Application Bootcamp College Admissions Blog

Colleges

Establish a Common Bond with Your Interviewer

We spend so much time helping our students with
interviewing techniques that we have a brief list of
tips to help those who face interviews this summer:

1. Don’t be afraid to focus in and expand upon a subject
that interests you. You do not have to cover EVERYTHING
as the admissions office will also have your complete file
when they read your application. That’s why it’s OK to
spend 20 minutes talking about your love of Greek and
Latin, especially if your interviewer happens to share that love.
If you find a common bond, follow up! There are no rules to what
must be covered.

2. Look the interviewer in the eye — it’s off-putting to stare
down at your feet.

3. Make sure you have substantive questions, not just typical
questions you could find the answers to in the view book or web
site. If the interviewer attended the school, ask pointed
questions about what he or she liked or didn’t like about the
school.

4. After the interview, write a brief thank you note (hand
written is best) and try to mention something specific that you
talked about so they remember who you are.

5. Make sure you do your research about the school BEFORE the
interview so you’re not caught asking embarrassing questions
about a program that doesn’t exist or a major that is no longer a
real program.

6. Students tend to overcompensate for how they think they should
dress for an on-campus or alumni interview and end up looking
like they are going to the prom. Others who don’t want to look
concerned about how to dress end up looking like hobos. Part of
how to dress of course depends on who you are and how you
normally dress. If we had to make the most general suggestion,
we’d suggest dressing only a standard deviation or so up or down
from how you normally dress unless you are very far from the
“normal” spectrum. If you are too dressed up (dresses for girls,
suits and ties for boys) it looks like you went way out of your
way and that draws unnecessary attention to yourself. Unless you
go to school dressed that way, avoid it. On the other hand, you
don’t want to wear ripped jeans, a tongue ring, dyed hair and
tattoos unless you really want your dress to make a statement for
you. Either extreme ends up detracting from what you actually
have to say.

You don’t have to be a boring conservative, but you
shouldn’t be ultra casual either. For boys, usually either
khaki-type pants and a neat shirt (polos are fine or collared
shirts if you feel more comfortable) with some clean shoes are
appropriate for any interview. Some sneakers might pass, but hey,
try shoes which look better with pants! Boys can also wear clean
and neat jeans instead of chino-style pants if that’s closer to
their normal style of dress (but keep the shoes). Girls have a
wider variety of options. You do not have to look “dressed up.”
Any slacks and shirt works, or a skirt and blouse if you like
that type of clothing. When in doubt, go for neat and aim to fly
under the radar. In the interview, your words should speak for
you without your clothing interfering too much in any one
direction!

If you are meeting someone for an alumni interview at an office,
however, dress accordingly. So, if you are going to a fancy law
firm, a jacket and tie might be appropriate. If, however, you
are meeting the person at Starbucks, ditch the jacket and tie.

Athletic Recruiting

At every high school there are casual athletes, serious athletes,
and elite athletes. Almost all selective colleges value athletic
experience, and most top high schools have extensive enough
athletic programs that almost any student can make their way onto
a team. If you’re not immersed in the arts or sciences, there’s
no reason not to go out for a team and, if you like it, get
serious about it. If you’re an elite athlete, however, you know
who you are.

Elite athletes aren’t just starters or team captains. They are
league MVPs. They make all-section or all-district teams. They
excel on club teams or other competitions outside of school. Some
small Division III liberal arts colleges are happy to welcome
merely serious athletes on to their teams, but to get recruited
at a Division I school, you must be elite. (This is true of every
school from USC and Penn State to Columbia and Brown.) For better
or worse, these athletes have special avenues to get into
college. (Keep in mind, the rationale is that many athletes with
lower grades have lower grades specifically because they’ve spent
so much time on sports!)

