Here they are: the most helpful SAT prep books.

By the beginning of April, high school juniors should be well into their SAT studies in prep for the May or June exams. Students planning to also take SAT Subject Tests are recommended to take the SAT in May, SAT Subject Tests in June. All students taking the May SAT should take advantage of “Question and Answer Service” ($18, ordered through your CollegeBoard SAT registration account), a great study tool for the fall retest.

Whether you take a class, work with a tutor, do an online program, or study on your own, good study resources are key for this test. While there are also great resources available oniine (see my next column for the best of those), there is no substitute for practicing with paper and print to build skills that are directly transferable to the real test – which you will take on paper, not on a computer screen. Allow yourself at least 8 weeks to craft a full study plan and use a good text to guide you. Here’s a list of the best ones for SAT prep:

1. The Official SAT Study Guide with DVD - There is no substitute for the CollegeBoard’s book of real tests. Every SAT student should study with this book. The new edition of the CollegeBoard “blue book” is not much different from the 2nd edition; it has the same 10 tests. The best addition here is access to a new section on the CollegeBoard website where you can find explanations – finally! – to every question in all of the tests.

2. Tutor Ted’s SAT Solutions Manual - This thin, concise and engaging guide to the CollegeBoard’s book of practice tests is still very convenient and may offer quicker, smarter explanations of the questions, especially for the more advanced student who gets it and is able to move on more quickly.

3. Barron’s SAT Math Workbook (not to be confused with the nearly identical looking Barron’s SAT Subject Test Math workbooks) – Barron’s is the model for all great math instruction: Clear, simple lessons with important formulas and procedures highlighted, comprehensive drills at the end of each short lesson, and clear explanations to every single question. Nearly every student will raise his or her score by working patiently through this book, even without mastering all the topics included.

4. Cracking the SAT by The Princeton Review - The Princeton Review still has their magic touch (even though the 2012 edition of their book is EXACTLY the same inside as the 2011 edition). Strong basic test-taking strategies and techniques which they pioneered still work. Their vocab lists are good, practice tests the best copies of the real SAT around, and grammar chapter is particularly helpful.

Have you used these textbooks and have an opinion to share? Do you have your own favorites? Please share your tips for great SAT textbooks in the comments section below!

One great essay topic is your cherished friendships.

High school seniors: You’re finally seeing the light at the end of the college prep tunnel, but the application essay is still hanging over your head.

Cheer up! While it would be great to have the essay done by now, the fact is, you are suddenly in a different phase of your life in the fall of your senior year, and your perspective may have changed a lot since July or August. And sometimes the pressure of impending deadlines actually help you buckle down and do your best work.

Here are some tips to help you get going.

1. Brainstorm freely. Jot ideas about your best traits, your most meaningful experiences – both academic and otherwise – an important influence in your life, what’s key about you that isn’t represented otherwise in your school grades and test scores.

2. Write freely for a ten minutes each on 2-3 of your favorite ideas. Review what you’ve written and then write more on whichever one most excites you. If none do, then brainstorm again.

3. Once you’ve got a great personal topic, write freely more. Don’t worry about organizing or length, grammar or style. Just let yourself go so that you can get those ideas flowing.

4. Think small! If your theme is perservence and you want to write about your experiences on the hockey team, bypass the usual “big game” narrative and focus instead more narrowly, for example on your relationship with your teammates, one big play in slow motion, or what your team jersey represents to you.

5. Start to organize your essay, keeping clearly numbered copies of each draft. As you edit and refine, you may also lose some of your earlier spontaneity, so you want to be able to go back to review and renew.

6. Review your final draft for cohesion, spelling, grammar and typos. Run it by your parents, a teacher and a friend for comments. If you are feeling burnt out, let it rest for a few days and then do your final edit.

Here are some great resources for brainstorming and writing your college essay:

.
Books:

“On Writing the College Application Essay” by Harry Bauld
“The College Application Essay” by Sarah Myers McGinty
“Writing a Successful College Application Essay” by George Ehrenhaft

.

