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The Chinese are Coming! This emphatic title lured me and dozens of fellow NACAC (National Association of College Admissions Counselors) conference attendees into a session exploring the expanding impact of Chinese nationals on college admissions in America. It turns out this title was only a setup for a punch line: The Chinese are Coming? The Chinese are here. And this is not news. The presence of China is now firmly established on the world stage. Anyone who happened to watch the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics, anyone who has stepped foot into a Walmart in the last decade, anyone who has taken a peek at the US trade balance or our list of national creditors knows unequivocally that the Chinese are here.

And it’s no surprise that Chinese nationals are entering our universities in record numbers. Our institutions of higher learning have always been the crown jewels of the US educational system. For decades highly talented and ambitious Chinese nationals have made their way to our shores to attend our graduate schools, and now they are coming with increasing numbers to our undergraduate schools.

Perhaps we should be flattered that our institutions of higher learning are so esteemed. Perhaps we should be a bit nervous, as the title of this session insinuated. Perhaps we simply need to adapt to the new reality. Other sessions at NACAC advocated this course of action, boasting titles such as: How to Recruit Chinese Nationals.

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The most important thing to remember is that your junior-year grades are the most important grades on your transcript. The classes you will take in your junior year are the most similar to those you will see in college—assuming there are APs in the mix, and the schools you apply to will want to see academic strength at this level. Ideally, you’d like to show some sort of upward trend in your grades from previous years if your grades were not all A’s.

You should have taken the PSAT in October. You should take your first SAT any time from November to March. If your PSAT scores are not as high as you would like them to be, you should consider starting your SAT prep sooner rather than later. Take a little time to research the middle 50% of the incoming freshmen classes’ SAT scores (collegeboard.com) at colleges that interest you. If you start in January, you have about a year to achieve the scores you need. To estimate an SAT score from your PSAT score, use the table below:

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Notes from NACAC

During the 3-day national conference of the National Association of College Admission Counselors (NACAC), I had the opportunity to meet with college admission counselors, high school counselors and educational researchers from across the country. More than 5,000 individuals attended the conference to gain insight into the many changes underway in the world of college admissions: changes in admission criteria, technological developments, new financial realities and the increasing internationalization of American education. Naturally, I gravitated towards all break-out sessions involving the collegiate assessments and their role in the admissions process. Over the course of several short installments, I will impart to you the main lessons I took away from the conference.

Part 1: Technology on the rise in the admissions process

I will never forget the painstaking process of typing up my official application to Penn in the fall of 1993; that was the last time I used a typewriter. A year later I was learning how to navigate the Mosaic browser, surf the web, and send an e-mail. A short year after that, I was logging in to virtual classrooms to chat with my teachers and classmates.

The technologies that were in their infancy when I applied to college have matured to the point of now transforming the face of college admissions. Paper applications are historical artifacts; communications are now taking place by e-mail, Skype and YouTube; colleges are promoting themselves via student blogs, virtual college fairs and podcasts. Vast social networks have transformed the manner in which people learn about schools and communicate with one another.

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Only one thing stands in the way of your well-deserved Winter Break. The dreaded “f-word”: FINALS. Since you are a smart student, you have been studying all along, especially if your teachers are preparing cumulative exams. However, everyone can use a little help. Below are a few tried and true tips for getting the most out of your study time.
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A New Moon is rising. At the end of the week the second installment of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga will be in theaters. Now that you’ve read all the books and will have seen both movies, what will you do to entertain yourself during your long winter break? To avoid a winter of discontent, check out our book list below. Find books you’ll enjoy based on your favorite pop culture pleasures.

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The Duke TIP program may be for your student.

What is the Duke TIP?

Duke TIP stands for the Duke University Talent Identification Program.  It is a non-profit educational organization that focuses on identifying academically talented students and providing them with programs to help encourage their development.
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Appelrouth Tutoring Service is holding a mock PSAT on October 3rd for students who believe they are close to the cut-off for National Merit Commendation. Our data indicate that most students will get a “bump” on the 2nd and 3rd iterations of taking the PSAT. Generally, the most significant increase will occur on the 2nd test followed by an additional “bump” on the 3rd test. There is clearly a “testing” effect, in which familiarity and increased comfort with the test lead to enhanced performance.

Your child is cordially invited to take a FREE practice exam at our site, conveniently located in Toco Hills at the corner of Briarcliff and Lavista, on October 3rd at 9:15 AM.

Seating is limited to the first 50 students.

What is the PSAT?