If you are a top-level high school athlete and considering being
recruited, there are a number of things you need to do junior
year. First of all, sign up on the NCAA website so you are
official. Next, identify the names and address of college
coaches at the schools which are of interest to you, they are
high level in your sport, etc. Then, you will want to contact
each coach with a letter and a resume so he/she knows you are
interested. It pays to put together a stat sheet that has all the
particulars (your height, weight, athletic awards, level of
competition) along with your GPA, test scores and any other
academic distinctions so coaches can see if you are going to be
strong enough to pursue as an official recruit.

Pick your SAT Subject Tests carefully!

This week we would like to focus on the all important SAT Subject Tests (formally called SAT IIs). Why are they so important for top colleges? In short, they help colleges interpret your grades and equalize grading scales from high school to high school. How does an A at school X compare to an A in school Y? Well, if one student scored a 770 on the Bio SAT Subject Test and the other scored a 580, we’d know that the first school had a much “truer” grading scale and that the competition was simply not as strong at school Y. In effect, these scores either show that a student deserved the high grades he received, or that the school simply hands out many A’s. With that being the case, students usually have to submit 2-3 SAT Subject Tests at most competitive colleges.

Students should consider very carefully WHICH tests they sign up for – most students don’t even realize that the average test scores are totally different on every SAT Subject Test! Most assume that the mean score is 500, but that is NOT the case. Take the Math IC and the Math IIC. Many students take the IC thinking it’s “easier,” but the average score on that test is a 588. If you miss a handful of questions, you will not even score in the 700’s! Compare that to the Math IIC — the AVERAGE score is 659! That means you can get a bunch wrong and still be in the 700’s(on a recent test, you could get 7 wrong and still score a perfect 800). In other words, every test has a different group of test takers — the kids who take the IIC are a smaller group, but a stronger group.  Take exams like the Chinese — since almost all the kids who take it actually speak Chinese, the average is very high: 752! Here’s another fact to keep in mind: the percentile scores do NOT get reported to colleges, only the grade. Most admissions officers don’t differentiate or even worry about if you 750 was “high” or low for your test. So those who get a 752 on the Chinese test (the highest average of all the SAT Subject Tests) score only 50%, but the score still looks strong.

The message is, it pays to study the average scores and pick tests based on your ability and the scoring curve. The average information is available on the College Board’s web site and is actually printed on the score reports you receive back after taking SAT Subject Tests. Use them to your advantage! You can study over the summer and take subject tests in October if you
missed the May/June test dates.

Contests and Awards

We always encourage students to find a niche, an interest, a
passion early on in their high school careers and then to purse
that interest both in and outside of school.  Students have to be
self-motivated as they can’t count on their schools or teachers
to submit them for awards.  They have to find opportunities to
deepen their interests and turn these interests into
distinguishing achievements. 

The nation’s top colleges look for state- or national-level
distinction in a student’s field of interest, so whether you are
a poet, writer, mathematician or computer geek, you should search
out any awards programs that can substantiate your interests and
show you stand out. The more competitive the college, the greater
the need to win significant competitions.  MIT, for instance, is
known to value international and national science Olympiad
winners, Intel Science Talent Search winners and finalists and
Siemens Westinghouse winners.

The Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology recognizes
remarkable talent early on, fostering individual growth for high
school students who are willing to challenge themselves through
science research. Through this competition, students have an
opportunity to achieve national recognition for science research
projects that they complete in high school. It is administered by
The College Board and funded by the Siemens Foundation.  This
month they post details of this year’s competition on their
website.  Explore this opportunity if you are a science scholar
and stay tuned for other contests and opportunities in future
weekly tips.    

Less famous, but more numerous, competitions are available for
liberal-arts students.  Countless foundations, literary
magazines, and arts societies sponsor event such as poetry
contests or publications of student work.  There are very few
national-level competitions, but if you can get a few pieces
published or win a speech competition, you’ll stand out as a
student with talent rather than a student who “just likes to
write.” 

Practicing for SAT Subject Tests

Several students recently have wanted to cancel their test scores on either the SAT or SAT Subject Tests. Remember, if you sit
for a test and you do NOT want your test scored (maybe you took
it for practice, which is a great idea if you have the time!), do
NOT leave the test center without asking the proctor for a
“request to cancel” form or you will NOT be allowed to cancel!

