What you need for this Saturday’s SAT

Posted by Doreen

The College Board’s next SAT seating is this Saturday, November 4. That means, it’s not too late to order AdmitSpit’s exclusive “SAT/PSAT Vocabulary Association Guide.”

This guide was featured in AdmitSpit’s post titled, “Sentence completion vocab lists: the new and better way.” These booklets only cost you $17, and you don’t even need to pay shipping or handling!

Check out the AdmitSpit Store, and scroll down to the order form to get your own booklet!

(By the way, we ship these booklets just by normal US mail, so no guarentees that they’ll arrive by Saturday, but if you’d like us to ship the booklet faster, send our Managing Editor, Doreen, an email and she can chat with you about shipping options. You’ll find her email address written on the order form at the AdmitSpit store.)

Price update!!! Now all the books are $17. Why the price increase?! Because now AdmitSpit has decided to send all the booklets via priority mail, so that you get them faster!

How “x” does academics: x = Stanford

Posted by John

To begin with an unbiased statement, Stanford is a school known for the well-balanced academic and social lives of its students, its top-tier academics in both fuzzie and techie fields, and its beautiful and enormous campus.

Stanford really is one of the most flexible schools in the US. Students are encouraged to take a wide variety of classes and to combine majors in new and unique ways. Let’s start with an overview of the academic requirements at Stanford, and I’ll then elaborate on how those promote flexibility and such.

Stanford runs on a quarter system rather than a semester schedule. This means that there are three major divisions to the school year: fall quarter (before winter break), winter quarter (until spring break), and spring quarter. There’s also summer quarter, which is about the same length (hence, “quarters”), but that’s primarily

Choosing UC’s extended response, and more

Posted by Helen

In the October 27th post titled, “Basics of the UC essays” I wrote about some essential information you’ll need about going about writing your personal statement for the University of California application. Now, here’s information on how to choose which of the three essays will be your extended response, along with some extra tips I decided to add on! 

How to choose the extended response:

To some an obvious answer may jump out, however to others the choice may be less obvious. One of the best ways to decide which essay will be your extended response is by answering all of the suggested questions for each prompt on a piece of scratch paper. (The questions are found in the AdmitSpit post I wrote titled, “Basics of the UC essays.”) Jot down all information you deem to be relevant. Then, you can then look at the lengths of your different answers, and visually see which prompt you are likely to have the most to write about. This should be your extended response.

General writing strategies:

1. UC is specifically looking to make sure that you think critically about your responses, and write analytically. Make sure you question your responses, and answer the “What?” “Why?” and “How?”
2. To reiterate, these essays are essentially your own recommendations for yourself. Make sure they are persuasive in advocating for your admission.
3. The short responses are only 200 words, so make the most of them. Don’t be verbose or indirect. Go straight to the point! Don’t include excess background information or examples.
4. Make sure your long response supports, not restates, the information on your application.
5. Organization is key! Check your transitions and relevance level for all paragraphs.
6. Lastly, make sure that your personal statements reflect who you are. The best statement in the world is valueless if it is not personal.

Remember, remember the first of November

Posted by Luke

This long-awaited date will be upon us in just four days.

Four days. That’s all you have to write more clichéd epiphanies into your essays and beef up those resumes with newly-discovered extracurriculars, for in four days, all you Early Decision hopefuls must have your applications post-marked, if not already submitted, to your dream school, and then wait the agonizingly long month and a half buying college sweatshirts and waiting for your letter to arrive.

I know most of you have probably already convinced yourselves that it’s your destiny to be accepted to your Early D school. Let me burst your bubble; you’d better wait until April to pop open the champagne. Realistically speaking, most of you will not get the answer you want (or for our arrogant readers: the answer you deserve…) on December 15th.

Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, and Stanford all have acceptance rates around 11-ish percent. That means that you have a 89% chance of not getting in. If you apply to all of these fine schools, your probability of not getting into a single one is (.89)^6, or about 50%. If you apply to other selective schools such as MIT, or even the Ivies with relatively higher acceptance rates, like Brown, UPenn, Cornell, and Dartmouth, your chances of not getting in to any of them is much lower. (I would calculate it for you, but I’m terribly lazy. You can see the AdmitSpit post titled, “Admission statistics for top colleges: 2006“ and do the math yourself).

So, you should apply to schools with higher rates, but, that said, don’t sell yourself

Basics of the UC essays

Posted by Helen

The University of California system will begin its application filing period on Wednesday, and will accept applications through Nov. 30. Since well over 50,000 students will be applying to the University of California, we thought we should talk a little about what you need to know regarding the personal statement portion of the application.