College advisors in New York who specialize in essay consulting:

• Debra Resnicoff, Sundial Academic Success
• Elizabeth Wissner-Gross

Here are some test tips and advice I recently shared with the website visitors of Aristotle Circle in New York, as a Feature Expert.

Q: When should students take the SAT or ACT? Does it make sense to take both tests?

I generally recommend that students take the SAT or ACT in the spring of junior year and retake that same test in the fall of senior year. Ideally, that’s two tests, total. May is a perfect month for the SAT since students can order “Question and Answer Service” (which is only offered three times a year), a terrific study tool for the next round. Taking the May SAT also allows students to take SAT Subject Tests in June, close to the end of the semester in which they are studying those subjects.

The ACT Q&A service, “Test Information Release,” is offered in April and June. June is the best time to take the test, when courses are nearly over and students have learned more math, which is relevant on this test. Then take the test once more in September or October.

Most students score comparably on either test and colleges accept both. For students applying to colleges that require the SAT + SAT Subject Tests, or ACT alone, and who do not have strong SAT Subject Test options, the ACT is appealing. For students who are weak in reading and vocabulary but strong in math, the ACT is often the better option. Otherwise, the SAT is generally considered the more coachable test. Students can take a practice test in each to get the definitive answer of which test is a better fit for them.

Q: Under what circumstances should students retake the SAT or ACT? How much better should a student expect to do the second time around?

Although the trend is to take more and more tests, there are several reasons students should not retake the SAT or ACT more than once. For one, colleges look askance at the records of students who had to take the test numerous times in order to compile a competitive score selection. Students’ time could be put to much better uses than prepping for and retaking tests, too. Students who study for these tests tend to make a big jump in scores after their first course of study: 50 points or more in each SAT section, 2-4 points in each ACT section. After that, many students plateau out, but still manage to raise their scores in the fall, sometimes an additional 50 points per SAT section, and a 1-3 points on the ACT.

Since colleges cherry-pick the best scores to make a superscore, nearly everyone should take the test again in the fall. Many students pull it all together then: They are a half year older than when they first took the test; they’ve grown and matured over the summer, too. A number of factors lead some students to see big improvement in the fall test. Even if they only pick up a few points here and there, it adds up and overall is likely to be much higher than initial scores.

Q: What is your advice for parents, when it comes to helping your child juggle the necessary components of admissions (exams, essays, paperwork, tours, etc)?

Every student and family is different, but the demands of college applications and admissions are the same: burdensome and confusing! Students need to be willing to accept some parental help and guidance but may rightfully reject meddling. Families should sit down early in the process and establish roles, boundaries, and procedures for making sure everything gets done. Personally, I have no objection to allowing a student to delegate much of the logistics and bookkeeping to parents. Some students are not ready to take on that responsibility or are too busy juggling school and test prep and all the rest of their myriad responsibilities. It does not mean that they are not ready to go on to the next step. Essays, however, and anything that is supposed to be in the student’s voice should not bear any parent’s fingerprints.

Q: How early should students begin studying for the SSAT or ISEE? Do you ever recommend that student take both tests?
Students generally start studying for these tests a few months before the exams, but there are great ways to boost performance over the longer term. Reading lots of challenging books, building vocabulary, or doing math games and practice over the prior summer are great ways to up those scores!

The tests are very similar but have subtle differences. The SSAT may be a better choice for students whose reading skills and vocabulary are stronger, while the ISEE may be better suited to students with stronger math skills. If the school does not require one test over the other, students might take one test and if the score is low, give the other test a try.

Note that students may only take the ISEE once in a six month period and may not take the test as practice; a formal application must be made to at least one school for each test application and old scores are superceded by new ones. Students may take the SSAT multiple times, however, and then just submit their best individual score to schools, although the score report will note that the test had been taken more than once.

Q: Should students ever cancel their scores on the ACT or SAT? If you feel you did particularly bad is it a good idea to cancel your test?

