Great College Advice

JANUARY 16, 2024

Why Attend a Liberal Arts College? It’s a four-year investment, so you want to get the most out of your college experience. That’s why you should consider attending a liberal arts college where your personal achievement is important to everyone there, not just to you personally. However, there is a lot of misunderstanding out there in the higher education marketplace.

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Great College Advice

JANUARY 8, 2024

Why and How to Talk to a College Prep Advisor Online It’s no secret that the college admissions process is long and mind-bogglingly complicated. If you’ve decided to seek independent help to guide you through the process, you’re not alone! In today’s digital world, one great option is working with a college prep advisor online. Once you’ve decided to go this direction, you may be left wondering how to talk to a college prep advisor online.

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JANUARY 8, 2024

How long do college admissions take? It’s no secret that the college admissions process is a long and winding road. Most college-bound students (and their parents!) look at this process with apprehension, if not outright fear. But exactly how long do college admissions take? The answer to this question depends on many factors, not least of which is what you personally consider to be the official beginning to this process.

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Great College Advice

NOVEMBER 16, 2023

Let’s face it: high school in America has become exhausting and unpleasant for many high school students. They spend so much time and energy preparing for college that they barely have time to think about what’s important. Many kids are just burned out by the age of 18. As a result, more and more students are asking themselves, “should I take a gap year?

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Great College Advice

OCTOBER 23, 2023

What are the steps to get you into college? One of the great myths about college admission is that the process is merely a matter of doing your best in high school, getting good scores on some tests, writing a decent essay, and then simply submitting your application to the admissions office. Then you just sit back and pray that a college admissions officer will love you enough to give you the keys to the gate.

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Great College Advice

OCTOBER 17, 2023

You wrote an awesome essay. You spent time ensuring your activities list was awesome. You proofread the application a million times. You applied Early Decision or Early Action. But then you learn your application was deferred to regular decision. What do you do when you are deferred from your first choice college? What do you do when you are deferred?

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OCTOBER 10, 2023

Inevitably, when I visit colleges and sit through their information sessions, a question comes from a concerned parent in the audience asking about the school’s acceptance rate (the number admitted divided by the number who applied) for Early Decision versus Regular Decision. The fundamental question? “Is it easier to get in if you apply early decision?

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OCTOBER 6, 2023

When it comes to college-bound students’ impressions of the relationship between financial aid and admissions, anxiety seems to rule the day. Many of my students and families worry that if they check the box on the college application indicating that they will be applying for financial aid that they won’t get in. So this is the question I hear over and over, “does applying for financial aid hurt my college admissions chances?

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Great College Advice

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

The college admissions process can be filled with uncertainty. One source of information that can help reduce the uncertainty — in some respects — are college admissions counselors. But do you know how to write an email to college admissions counselors? If you want to communicate with admissions, it’s best to think carefully about how you will communicate with the humans that populate those offices of admission.

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Great College Advice

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

All the essay prompts for the Common Application ask you to provide evidence of your personal growth. One particular prompt–the personal growth prompt–makes this request more explicit. Here you are asked to look at your circumstances, point of view, and personal understanding, and then provide evidence of how these things might have changed due to some accomplishment, event, or realization.

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Great College Advice

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

Each year, the Common Application asks students to address one of several prompts around which to build their college essay. In this article, we will examine the prompt that focuses on the subject we all wish we could avoid—but cannot: FAILURE. Writing about failure can be difficult, but it also can make for an excellent college essay. Read on to learn how you can turn a failure into a successful college essay.

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Great College Advice

SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

Many families struggle with finding the best time for college tours. With school, work, and extracurricular activities, it can be difficult to plan tours around everyday life. Even though it may be tempting, the upcoming holiday breaks are not the best time to plan your campus visits. Thanksgiving is not the best time for college tours During the week of Thanksgiving, colleges are often open, but the students have already ventured home to be with their families.

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Great College Advice

SEPTEMBER 2, 2023

When you go on college tour, a bulk of the information the tour guide discusses is about student life. The admissions officer will likely talk about ways to get involved, clubs to join, sporting events to attend, and other resources for staying active on campus. What about academics? Often students wonder, “may I sit in on a college class?” May I sit in on a college class?