Basics:

1. The application consists of three essay prompts designed to explore the following three areas: the applicant’s academic achievement, potential to contribute, and additional information.
2. The three essays combined are limited to 1,000 words, divided among 2 short responses (200 words) and one long response (600 words). Do NOT break these restrictions. Applicants may choose whichever essay they wish to be the long essay.
3. Remember: The UC system does not accept teacher or counselor recommendation forms. Your personal statement is your chance to be the advocate for your admission, so treat it accordingly!

Prompt #1:

The first prompt on the application is the Academic Achievement Prompt. This

As promised, interview specifics for top schools

Posted by Dee

As promised, here’s the list of interview policies for specific top schools! Sorry if my use of the word ‘alumni’ is grammatically incorrect Latin-wise; I’m sort of still confused with alumni vs. alumnus vs. alumnae vs. alumna vs. alum!

Brown: Interviews recommended but not required. Once application is received, alumni in your area will contact you. If you do want an interview then you’ll set up the time and place at that point. This applies to international applicants where possible too. No on-campus interviews.

CIT: No interviews.

Columbia University: Interviews are not required. Between October and February, a member of Columbia’s Alumni Representative Committee will contact you if an interview is available in the area where your high school is located. So, if you’ve finished high school and not living by your high school anymore, you can’t get an interview. Also, to better your chances of getting an interview, turn in your Application

Response to Pushyami

Posted by Dee

Pushyami left a comment on the site earlier today on the post titled, “College Application Checklist download” regarding setting up interviews. I’m so glad we received the comment because AdmitSpit never has written before about the specifics of actually setting up an interview!

I’ll reproduce the comment below:

“At what stage in high school (junior spring?) and with whom should one set up interviews? Is it enough to call the undergrad admissions office? Is it possible to request an interview with a specific faculty member or a specific department? By the way, this website is a fantastic resource for the college application process!”

First of all, I’m glad you’re finding the site useful! (By the way, if there are topics you really want us to write about, do leave a comment.)

But, about Pushyami’s actual question — actually, I wouldn’t recommend setting up

Typical SAT scores for specific top schools

Posted by Dee

Once again, it seems AdmitSpit readers are wondering about colleges’ standardized testing expectations.

I couldn’t find a comprehensive list anywhere on the Internet that compiles the SAT expectations at each of the top schools, so I created one! The name of each school, along with the math and verbal SAT scores they usually accept and any special notes are provided. This data was taken from each college’s admissions Web site.

Brown: For Verbal, 25.5% admitted with 750-800 score, 16.7% admitted with 700-740, 9.5% admitted with 650-690, 7.9% admitted with 600-640, 7.1% admitted with 550-590, 6.2% admitted 500-540, 2.6% admitted with 450-490, and only 2 students or 1.4% admitted with score less than 450. For Math, 24.6% admitted with 750-800, 16.2% admitted 700-740, 8.3% admitted with 650-690, 8.1% admitted with 600-640, 7.7% admitted 550-590, 4.6% admitted 500-540, 2.7% admitted 450-490, and no one was accepted with less than 450 score in math. 7.2% didn’t submit SAT scores. Data based on the accepted Class of 2010.

CIT: For the Class of 2009, the range of Verbal scores was 460-800, and the range

Do I need a private college counselor?

Posted by Dee

I struggled with this question myself beginning at the very start of high school. At first, I was sure that I needed a private college counselor, but by senior year I never got around to finding one. Overall, college admissions turned out fine for me, but I can’t help going back to this question, wondering if I had hired a private counselor, would things have turned out differently. Better? Or worse?

I think there are several issues you need to keep in mind when deciding if you need a college counselor, and ultimately when you do get one.

First, private college counselors are not inexpensive. As it is, college admissions is a pretty expensive game — from College Board fees to application fees to test prep books, etc. Seeking out a private college counselor is a serious purchase to be considered.

Second, how confused are you about the college admissions process and what resources are available to you at school? Most high schools I know of, both public and private, have some sort of college center that students can go to for college admissions resources. Unfortunately, most of these college centers are serving

Getting your share at the college fair

Posted by Dee

In high school, I was dragged along to several college fairs by friends of mine. I had the preconceived notion that college fairs were a big waste of time, but in retrospect, they can offer you a lot of value if you go about them the right way.

First, you should identify your goals in attending the college fair.

Are you there to get exposure to colleges you wouldn’t have otherwise known about? If this is the case that you want exposure to the various college options, then you should go to the college fair at the start (because it may take you awhile to hit every table or booth), keep an open mind about the colleges you’ll see, and speak to representatives on a more superficial level, asking them generally about their school. Collect handouts or brochures or pamphlets from each school you visit as a reminder of what they were all about, or keep a list of all the schools you see/talk to.

Or, are you at the college fair to get saturation with only a select few colleges? If this