Both ACT and SAT scores may be cancelled within a few days of the test, but students should really have a good reason to do so, not just nerves. It really is difficult to predict one’s score based on a gut feeling after taking the test, but if the student was ill or had any other extraordinary circumstance that would have affected his or her test performance, cancellation is a last resort. Remember though, most colleges will superscore the results from all the SATs taken, and a growing number of colleges will do so for the ACT, too, so even if the results in one or two sections of the test are poor, a higher score in another section generally makes it all worth keeping, since that score would benefit the overall score compilation.

For students taking the SAT Subject Tests, note that score cancellation affects all tests taken that day. Even if the student is concerned about one of two or three tests taken that day, it probably would be wiser to keep all the scores. Most colleges allow Score Choice, so any weak scores can be suppressed later.

Feeling like a confused hippie when it comes to ACT prep?

For students strong in math and science, but weaker in vocabulary questions and open-ended essays, the ACT is often a better option than the SAT. Many students prefer the ACT for its predicatble organization: all the questions for each subtest (English, Math, Reading, and Science) are presented in a single section, and subjects always appear in the same order. Another advantage of the ACT is that many colleges which require SAT Subject Tests for students who take the SAT will waive that requirement for ACT testers. So, you’ve decided to take the ACT. Now, time to prep!

Here are some smart tips to help ensure success on your ACT English and Reading tests:

- Study rules of grammar, especially use of commas and apostrophes. Master who vs whom and be alert to misplaced modifiers. Be sure to read all the passages; don’t skip a few lines if you don’t see any questions for a while. Reading takes a few seconds and it enables you to understand flow and nuance, something you’ll need for the inevitable rhetorical questions that follow! Find links here to great websites for grammar review.

- When answering rhetorical questions in the English section, underline the key point in the question and make sure that your answer choice supports that idea.

- If one of the answer choices is to omit the sentence underlined, ask yourself what the passage would lose in that case. Omit is often the best choice.

- If you are a slow reader, practice reading bits and pieces of the reading passages to get the general meaning for starters: Read the first inch, the first sentence of each paragraph and the last inch of the passage. Then answer questions that reference specific lines in the passage by reading 5 lines above and 5 lines below that line. Bit by bit you will have read all that you need in the passage as you answer the questions following this procedure.

- Whenever possible, come up with your own answer for reading questions before looking at the choices! Avoid answers that seem too nice or too specific. Often, one word, such as an adjective, can help you eliminate a wrong choice.

- Don’t feel you have to do the questions in order. If any question stumps you, circle it and move on. If time permits, you can come back and narrow down the answer to guess well. Otherwise, choose “C” (or your favorite letter of the day).

- Answer questions about the author’s tone or purpose last. After you’ve answered all the other questions, tone and purpose are much more obvious.

- If confronted with a pair of “Yes, because … ” and a pair of “No, because …” answers, draw a line between the two pairs and decide if the answer is going to be yes or no. Then choose between the two answer choices only.

- If the question has a pair of opposite choices among the answers, one of those two is probably the correct answer.

- Choose your favorite letter position of the day for all the questions you skip for which you haven’t had time to eliminate any of the choices.

If you find these tips helpful, check out next week’s column for tips on other sections of the ACT, too.

Visit colleges while they are in regular session in order to see students and professors, absorb atmosphere.

Larry Dannenberg, owner of College Solutions college consulting, offers great advice for high school juniors and sophomores planning their college visits. He reminds students that as of January, “90 is the number of days you have to visit colleges and talk with students.” Here are his specific tips:

•  Visit colleges while they are in session. Many colleges finish in early May. That means you only have a few months left to visit, see and talk to real college students.

•  Take pictures of yourself at the college and write notes about your experiences and reactions. This will help you later in the application process.

•  Talk with students and professors in departments or activities that interest you. Do not pay attention to the high school students on campus.  They know nothing about the college, they may not apply, they may not get in and they may not go.  The best place to meet students is the student union, cafeteria, gym, dorms or labs. You need to find out how many hours of homework and how much studying students do, what happens on weekends, and if everyone has purple hair or shops at J Crew.  You can’t do this during the summer when no one is on campus.