Please note that you can’t cancel one test only – ALL tests you
took that day will be cancelled. So, for example, if you took the
SAT Subject Test in Bio, Math II and Literature and felt you
bombed one test, you probably should NOT cancel the test as ALL
scores will be lost. The moral of the story is SAT Subject Tests
should never be a surprise. They are very content-based. If
you’re not doing well on the official practice test, don’t take
the test. Most top colleges require two or three tests.

The best preparation is to take practice tests from The Official
Study Guide for all SAT Subject Tests from the College Board and
see how you’re doing. This guide contains full-length tests and
answers for all twenty tests and an audio CD for all six
languages with listening tests.

We also want to remind you of a few things when taking
standardized tests.  And, this is from our own experience with
students over the years!!

* Bring an extra calculator, not just extra batteries.  That way if
your calculator dies, you aren’t sunk.
* Bring #2 pencils, NOT mechanical pencils as your test will NOT
be scored if the lead is too faint!
* Bring tissues.  Yes, bloody noses have happened during testing
and one of our students had no recourse other than to leave the
testing room.
* Do NOT drink a lot of liquid before testing.  Yes, you will get
bathroom breaks, but the stories of suffering and distraction due to
having to go to the bathroom are plentiful.  And, there will be long
lines during the short breaks.  You get the picture.

Students taking the SAT now are lucky as the College Board changed
their policy on score choice.  Note: Any student who has taken an SAT
prior to the policy launch (March 2009) or who registers for the SAT
after launch will be able to take advantage of this new policy. The
students who have taken tests prior to the launch can use the
score-reporting feature retroactively. Additionally, this new
score-reporting feature will be optional to students. If a student chooses
not to select their scores, all of their scores will be sent.

What this MIGHT mean is that students can take the SAT I as many times
as they like and select which test scores they want to show colleges.  For
more information head over to: 
http://professionals.collegeboard.com/testing/sat-reasoning/scores/policy

What has happened, however, is that a few schools are saying they won’t
adhere to the new policy and will demand kids show ALL scores (to give
you an idea, a partial list of these schools are Stanford, Dartmouth, Cornell
and USC).  We guide our students, therefore, to prep before taking the SAT
once late in their sophomore year either at a test center or at home to get a
benchmark and then January and March their junior year for their official
scores. 

SAT SUBJECT TEST TUTORING

Need help navigating the SAT Subject Tests? Sign up now for a
three-hour session with our Rogue Tutor, Mike Barrett! Mike empowers
students to “break the SAT code” by leveraging your existing
knowledge. Sign up today, in time for June tests!

Parents

PARENTS

We are both moms. Mimi has two daughters in college and
 Michele has a daughter in 7th grade and a son in 1st grade.
We write today’s newsletter knowing how hard it is as a
parent to balance our dreams for our precious children
with the reality of their own high school journey. Plus, we
want our children to love us, not hate us for putting too
much pressure on them – how can you walk that fine line
between motivating them and over loading them? A recent
NY Times article talked about the incredible stress over
placement exams in India, a country where millions of
students compete for a small number of college slots, and
that’s only counting the spots in India, not abroad.

We talk to a lot of parents of high school students. You would
not believe how many times we hear, “My wife/husband and I have
our heart set on College X for our son/daughter…” We then have to
say something such as, “We have to warn you right up front that
it’s your CHILD who needs his/her heart set, not you, the
parent.” All the parental wishing in the world will not help a
kid get into Harvard, Princeton or Yale. Some students,
especially those from Indian, Chinese, or another Asian
backgrounds, actually have to be stronger than the other
applicants even at those schools. Why? Because they are in the
most competitive demographic applying. It’s routine for
admissions officers to see high 700s and perfect 800s on SAT
tests.

