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There’s a great article in today’s NY Times: Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits.  It spells out some valuable strategies for parents to help their kids get an edge on studying more effectively.

I wanted to outline the main points in the article and add some commentary from my own research and experience.

1) Learning styles and teaching styles: the evidence is just not there

Although we love to talk about learning styles and insist that certain individuals are visual learners, while others are kinesthetic learners, there is no consistent and compelling empirical data to support the learning style theory.   (read more…)

The Associated Press reported yesterday that ACT, Inc. released a report indicating that across the country this year’s Spring ACT scores fell from those in 2009.  ”Last spring’s high-school seniors averaged a composite score of 21.0 on the test’s scale of 1 to 36, down slightly from 21.1 last year and the lowest score of the last five years. ”

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You can lead a horse to water, but how can you get it to study its SAT vocabulary? This is the challenge that test-prep coaches have dealt with for years. How do we motivate others? Specifically, how do we influence and motivate teenagers?

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Two friends of mine in the world of Educational Consulting recently published a book which is completely aligned with my philosophy of writing college essays.  Evan Forster and David Thomas, educational consultants in Manhattan, wrote The MBA Reality Check: Make the School You Want, Want You. This book focuses on applying to MBA programs, but all of its lessons are applicable to students applying to college. (read more…)

U.S. News & World Report released their college ranking list today. It should come as no surprise that the Top 3 National Schools are Harvard, Princeton and Yale, in descending order. I imagine Harvard is the only school on that short list who is not disappointed with its position. (read more…)

The required PSAT score to be recognized as a National Merit Semifinalist varies from state to state every year.  This year, the states with the highest cutoff score of 221 were Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington, DC. The state with the lowest cutoff score was Wyoming with 201. Georgia’s cutoff score was 214.

Did your dorm have a heated pool or maid service? Mine didn’t. Then again, I didn’t pay anywhere near $10,000 a semester for room and board. I can’t say the same for many students attending colleges and university’s this fall. NPR’s Planet Money has an interesting article comparing the most expensive college dorms in the country. Maybe this is the reason college loan debt has surpassed credit card debit in America.