•  Athletes: Contact the coaches from colleges you are interested in. This is the last chance for them to see you play a spring sport.

•  Visual artists: This is the time to develop a portfolio which, of course, you will keep increasing. It is simpler and saner to do it now, rather than later, when your To-Do list may already be out-of-hand. (Don’t mean to scare you.)

•   Performance artists: You will be applying to college in October so you can schedule auditions.  This is the time to visit colleges. Speak with the professors who will mentor you.

For more smart advice from College Solutions’ helpful email newsletter, drop a line to Larry Dannenberg at info@collegesolutions.com to sign up.

- Know all the formulas, favorite triangles, and common fractions to decimals to percents. Know your multiplication and division tables (and of course addition and subtraction) cold! Recognize easy divisibility rules for integers 2-11. Even though you have a calculator, having this knowledge will enable you to “see” the answers more readily and more quickly jump to the best way to solve a problem.

- Do lots of drills and review your answers right away so you learn from them. Great resources for smart explanations of the CollegeBoard book of practice test questions: ShowMeSAT.com, Khanacademy.org/sat and Tutor Ted’s SAT Solutions Manual.

- Start your prep early enough to give yourself time to work your way through Barron’s SAT Math Workbook, a terrific resource with step by step lessons in every chapter of math that is covered on this test. Each chapter and subchapter has its own battery of drills followed by clear explanations. Take the time to do all that you are the least bit shaky on.

- When you do sample or real SAT math problems (from previous tests in the CollegeBoard book or when reviewing your PSAT or SAT Question and Answer Service results), note those questions that take you a long time. Even if you got the correct answer, review smart explanations to see if you missed a quicker way of getting there. Making progress in SAT Math is less a matter of easily defined techniques and strategies than patiently building smarter routes to the answers.

- Don’t over-rely on your calculator. Calculator whizzes are reluctant to put them aside, but most math problems on the SAT can be done quicker and more directly without them. Do use the calculator for quick figures, and shortcuts if you know them. For example, some geometry problems can be solved by applying trigonometric values, bypassing the Pythagorean Theorum or adding up and subtracting angles. If you’ve got those skills, use them!

- If one type of question regularly stumps you, take advantage of the ten tests in the CollegeBoard’s book and search out those types of questions in several math sections at a time. Finding the same type of question in several sections shows you that it wasn’t a fluke, so you had better learn it! And doing one after another really reinforces the lesson for that particular problem type.

- Draw! If a geometric figure or numbers on a line are described in words, immediately sketch them out, labelling points.

- It’s ok to trust their drawing. Unless it is noted that the figure is not drawn to scale, you can often guesstimate well based on the figure if time is too short to do the math. If it is stated that the figure is not drawn to scale, redraw it based on the data presented. Don’t be influenced by a picture that even the test makers tell you not to trust!

- In word problems, write out the data in math language, translating, for example, “30% of 140″ to “30/100 x 140.” Once you have some portion of an equation written, play with it until you see if it can go anywhere. Then just go there and see if that gives you more you can work with. Always get started and solve something; the route to the answer usually appears as you are on the way!

- If you have no idea how to solve, or it seems too time-consuming or difficult, try plugging the answer choices, especially if they are easy numbers. If you seem to have too many variables in the equations, make up your own numbers for them! Use easy small numbers, but be careful about using 1 and generally avoid 0. 100 is often a handy number if working with percents. For equations dealing with time, 60 be easy to work with.

- Read the grid-in instructions and make sure you understand how to input your answers there. Remember: no mixed numbers; they’ll read as improper fractions, instead.

- Don’t let any problem suck up your time! Remember: All questions count the same, so rack up more easy points.

- Read carefully. Don’t mistake “must” for “may.”

- Questions generally go from easy to medium to hard. If you are stuck on an early question, leave it and come back; you probably are just not “seeing” the answer, but if you come back in a bit, you may see it in a different light and have it pop for you.

- If you find a question at the end of the section (that is, a hard question) amazingly easy, be suspicious and either set it aside or review it from another angle.

