Now that the school year has officially ended, both students and parents can breath a collective sigh of relief! The summer has finally arrived and should be treated as an important time for rest, fun, and the pursuit of enriching extracurricular activities. While the three-month summer break should be just that (“a break”), there are three tasks that I always encourage prospective high school seniors to engage in over the summer to alleviate the stressful college application

The SAT and ACT’s “Reading” portions are often the hardest sections for students to improve upon.  While students can easily raise their Math and Writing scores by learning various mathematical formulas and grammar rules, respectively, there aren’t any such shortcuts for the Reading section. The SAT and ACT’s Critical Reading sections vary slightly (the SAT features vocabulary questions, for instance, while the ACT does not), but the principles of both tests are very much the

The recent New York Times article When to Take the SAT chronicles a disturbing new trend in which students are preparing for and taking the SAT & ACT exams at an earlier age than ever before. The article points out that more than ten times as many middle school students completed an SAT test in 2014 than in 2010 and that this trend is likely to continue in the years to come. School districts at the middle school (and elementary school!) levels have already begun implementing

Several families I work with have recently asked me to clarify the key differences between the SAT and ACT exams. Do colleges prefer one over the other? Do both tests require students to write essays? Does the ACT  really benefit math/science-oriented students because it includes an additional Science section? Both tests are approximately the same length, include written components, and are regarded as equal by most universities, but as far as I’m concerned that is where many

As educators and parents of prospective test-takers may have heard by this point, the College Board is implementing sweeping adjustments to the SAT exam beginning in the fall of 2016. Here are three changes that I am particularly excited about and feel are long overdue! 1) The Essay Component is Now Optional While I believe that a student’s ability to write a clear and cogent essay is arguably one of the most important metrics by which a college can gauge the success of a pr