Mr. K's College Knowledge

The first of November is usually an exciting time with Thanksgiving right around the corner, and the rest of the holiday season not too far behind. However, for many seniors, Thursday, November 1 st , 2012 is a day they have had circled on their calendar for many months, for an entirely different reason. This is the Early Action deadline for many of the competitive colleges and universities across the county. Another popular Early Action deadline is November 15 th and you many see a few schools that have Early Action a little later than that. Since the Early Action season is near, I thought it would be appropriate to explain early application plans, and everything that goes into them. First, it is very important to understand that applying under Early Action, will NOT improve a student’s chances of admission. Since EA is non-binding, it does not benefit a school to accept a student who is on the border, as that student is not committing himself to the college. Additionally, th...

People often say that death and taxes are the only two things we can be sure of in our lives. Well for high school students, you can add one more to that list, and that is ‘standardized testing’. For some this is no big deal, and for others, this can be a very scary thought. There are tests to get you into high school, college, graduate school, professional schools, and tests to keep you enrolled in these schools. After that, there are tests to gain professional certificates and then to keep those certificates. As someone who was never a good test-taker, I wish tests  didn't  exist, but they do and we all better get used to that fact. For high school juniors and seniors, the SATs and ACTs are a very important part of the college application process. Although some schools have started going test-optional, which means they do not consider a student’s standardized test scores for admission, there are still many questions about the effectiveness of this option. This is a ver...