Of everything you include in your college applications, the essays are the single element over which you have the most control—make the most of this opportunity to define your narrative.  You know you’ll need to write a variety of essays for your college applications. The real question: How will you craft effective messaging that demonstrates your talent and character in order to maximize your chances of admission?  In this post, we will provide an overview of the college application essay planning and writing process, including:

• What kinds of college application essays you will need to write
  
  
• The Frontier Tutoring essay planning formula for strategizing your topic and planning your structure, regardless of the prompt
  
  
• Keys to success for essay planning and writing
  
  
• When you should start planning and writing—including how to get a head start during junior year
  
  
• Actual draft essays—from first draft to final—from Anja L. and Sam L., two Frontier Tutoring college admissions consulting students.  Anja was admitted to Middlebury (17% acceptance rate), while Sam was admitted to Georgetown (11.7% early action acceptance rate).

Ready to write?  Let's begin!

-Kimberly Hewitt - Business Unit Manager, College Admissions Consulting

After three grueling years of academics, senior year has finally arrived!  Of course, there's important work still to be done.  Now is time for rising seniors to roll up their sleeves and lay the foundation for a successful college application season.  In this post, we’ll run through a checklist of five college admissions priorities for rising seniors to work on starting now.  Specifically, we’ll discuss how to:

1. Finalize your college list—the single most important factor upon which nearly all of your other decisions over the next four months will depend
   
   
2. Identify and achieve your target SAT/ACT score before application deadlines
   
   
3. Begin essays and applications
   
   
4. Identify financial aid and scholarships
   
   
5. Determine whether you need to take SAT Subject Tests

The checklist includes links to many of our other resources, including our College Essay Planning Formula, which many of our students have used as the basis for highly successful college application essays.  Let’s get to work!

Updated May 22, 2020 - Over the last two years, a variety of high-profile colleges have announced that the SAT/ACT essay will now be optional for applicants to their schools because they believe a single essay cannot reliably predict a student’s college writing capabilities. As of this posting, only three colleges still require the SAT/ACT essay. Additionally, an additional five colleges, including Duke, recommend that applicants submit an SAT/ACT essay score.  Finally, Princeton, in a move mimicked by Brown (and likely other colleges soon), has made the SAT/ACT essay optional, but instead requires all applicants to submit a graded writing sample. Should YOU plan to take the SAT/ACT essay? Here’s how to decide.

Developing a working college list no later than junior year, and finalizing it before senior year begins, is what sets the most competitive applicants apart.  If there's one thing about college admissions that high school students should learn upfront, it's that all roads in high school lead from where you intend to apply to college.  The colleges on your list will determine the minimum GPA you should aim for, which standardized tests you need take (and the scores required to make you a competitive candidate), how many essays you will need to write, what kind of scholarship opportunities may be available, which other application deliverables you may need to prepare, application/testing/scholarship deadlines, and much more.

Whether you're a sophomore or a senior, it's never too early to start thinking about where you aspire to attend college, and how you can start building your application assets to be a competitive candidate by the time you apply. In this post, I'll explain our five-step process to identifying your colleges of interest.  I'll also describe how I work with my college admissions consulting students to professionally guide them in developing their preliminary and final college lists.

Step 1: Start Early

Step 2: Consider Your Assets and Preferences

Step 3: Research Colleges

Step 4: Develop Your Preliminary College List

Step 5: Finalize Your College List

While everyone hopes they'll be able to take the SAT or ACT just once and be done with the process, the reality is that about half of all students take the official test again—even if they had completed an SAT/ACT prep program before their initial testing attempt.  If you’ve taken the official SAT or ACT, and your score has left you wondering whether you should retake the test, what should you do next?  We'll help you answer that question in this post.

Note: This article is for students who have already taken the official SAT/ACT at least once.  If you haven’t taken the official SAT/ACT yet, see this blog post: 

When to Prepare for and Take the SAT/ACT: 3 Questions to Help You Decide.

10^th and 11^th graders: Your SAT or ACT scores will likely play a significant role in your competitiveness when applying to colleges, with 88% of colleges placing considerable or moderate importance on students’ standardized test scores for admissions purposes.¹  Given the importance of your SAT/ACT scores, how should you develop your testing calendar and plans?  In this article, we’ll review three questions to help you decide when you should prepare for and take the official SAT or ACT—including what sophomores should do over the summer to determine whether they may be competitive for National Merit recognition on their junior year PSAT.

Here's everything covered in this post:

• How Should I Approach the SAT/ACT Testing Process? 3 Steps to SAT/ACT Success
• When Should I Take My Practice SAT and ACT?
• When Should I Take My Official SAT or ACT? 3 Questions to Help You Decide
• Next Steps: Checklist for Rising Juniors
• Next Steps: Checklist for Rising Seniors

First, let’s start with a high-level overview of SAT/ACT testing strategy.

SAT Subject Tests could be an important part of your college admissions profile.  In this post, we'll cover critical things to know about SAT Subject Tests—like the fact that there is still a penalty for guessing, unlike the regular SAT.  We'll also discuss other FAQs from Alaska students, including which colleges require SAT Subject Tests, what makes for a competitive score.

At Frontier Tutoring, we encourage every college-bound high school student in Anchorage to take advantage of our free practice SAT/ACT testing at the right time as part of their test prep strategy.  And many do—last year, over 40% of Anchorage School District students who took the SAT/ACT electively signed up for a Frontier Tutoring practice test first.  But why, when, and how, exactly, should you sign up for practice tests?  We’ve put together a few tips to help you get the most out of this important resource and navigate the standardized testing and college admissions process.

Matt F. is a 2017 graduate of South Anchorage High School who completed a College Admissions Consulting program with Frontier Tutoring during the 2016/17 school year.  He also improved his ACT score by four points after taking our ACT Prep Class during his junior year.  Matt is now a freshman at Penn, where admitted applicants have an average high school GPA of 3.84 and SAT score of 1520/ACT score of 34.

In this second installment of our How I Did It series, we're giving you a first-hand account of what it's like to go through the college admissions process with a professional advisor.  Now, let's hear from Matt, along with his mom, Melissa, as they tell us about their experiences working with Frontier Tutoring in a College Admissions Consulting program.