- Finally, there is no substitute for doing full timed practice tests. Do the whole thing – all 9 sections – and at least four of them within the two months before your SAT. Most importantly, go over your answers and redo those questions your got wrong – also doing those questions you didn’t understand or get to when you were timed.

- Plan how to use your time strategically, picking up the most points within your level. For students scoring lower than 530, slowing down to get more easy answers right and purposely skipping a set number of questions per section will raise their overall score. And for math whizzes, don’t neglect math in order to spend time on Critical Reading or Writing, if you can do both. Colleges sure love students who can bring in a perfect score in any section, and will often overlook less spectacular scores in the other sections, especially if Math or Critical Reading is 800.

Joyce Reed of College Goals advises students to use the power of words.

Joyce Reed, a former Associate Dean at Brown University, is a college counselor who advises students to think carefully about what makes their college essay true and worth reading. “Above all,” she writes, “the essay must be and sound ‘authentic’ – written by you, not by parents, teachers or counselors – fresh, honest, interesting, and memorable.”

She urges students to take a look at a video, produced by a Scottish PR agency, called “The Power of Words.” The agency which produced the spot goes by the name “purple feather,” the name itself a testament to the power of imagery-evoking words to communicate a feeling. In the short video, a beggar’s simple sign is revised by a passerby to dramatic effect. It still says essentially the same thing – the man is blind and asks for help – but the new sign is vastly more effective. As Joyce notes, “The revised sign speaks to the heart and grabs the reader – it speaks of longing, loss, beauty, appreciation, and sharing…”

That simple sign goes from straight-forward fact and plea to something that makes the passersby think instead of themselves, of their relation to the world, of their own good fortune. Instead of reacting to a stranger, they react to a sentiment that they can relate to with all their hearts, and as result, they relate to the man, too, imagining themselves in his shoes and feeling compassion and empathy.

Joyce urges her students to “remember how powerful a visual image can be – when you remember images from books that have been adapted to film, you usually recall scenes that were well dramatized in the movie and ‘see’ the characters/costumes/scenery accordingly.” When you write your essay, be alert to engaging your reader in your story. Don’t just tell what you thought or felt, what you did. Rather, bring your reader into your world. Seek ways to show the conditions that nurtured your feelings or the atmosphere that relflected your actions. Think of your essay, even, as a film, with all the necessary elements: light, music, dialogue, atmosphere, point. Then unleash the power of a simple message to bring it home – that’s your ‘purple feather’!

Students: Take a little break from SAT prep or college app essays!

High school students caught up in the stress of SAT prep or college application essay writing would do well to take a break and reflect. Watching a comedy about college admissions just might provide enough refreshment to reinspire – and maybe even suggest a few pointers. A great movie for that is “Orange County,” a 2002 film about a California teen, Shaun Brumder (Colin Hanks), who yearns to escape his dysfunctional family and go to Stanford to pursue his dream of becoming a writer. Along the way, Shaun learns a lot about life – and college admissions.

Find something that you are especially interested in. Shaun described himself as a typical “surfer dude” who experienced an epiphany one day when he found a novel on the beach and realized he wanted to become a writer. Once he knew his interest, he pursued it single-mindedly, giving up surfing and beach parties, focussing all his energies on writing. Such dogged pursuit of a single goal is not necessary to get into college, but some idea of what you are interested in could be a big boost. That interest may not necessarily lead to a career or even your major, but it gives you a starting point, a focus, and in terms of your college applications, it makes you stand out from all the other surfer dudes.

Learn big words and use them well. Shaun’s spacey English teacher handed him back his writing assignment, complimenting him, “Shaun! I read your story. You used a lot of big words. Great! Good for you! It was a little long, so I didn’t read the whole thing, but who cares ’cause I gave you an A!” While your English teacher hopefully is a little more mindful of content, there is no doubt that big words impress. Impress your teachers, get high grades, and achieve high SAT scores as a result, too, where your big vocabulary will yield points in Critical Reading and on the essay. By the time you get to the college application essay, big words will be natural to you and will enhance your application accordingly.

