The Insider: College Admissions Advice from the Experts

Over the last half year, there have been major changes in the world of college admissions testing. The SAT returned to the old 1600-point scale, did away with the mandatory writing section, and made it optional instead. The ACT changed the scoring scale for its own optional writing exam and the resulting scores caused an uproar among test-takers that has yet to die down. As an admissions counselor here at College Coach, I’ve had countless students ask me about the importance of the writing score, and I’ve seen a lot of stress over lower-than-anticipated scores on the writing section of these tests. Below is the advice I’ve been giving over these last few months.

By Sean Murphy, Curriculum Manager at Revolution Prep

When students find themselves at the edge of their college application deadlines, I find they tend to whip themselves into a frenzy over every component of their applications. Many students are concerned that test scores may not arrive in the hands of colleges and universities on time. And this is a reasonable concern. For the vast majority of schools, you need standardized test results to be submitted by the testing agencies in order to receive a decision from colleges.

Sending Standardized Test Scores to Colleges: How and When?

You just hit submit on your last college application and now, the rest is up to everyone else. Your teachers are sending in their recommendations, your parents are working on the financial aid application, and the college counselor is taking care of your transcript and the school report. Time to kick back and watch some Netflix, right?

Quadratic equations…polynomial factors…identifying sentence errors…unrecognizable vocabulary words. If you’re preparing to take the current SAT this fall or winter, you are no doubt consumed with mastering all of these concepts and more, simultaneously asking yourself if the score you hope to earn will be strong enough to help you stand out in an overwhelmingly competitive applicant pool. But if your plan is to take the upcoming October, November, December, or January SAT, before the College Board ceremoniously switches over to the “redesigned” SAT in March 2016, you need to be asking yourself three very important questions.

Guest post by Jason Shao of Revolution Prep

A recent article in Business Insider suggested that students should avoid taking the New SAT for the first three sittings (in March, May, and June of 2016). We thought this was a bold position to take, so we asked our trusted partner Revolution Prep to give us their perspective.

If you’re a 10^th or 11^th grader, you were probably shuffled into a large auditorium sometime in the not-too-distant past to take the PSAT, a practice version of the College Board’s SAT. If you’re anything like the majority of students I speak with every year, you’re probably a little confused about the relevance of the test or the reason for taking it. And when your results arrived just a week or two ago, you were probably a little perplexed by the numbers and what they mean for the future. Hopefully this article can help you make some sense of the whole experience, and give you a better idea of how it fits into the admissions process.

One of the most popular blog posts we’ve published over the years answers one of the most frequently asked questions our team of college admissions consultants receives: “When do I send SAT and ACT Scores to Colleges?” But when it comes to standardized tests, there are many more common questions that students and parents ponder. In an effort to ease some of the stress that families are feeling this application season, here are the answers to the top five frequently asked questions about submitting standardized test scores.

Will my October Scores be Considered for Early Decision?

The results from the October SAT are scheduled to be released later this week, just a couple of days before November 1 deadlines for Early Decision and Early Action. The close proximity of these related events has a lot of people confused and concerned, and understandably so. I’ve answered questions around this issue at least ten times just this week, and I hope this short post will help you clear up your confusion and provide a little bit of stress relief. Read on to see how you can manage late-arriving scores with your EA and ED applications.

When changes to the SAT were announced last month, we had some initial reactions that focused on the big picture: how the test-prep industry would be affected, and what initial changes would mean for test-takers looking to choose between the SAT and its rival, the ACT. A couple of weeks ago, the College Board released more specific information about the new test, which has given students and educators a better idea of what to expect when the changes drop in a couple of years.