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Great College Advice

SEPTEMBER 2, 2023

How will you write your Common App essay about a belief or idea? The Common Application prompts give you a chance to answer an interesting question, tell an important or revealing anecdote, and reflect on the ways in which the anecdote reveals something about your character, your beliefs, your values, or your personal priorities. This prompt, especially, focuses on the beliefs that are fundamental to who you are.

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SEPTEMBER 2, 2023

One of the most important factors students think about when deciding which colleges to apply to: where is the best college food? Clearly, this is a very important aspect of your life on campus, and it pays to fully understand your dining options. This post will offer helpful information about how to think about campus catering, and what sorts of questions you should be asking as you investigate the culinary possibilities.

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Great College Advice

AUGUST 29, 2023

Families and students often ask us, “does volunteer work matter for college admissions?” Volunteer work can help your college application stand out, especially at highly selective places like Ivy League schools. You will have the chance to list your volunteer work in the activities section of your Common Application, and you also may be able to write about some of your volunteer work in your essays.

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Great College Advice

AUGUST 29, 2023

Great College Counseling for International Students The United States remains a primary higher education destination for students from around the world. Many American public and private universities rank among the best in the world. As families consider sending their students to the United States to study, they often reach out to Great College Advice for college counseling for international students.

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Great College Advice

AUGUST 30, 2023

Researching colleges and universities can be very overwhelming. From guidebooks to college websites, there is a TON of information out there! But reading sources and statistics can only get you so far. There is one invaluable resource in your college search that should not be overlooked: college admissions counselors. If you have the opportunity to connect with a college admissions counselor, whether that is face-to-face on a campus visit or college fair or over email, it is crucial to know what

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Great College Advice

AUGUST 30, 2023

This month we are providing tips on how to write the perfect college essay. We have already discussed how the main focus of your essay needs to be YOU and how you need to “go deep” with you essay by writing about something personal. Now that you have considered what you want to say, you need to focus on how to say. When it comes to questions about the structure of your personal statement, we always begin with this essential piece of advice: Tell a Good Story.

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AUGUST 31, 2023

How Much Does College Counseling Cost? Is It Worth the Price? What is college counseling? How much does college counseling cost? These are important questions for parents of college-bound kids. As the college application process has gotten more complex and more competitive, the amount of support for college applicants has blossomed. There are books, YouTube channels , Facebook groups, businesses , and individuals all geared toward helping high school students navigate the college application pro

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AUGUST 31, 2023

Do you dream of studying in the United States? Are you Brazilian? This guide will help you understand the American higher education system and provide you with tops about how to apply to US universities from Brazil. How many students apply to US universities from Brazil? Every year, the Institute of International Education (IIE) publishes statistics on international students studying in the United States.

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Great College Advice

SEPTEMBER 1, 2023

As the college admissions process becomes ever more complicated and stressful–and expensive–more and more families are asking the question, “Do I need a college counselor?” While not every family needs personalized guidance through the college admissions maze, many do. To determine whether you need a professional college counselor, consider these seven factors.

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Great College Advice

SEPTEMBER 1, 2023

What senior year courses should you take to prepare for the college admissions process? Does the senior year even count? Do seniors even have to worry about high school at this point? These are the questions on the mind of high school students as they near the end of their junior year and look forward to their final year of high school. By this point, most college-bound juniors are knee-deep in college visits, building college lists, thinking about the dreaded SAT and ACT tests, and trying to k

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AUGUST 25, 2023

What looks good on a college application? If I had a nickel for every time a parent or student asked me this question, I’d be a very rich man. This is the key question, isn’t it? After all, in the United States, our admissions process is very subjective. Colleges talk about how the process is “holistic.” But that’s just a kinder way of saying, “we don’t really have any solid, firm criteria, so we sort of follow our nose and make decisions on each applic

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AUGUST 22, 2023

Who would be the best college counselor for Ivy League schools? The college application process gets more complicated and more stressful every year, especially for ambitious, Ivy-bound students. With such a high-stakes, complex decision looming, it’s no wonder more and more families are turning to independent college counselors for guidance through the process.