Our goal is to push kids to reach their potential, but we can’t
create an award-winning talent. For example, if a 9th grader has
no amazing skills (top French horn player, champion skater,
musician, poet…) and is taking low-level (non-honors) classes, it
is unlikely that he/she will rise to national prominence in
something in the next two years before college (you apply after
11th grade). Our job is to maximize kids’ grades, scores,
academic effort and extras to be the best they can be. Then, we
help them get into the school that is the best match at the top
end of their range – but note, range is determined by grades,
scores, national prominence in academic areas, awards, etc…. No
one can take a student in a lower range and boost them up into a
different set of schools. No matter how proud or optimistic a
parent may be, parent and students alike must understand that
they are dealing with a system over which they have no control. 

Parents are not, as much as we would often like to be, the key
players, the CHILD is the key player. We try to keep the child
central to the process as it is their interests and passions we
are trying to nurture. And again, with 40% of the spots taken for
hooked candidates who are minority, athletic recruits, or
development cases, that means for an untagged student applying to
Stanford for example, the admit rate is more like 8% and the pool
is made up of valedictorians with huge national awards, talents,
etc…. Those are stiff odds, and it’s not fair to anyone to put
pressure on a student to get into a school like that.  There are
no guarantees, and sometimes the most you can do is hope. 

Parents simply must revise their expectations to fall in line
with their child’s proclivities or it’s a recipe for disaster and
a demoralized son or daughter.

APPLICATION BOOT CAMP® SELF GUIDED PROGRAM 
 
Knowledge is power and our guides help make the admissions
process more transparent. The Application Boot Camp® Self
Guided Program  is an easy and accessible program for students
to enable them to complete all the pieces of their college applications
and present themselves in the best possible light. It is an excellent
substitute if a student is not able to travel to Cambridge, MA, for our
live Boot Camp® sessions in August.

Click here to purchase your copy of the Self Guided Program
today!
 

“My son has just been accepted early action to Stanford. He used your
Self Guided Program we purchased online and we can’t begin to thank
you for the guidance.”

— Jason (Son, Stanford 2012)

Do Your Research

Once you’ve finished doing your taxes, you can turn your
attention to more important matters…like your children’s
education! For those of you with current juniors, this means
encouraging a strong finish this year, pushing grades up,
planning for a testing schedule that allows for all tests to be
completed before leaving for summer vacation, and doing
research on appropriate colleges.

Sign up NOW for our Application Boot Camp® 2010 as we
have a few spots left in each session to help with ALL of the
aspects of the application process!

DO YOUR RESEARCH

We can’t tell you how many times kids report to us that they want
to go to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, etc… but when we
ask them why, they have no good reason. Now that you have to give
up the early round to “wait” for Harvard or Princeton, it’s key
to have a specific reason. Colleges want to know why you are
applying—are you impressed by their world-famous chemistry
program? The well-known English department? The art history
department with a specialty in Renaissance art?

Oftentimes students with particular interests do themselves a
great disservice by not bothering to check if the schools on their list
match their own academic interest. For example, if you like
ancient languages, you’d want to apply to a school that at least
offered classes in Latin, Greek, Aramaic, Sanskrit and the like.
You may find that schools that you’d barely considered before end
up being top in the country in particular areas. How can you
check? First, it’s often helpful to consult the graduate rankings
in a publication like US News and World Report, although keep in
mind that sometimes graduate programs and faculty are separate
from the undergraduate, sometimes shared. Once you have that list,
comb the web sites, course guides and published information from
colleges to see if they are strong in your area(s) of interest.
You should also pick up a copy of Rugg’s Recommendations On the
Colleges. Finally, call the school or visit and speak to professors, visit
the library, check out the holdings—in short, make an informed
decision about where you are applying and why.

Also, bear in mind that if you state a reason for applying to a
school, it should be an academic reason. Unless a particular
school has an extracurricular program that is truly unique (and,
ideally, ties in to an academic interest), the school is going to
care far more about what you want to study than about the
backpacking trips you want to lead and the underprivileged
children you want to tutor. Those are all great things, but
clubs, community service programs, and intramural sports are
available at almost every college these days.

COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY GUIDANCE

After you have done your research and have compiled a list of schools,
begin working on your applications. Focus your main essay
on an area of academic interest, and end your essay for each
application differently with a specific “why” paragraph
pertaining to what you learned in your research and why that
school would be the best fit for you academically. Enter our Lead
Editor, Josh Stephens. Josh has worked with Application Boot
Camp® for six years, helping students craft the perfect essays to
complement their applications and really show why you belong at
your top choice school.

Click here to sign up for Josh’s five hour essay package!

Don’t wait as Josh’s packages fill up quickly!
“Thank you for recommending Josh. He is absolutely outstanding
and a terrific asset to your team. I would recommend him to anyone
without reservation. I was somewhat skeptical at first since the
communication between Josh and Jake has been entirely via the
Internet. However, Josh exceeded any of my expectations for
responsiveness, creativity and providing practical recommendations.
One of more significant results is that with Josh’s advice Jake has
become more confident and the quality of his essays have improved
considerably.”
— Peter S. (Father)

TESTING TIPS 

Top tips for maximizing your efforts on the upcoming spring AP tests. 

1. Create your own marking system in order to pace yourself.  You
should spend, at most, 30 seconds examining each question.  After
the much time, you should either select the correct answer, or
mark the question with a “Y” or an “N” – questions marked with a
Y are questions that you know how to solve, but that you need
more time to work on.  Questions marked with a N are questions
that you do not know how to solve, and should only be revisited
if you have time later on.  Doing this will make sure that you
stay on pace and get a much better feel for the entire test.

2. Points are deducted for incorrect answers – therefore, never
guess unless you can eliminate at least 2 choices.  However, once
you have eliminated two choices, it’s always statistically
correct to guess.  If you can ever manage to eliminate a few
wrong answers, always play the odds and take a crack at the
answer.

3. Relax the night before the exam.  The AP isn’t something you
can cram for – it tests knowledge that you’ve accumulated over
the course of an entire year (or longer).  The night before the
exam, turn your brain off – watch TV with your buddies, get a big
meal, and go to sleep really early.  Nothing will hurt your
performance more than staying up late the night before the exam
studying material.  Conversely, no amount of studying can make up
for a great night’s sleep.

4. On the essay portion, only write as much as you have to say.
The essays on AP exams are graded only for their structure and
content – there are no bonuses for length.  Make sure to write a
concise, well-crafted argument with an introduction, a supporting
body, and a conclusion.  If you ever find yourself writing for
writing’s sake, stop – a short, clear essay is much better than a
long, rambling treatise on your topic.

5. Make sure to submit your scores to your college!  Assuming
that you do well, you want to make sure that you get your results
to your future school so that you can get credit for taking the
exam.  Find the submission deadlines for your particular school
and make sure to meet them – the credits you gain from your AP
exams might allow you to take more electives when you get to
college.

Record numbers seek to join Harvard’s class of ‘14

Harvard University’s number of applications topped 30,000 for the first time, the college said, while their admission rate dipped below 7 percent.  Read More…

Applications to Selective Colleges Rise as Admission Rates Fall

With many of the nation’s most selective colleges and universities scheduled to inform applicants of their decisions soon, check out a sampling of their latest 2010 Admissions data.

Were You One of the Few?

Today, the New York Times Education section published the 2010 admissions tally, which gives admissions data for a sampling of the most selective public and private colleges and universities in the country. We’ve been getting wonderful news from our Application Boot Camp students about their acceptances! Were you one of the few? Share your college acceptance news here!

Next Page »

Congratulations Everyone!

Michele’s students had record breaking acceptances in the early round of college admissions results for the Class of 2014.
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Ivy League Admissions Statistics

Our exclusive data on the Class of 2014 Ivy League Admissions statistics, now updated for Early Action and Early Admissions for the class entering 2010. See exactly how many students applied and how many were accepted to different schools.
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Michele Talks About College Admissions on Good Morning America

View Michele's appearance on Good Morning America with George Stephanopolous and read the ABC News article, Battle College Acceptance Anxiety With These Tips, that features advice from Michele.

View all television interviews or learn more about Michele's appearances in the media.

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