-esteem. When it comes to applying to college, hold back nothing.

Remember the old Canon camera television commercial with tennis star, Andre Agassi, where he says confidently, "Image is everything!"? In the world of college admissions, you have to have substance behind your application. But it doesn't hurt to work on your image a bit.

Tips: Writing your college admissions essay...

The aspect of college admissions that really puts shudders down students’ spines is writing application essays.Aside from taking admissions tests, there is nothing about which students fear or fret more. Pleadingly, they ask: “What should I write about? What are admissions people looking for?” The answer is quite simple.