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Great College Advice

AUGUST 23, 2023

What is the University of San Francisco known for? I seem to have been visiting quite a few Jesuit colleges lately and like them for a lot of reasons. I need to write a post on Jesuit colleges generally. But first, I offer this bit about what is University of San Francisco known for, which I was fortunate to be able to visit yesterday as part of a tour for college counselors.

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AUGUST 23, 2023

A college essay isn’t just an abstract writing assignment. It’s a piece of writing that you undertake for a very specific purpose: to give college admissions officers the evidence they need in order to admit you to their school. In order to write the most compelling essay that you can, it is crucial to ask: what do college admissions look for in an essay.

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AUGUST 23, 2023

SAT. ACT. TOEFL. PSAT. These tests loom large in the college admissions process. And yet, every student seems to be asking these days, “do my test scores matter?” No other aspect of the college preparation process generates as many questions—and anxieties—as the standardized tests. On the one hand, you should not tress too much about your scores.

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Great College Advice

AUGUST 24, 2023

How many colleges should I apply to? I get this one all the time: How many colleges should I apply to? The answer to this question is simple: at least one. But before you dismiss the simple answer as a weak attempt at wit, consider this: you can attend only one college. Or for those who transfer from one college to another, you can attend only one college at a time.

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AUGUST 18, 2023

I’ve been getting the question often this year: “Can I make more than one version of the Common App?” There are lots of reasons why applicants might want to submit more than one version of the Common App. However, there are many situations in which you do NOT need to make an entirely new version of the Common Application. Let’s look at those first.

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AUGUST 17, 2023

College admissions interviews are an important element of the application process. However, there are several different types of college admissions interviews. This post provides important tips to help you prepare for the different types of college admissions interviews so that you can demonstrate your abilities, show your enthusiasm for a college, and share your sparkling personality.

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Great College Advice

AUGUST 17, 2023

At Great College Advice, we are offer all sorts of advice on the perfect college essay. Here we focus on college essay introduction examples. In other posts, we have cover the importance of searching for the right topic by making sure the essay focuses on YOU , and by digging deep so that your essay is personal. We also discussed the importance of telling a good story and what to do if you are just stuck.

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Great College Advice

AUGUST 3, 2023

How to write the perfect college essay? You have to paint a picture. The Portrait Example Let me explain. Visuals might help. So let’s start by looking at this portrait of King Philip IV of Spain by Velazquez. A portrait like this is fairly static: no movement, no grand story to tell. It’s just a guy wearing a fancy outfit. But what makes this portrait interesting?

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AUGUST 3, 2023

Does where you live affect your chances of admission? The answer is yes. Which for some could be a bad thing. For others, it’s a bonus! Does where you live affect your chances of admission? It should come as no surprise that factors such as grades, test scores, activities, and recommendations are considered in the college admissions process.

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AUGUST 3, 2023

Lots of students wonder how to write the perfect college essay. As you begin to draft your college essay, you have to consider your audience. You have to remind yourself that the poor, tired admissions officer who is reading it may have read 50 other essays in the previous nine hours. He is tired. He is cold (it’s the dead of winter and he is huddled up next to his electric space heater).

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Great College Advice

AUGUST 3, 2023

Fall is the time of year where admissions counselors everywhere hit the road. They stand at college fairs, conduct interviews in hotel lobbies and coffee shops and visit four to five high schools a day, all to promote their school and spread the word to potential applicants. But do you know what to expect at a college reception? One of the most important goals a college counselor has is to bring a little bit of their college to a student who may not have the opportunity to visit or is consideri

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AUGUST 3, 2023

AP or IB? A prospective client emailed me yesterday with a question that is regularly asked of me when I give presentations on college admission. Which is better, Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB)? Do colleges find one more impressive over the other? In my opinion, both the AP and IB programs are equally valuable. In that the exams associated with those courses provide an external measure of quality.

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