COllege Admissions News and ACT / SAT Strategy

A recent celebrity college admission scandal saw actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman being charged with bribery and fraud, accused of going to devious and illegal measures to ensure their kids were admitted to colleges that they might not otherwise have been accepted to. The scandal illuminated the lengths to which some students and parents will go to ensure attendance at their school of choice. While most of us won’t break the law, there are certainly increased measures one can take to broaden their chances for university admissions. Scoring particularly well on the SAT is one obvious tactic. Some students chase this goal via significant self-study; others pay for private SAT tutors and SAT prep courses.

For high-school students with aspirations of playing college sports, it is crucial to connect with college coaches. Many students envision a “He Got Game” scenario, where coaches from around the country aggressively pursue the recruit until they’ve secured a commitment. But for 99% of student-athletes, the process is exactly the opposite: you must take the initiative to form relationships with these coaches. Otherwise, you’ll have heard from few, if any, college coaches by the time graduation rolls around.

If you really want to get a high SAT score, perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is that “talent” or “IQ” matters far less than you think. There are not really “math people” or “natural readers.” What matters is the amount and quality of your SAT prep, which of course is influenced in large part by how passionate and genuinely interested you are in doing well on the SAT or ACT. So if you want to get a 99^th percentile SAT score or a 34 on the ACT, it’s possible that you can do it.

What is the best way to prepare for the ACT or SAT?

Well, it’s true arriving at a useful answer to this question does depend a lot on your timing and the context. If you are a junior with average grades, but aspire to get a high SAT score, and you take the SAT in 30 days, this article should be able to help adopt the right mindset and bring some calm and confidence to exam day. But practically, with only 30 days until the exam, you should be considering online SAT tutoring or an SAT crash course to get the best SAT score you possibly can. SAT tutoring and courses can and will help you get a higher score.

Since we are an SAT tutoring company, you might expect us to argue that hiring an SAT coach is almost always worth it. But we don’t believe that to be true.

Parents of high schoolers frequently ask me when the best time is to begin planning for college. My answer is usually “now!” which often, and more importantly, leads to talking about “how.”