Make sure your guidance counselor has sent your transcripts.

Shaun’s guidance counselor (Lily Tomlin): Well, looks here Iike your GPA is  2.4 and your SATs combined are 1500.
Shaun: No, no that’s low. That’s not my transcript!

Guidance counselors don’t often make these kinds of mistakes, but they usually have a lot of transcripts for a lot of students to organize and send. It is always wise to check and make sure all your documents are in and transcripts have been sent. If you have any concerns, email the colleges you’ve applied to and check that your files have been received.

Get to know your guidance counselor and be on good terms with him or her. Presumably, Shaun’s brain-dead guidance counselor bears no resemblance to yours, but even good guidance counselors may have trouble keeping the hundreds of students they advise separate in their minds. Take the time get to know your counselor by making an appointment to meet if you don’t otherwise have any opportunity to do so. Bring questions you have for him or her and make a point of discussing things that are important to you.

Apply to good safety schools where you will also be happy to attend.

Shaun: I’m Shaun Brumder, class president.
Guidance counselor: And you didn’t get into Stanford? Too bad. Tough break. Where else did you apply?
Shaun: Nowhere! You said I was a shoo-in.
Guidance counselor: Not even a safety school?

It’s hard to imagine someone not applying to a safety school, but many students don’t seriously consider their safety schools. Either they have too few of them or the schools they choose aren’t really safeties. It’s much easier to choose ten “reach” schools. Be sure that you have at least two or three true safeties and choose schools that you would be happy to go to if one of them ended up as your only choice.

Write to professors you are really interested in. The movie opens with Shaun composing his fan letter to a fictional Stanford English professor and author of his favorite book. If you know something about a specific department or professor at the college you dream of attending, go ahead and send an email. You can find department and faculty email contact info on the college website, so write if you have something to say or ask. Do not do so to impress, however; faculty are busy and admissions reps can see through that ploy! But if you have legitimate interest – and even better, accomplishments – in the field, do write. You may learn more about the college that way and possibly develop contacts if you enroll. It’s ok, too, to reference that interest when writing your application, especially where they ask you why you are specifically interested in the college.

Life doesn’t end if you don’t get into your dream school. Shaun and his girlfriend, Ashley (Schuyler Fisk), have a fight about his desire to leave home – and her – to go to Stanford:

Ashley: You think by coming here you’ll meet people that are smarter, and saner, and better. You know, if you went to Stanford that would be the end of us. It doesn’t seem to me Iike that’s ever crossed your mind.
Shaun: Oh, Ashley, come on
Ashley: Shaun, I’m sorry you didn’t get in. But if you think that going here is the only way you can be the person you want to be …then I just feel sorry for you.

Indeed, the secret is that actually doesn’t matter in the end whether you go to your dream school or somewhere else – you can achieve your dream wherever you go to college. Most important is the attitude you bring with you and your commitment to achieving it. Students in America have so many amazing study options that there are innumerable routes to success. And despite the star-power attached to famous name colleges, none of them magically provide success to the unworthy, either.

Buying the school a new admissions office can help your admissions chances, however…

Ashley: Shaun, where are you going?
Shaun: To my dad’s. I’m going to go in there and say to my dad that he abandoned our family, and he can start making it up to me, by making a massive donation to Stanford.

 … Especially in Hollywood! Enjoy the break, students!

Stuck between the SAT and the ACT?

Until recently, the SAT was taken by students applying to colleges on the East and West Coasts, the ACT by everyone else. Now, most colleges accept either test and students are often overwhelmed by choice. Which test suits whom? Is there any advantage to taking one test over the other? Or should students just hedge their bets and take both?

The same but different

The tests are about the same length, about 4 hours long. They both test reading, math, grammar and usage, and require an essay of about the same length (25 minutes for the SAT, 30 minutes for the ACT). Most students score comparably on either. Both tests are offered around 7 times a year and offer the option to submit only the best date’s scores to colleges. For students who have better scores in one section on one date and another section on a different date, the Common App allows students to list all and colleges generally create their own “superscore” from the best composite of either ACT or SAT results.

