COLLEGE ADMISSIONS PREP
You’ve come to the right spot for a quick overview of my blog posts on all sorts of essential strategies that’ll help you rock your college admissions prep! Click on the blue links to go right to the posts.
COLLEGE VISITS
“Dr. Bernstein’s Guide to Maximizing Your College Visits”: Get my strategies for effectively preparing for your campus visits. I share details about the relationship between college visits and demonstrated interest, fly-in programs (if you cannot afford to do visits), how you can use your visits in your supplemental essays, ideal times to visit colleges, finding opportunities that go beyond the typical admissions information session and campus tour, and the National Association for College Admissions Counseling’s 2017 Admissions Trends Survey. The guide features information on Brown, Carleton College, Carnegie Mellon, Macalester College, Middlebury College, Tulane, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, and Yale.”
ALUMNI INTERVIEWS
“The Worst Alumni Interview Question & How to Answer It”: Learn 3 simple strategies for coming up with a response to this question.
“Preparing for Your Alumni Interview”: Discover how to talk about yourself in authentic, exciting, and meaningful ways.
“Sneak Peek at Yale Alumni Interviewer Reports”: Read excerpts from actual Yale interview reports and get my commentary on them. Learn what Yale has to say about how alumni interviews help admissions officers “distinguish among candidates with similar academic credentials but different levels of maturity” and discover a “common assessment for a large number of [their] applicants who are perfectly admissible, but are unlikely to stand out in the pool.”
“Sneak Peek at Dartmouth Alumni Interviews”: Learn what Dartmouth alumni are asked to learn about you through your interview and report on to the admissions committee.
LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION
“Letters of Recommendation from Famous People”: Many students ask me if getting a recommendation from a famous person will make a difference for them in the college admissions process. Learn why sometimes getting a recommendation from a somewhat less well-known person who truly knows you can wind up being more effective.
“How to Successfully Apply to Engineering Programs at Tufts, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and University of Pennsylvania”: Check out Tip #1 to gain insight into what admissions officers are looking to learn about your character and experiences when they are reading your letters of recommendation from teachers and guidance counselors.
“Earn Great Recommendations for College & Boost Your English Grades”: Access my free resources for boosting your grades in English and writing classes. Learn why even colleges like MIT and Cal Tech require you to have recommendations from teachers in the humanities.
“How to Write a Great Essay: A Professor’s Advice for High School & College Students”: Get 4 tips for writing a great essay and my advice on how to talk with your teachers. Just FYI: Conversations with your teachers can help you earn great recommendations.
“Can You Write a College Recommendation for Your Homeschooled High School Student?”: Understand what colleges prefer in terms of recommendation letters, where you can include a parent recommendation in your child’s college application, and access my free presentation specifically designed for homeschooling students and parents.
STANDARDIZED TESTING
“SAT Subject Tests Uncovered: How to Get Great Scores with Minimal Stress”: This article is written by a current MIT student and provides a comprehensive overview of SAT Subject Tests, strategies on which ones you should take, insight into curves on specific tests, and the student’s own scores.
“Should You Self-Report Your Standardized Test Scores in the Common Application?”: Get my insights on self-reporting your SAT, ACT, SAT Subject Tests, AP scores, TOEFL scores, and more.
EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
“Why UPenn and Harvard Care About Your Extracurricular Activities”: Listen to the perspectives of a University of Pennsylvania admissions officer and Harvard’s Dean of Admission. Get my tips on how to develop your own “unusual achievements” and read a case study.
“How to Successfully Apply to Engineering Programs at Tufts, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and University of Pennsylvania”: Scroll all the way down to Tip #4 to learn about recent trends in engineering programs. You’ll learn what engineering programs at the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, and Rose-Hulman are looking for in applicants to their programs. In addition, I give you tips on how you can take action outside of the classroom by working on projects that solve problems.
“Do Coursera and edX Classes Matter in College Admissions?”: Just engaging in self-directed study and taking online classes won’t make a difference in your college admissions process. However, I’m sharing creative ways you can use these classes to strengthen your expertise and expand your perspective. These strategies will support your genuine personal growth while also helping you put together a more compelling college application package.
LEADERSHIP
“Leadership Matters in the College Admissions & Scholarship Process”: Receive tips for developing your leadership experience and advice on where you should address leadership in your college applications. Learn what Princeton, Duke, the University of Southern California, and Columbia’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science say about leadership.
“Young Leaders Series: Sanah Jivani”: Get inspired by the way this high school student transformed a personal challenge into a much larger movement. Receive my 5 action tips for cultivating your own leadership experience. Learn about Three Dot Dash® and their Global Teen Leaders.
SUMMER PROGRAMS & ACTIVITIES
“Will Summer Programs Help You Get Into College?”: Learn how summer programs can–and can’t–help you in terms of college admissions. Access case studies of how certain programs (in the humanities and STEM fields) have made a difference in my students’ intellectual lives and their college admissions process (including examples of how they’ve integrated summer programs into their application essays).
“Can Summer Reading Lists Make a Difference with College Admissions?”: Does your high school assign summer reading? Get my tips on how you can transform this required reading into something that is a meaningful part of your college preparation process.
CONTESTS AND COMPETITIONS
“Contests & Competitions for High School Students”: Understand the levels of recognition that factor into the college admissions process. Get 3 tips for finding and applying to contests and competitions. Learn about the Letters About Literature contest hosted by The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress (open to students in 4th – 12th grade) and get my recommendations for applying.
“How to Get Published in The New York Times”: Getting published on the New York Times website can help you gain a competitive edge in the college admissions process. Learn about the paper’s contest, get tips on what you should write about, and receive my advice on writing your responses for the contest.
SCHOLARSHIPS
“How to Go to College for Free: Merit-Based Scholarships”: Check out this vlog on full-tuition scholarships at Tulane and learn 4 strategies to increase your chances of going to college for free.
“How to Get College Scholarships: AXA Achievement Scholarship”: Start exploring major scholarship programs like the one offered by AXA and learn how scholarship descriptions can serve as a catalyst for taking action on your interests.
PRODUCTIVITY
“Will This Simple Strategy (Used by a Harvard Grad & President Obama) Help You Get Into College?”: Learn simple strategies for enhancing your productivity to improve your academic performance. Get tips on how to write about your productivity and work habits in your college application essay as well as tips for the Princeton and Columbia writing supplements.
“What’s Your Zone for Peak Academic Performance?”: Start discovering, clarifying, and working in your zone for peak performance.
“How to Make Your Introversion or Extroversion Work to Your Advantage”: Tap into the positive qualities of your personality traits and use them to your advantage in the college preparation and application process. Learn how to figure out if you’re holding back from expressing yourself in school because you’re an introvert or because you fear being judged.