There are some important differences between the tests, however. The SAT Critical Reading section includes Sentence Completion questions which reward students who have strong vocabulary knowledge. The ACT doesn’t have that kind of question, but has a Science Reasoning section in addition to the math, reading and writing they have in common. The SAT has a reputation for “tricky” questions and scares some students with its error penalty provision: every four errors in any of the three sections results in one raw point off. The ACT has no penalty for errors.

For students who are applying to colleges that require SAT Subject Tests + SAT or ACT test alone, the ACT would be a natural choice if they do not have good scores to submit in two or three otherwise required SAT Subject Tests. Also, for students applying for special accomodations, if one test service grants the accomodation and the other one doesn’t, the choice is clear.

Which test is better?

The best way to answer that question is to take a full, timed practice test in each, under similar test conditions. That’s two 4.5 hour time investments, however – an exhausting proposition to many students. An easier way is to take a practice test in either one and if your results seem inconsistent with your overall academic achievement, then consider the other brand. Generally, students who have weak vocabularies (especially those who do not do much reading, or enjoy reading much) BUT are strong in math and science would do better to choose the ACT. Students who are uncomfortable with the SAT’s abstract essay topics might be more comfortable with the ACT’s student-friendly essay prompts, and the fact that on the ACT, the essay comes at the end of the test. The SAT essay is the first section, which some students find that exhausting. Since the essay is the least important section of both tests, students whose attention seriously flags over the course of such a long exam might score higher if they get to work on multiple choice questions first.

Choose one!

But in any case, choose one test! Top college coach Michele Hernandez advises students to pick one and prepare well. Note, too, that college admissions officers may look askance at too many test scores on an application, wondering why this student hasn’t found other things to do with his or her time. At a recent panel on college admissions strategies in New York, Ms. Hernandez stated her preference for the SAT because students can use the error “penalty” strategically to leverage partial knowledge and raise their score. Some test prep tutors prefer the SAT for that reason, too. Students tend to take whatever test is popular at their school, but the key consideration should only be this: On which test can I score higher?

Students learn to tell their stories before they write them.

“Everybody has his own story and if you tell your own story in your own voice, you will connect and get into a college that is a great fit for you,” counsels Carol Barash of Story to College. “You have to get past the scripts that everyone has; speak from your own experience as a human being.”

As a member of the admissions committee of Douglass College at Rutgers University, Carol saw how important the essay is to the college application. Admissions, she noted, is not just an investment on the part of the student and his family. By admitting that student, the college, too, invests in him financially – since tuition pays but a fraction of the actual cost of education – and trusts that he’ll become an valuable member of its community. But grades and test scores don’t tell enough to predict that and as many colleges eliminate evaluative interviews, they don’t have much to go on. The essay is often the only means to get to know the applicant as a person.

So it pays to craft a wonderful essay. Story to College, a new program grounded in Carol’s years of teaching and coaching experience, guides students to create powerful, personal essays in an interactive, social setting. The program, in its second year now, has been a great success at high schools in New York and New Jersey, including Macaulay Honors College, Beacon School, The Bronx High School of Science, LaGuardia High School, Morristown-Beard School and others.

Students meet first in a large group for a 3-hour interactive session called “Base Camp.” Led by master teachers, they are encouraged to tell their stories outloud to each other, relating writing, first and foremost, to storytelling. Speaking outloud – hearing themselves and being hear by others – is a radically refreshing start to what is ordinarily a stultifying task for students. Carol attests that “they all learn how to coach each other, to support each other and when they help someone else, that’s when they learn, themselves.” This base enables them to work collaboratively as group, then break into smaller seminars where groups of 12-15 students work intensively with 2-3 instructors. Students may continue with private tutoring to complete their essays, but all students leave the session with complete Common Application essay drafts and a written plan for completing their essays.

Turning college application essay writing into an opportunity for students to express themselves, and learn from one another in the process, brings life to students’ essays and give admissions officers a much more interesting and nuanced picture of the applicants. It’s a great start to making the best matches between students and colleges.