The PSAT/NMSQT stands for Preliminary SAT / National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. It is offered during the student’s junior year in either October or November, depending on the particular high school. It is a standardized test that is approximately two hours and twenty minutes long, with two 25-minute critical reading sections, two 25-minute math sections, and one 30-minute writing skills section. The test consists of 48 critical reading questions, 38 math questions, and 39 writing skills question. The PSAT/NMSQT does not require students to recall specific information from classes.

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As a college-bound high school student you probably took the PSAT in the fall of your sophomore year. Whether you did well, or not so well, those scores are not used for consideration in the program. About a year later, as a junior, you will take the PSAT again – this one counts. Sometime during the spring of your junior year, the NMSC (National Merit Scholarship Committee) determines a qualifying score for “Commended” recognition—this usually goes to the top 50,000 scores (generally around the 96th percentile).

What happens if you made it past the “Commended” cut?

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Online education and online tutoring are not all about students sitting in a dark room by themselves, plowing through problem after problem. With today’s advancements in social networking technology and communication over the internet, learning online has become as personal as being in the classroom.

And it might even be more effective…

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What is the best way to increase your Critical Reading score on the SAT or ACT? READ MORE! Reading a diverse array of material – news articles, science features, works of fiction – will help you develop the skills necessary to read and comprehend thoroughly the passages you will see on standardized tests. Reading critically is also a lifelong skill that will be valuable long after you receive your scores. So, when the boring car and plane trips to grandma’s house for winter break begin, why not brush up on your reading? Please consider the following list our suggestion for broadening your scope. Enjoy!

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Appelrouth Tutoring Services has officially set up shop in the Tri-State Area (NY, NJ, and CT) and the Greater Metropolitan Washington D.C. Area. Two of our best tutors from Atlanta (Laura Dickey and Annie Harris) are primarily responsible for carrying Appelrouth’s strong reputation to these new markets.

We’d like to thank all the parents in Atlanta (and beyond) who have helped make this possible! If you have any friends or family in these new areas, please let them know about your experiences with us.

You’ve spent three solid years building your high school resume. But you’re not in yet! The following is a list of “must dos” for your senior year to help ensure acceptance into your top-choice schools.

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Everyone is looking for ways to save during the back-to-school season. We at Appelrouth have come up with a list of things you can do to help cut your costs.

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Don’t miss the FREE college admissions seminar with ATS founder Jed Appelrouth this Wednesday. If you can’t attend in person, click here to register for the live broadcast. Once registered, you’ll receive a reminder email Wednesday morning with information on how to join the webinar at 7:30 PM EST that night. Registration isn’t necessary, you can use the same link on Wednesday night to view the presentation. Keep checking our website for more details.

Email or Twitter message us your questions ahead of time, and Jed will answer as many as possible live during the webinar.

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The early bird gets the worm, right? Well, maybe in the great outdoors this is the case, but in the high stakes game of college admissions, early decision is not the panacea some might believe. A student with substandard scores and grades will not be admitted to Harvard just because he chose to apply early decision. So if early decision isn’t a guaranteed ‘get-in’ card, what is it good for?

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Are you jaded with your SAT vocabulary list?  Have you spent your tranquil summer cultivating your knowledge of the English language? Are you resigned to learning a truncated list of words that may appear on the SAT? Well how felicitous that you stumbled upon this blog post. We have recently compiled an additional vocabulary list of the most often occurring vocabulary words on the SAT that didn’t make our first cut. This list will be available to tutors in the next few weeks. We will also add additional Overachiever vocab quizzes online for your further edification.

Okay, you’re a junior, now what? Junior year is the absolute best time to begin the test-preparation process. Almost all college-bound juniors will take the PSAT in October of their junior year. If you get a good score on the PSAT, we highly recommend taking your first SAT in November or December of that same year. If not, plan to take your first SAT in January or March after you have prepped a little.

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Have you ever wanted to attend a free college admissions seminar with ATS founder Jed Appelrouth but didn’t have the time or realized that you live on the other side of the country? Then mark down July 22, 2009 on your calendar as the day you can watch the presentation live, streamed over the internet. Watch from home, at the beach or anywhere with an internet connection. The event kicks off at 7:30 PM Eastern with an hour long presentation and 30 minutes of questions and answers with parents and students. Email or Twitter message us your questions ahead of time and Jed will answer as many as possible live during the webcast. To watch the live stream, just visit our homepage that Wednesday night.

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Well, whatever you want to call it, we are doing it! Yes, that’s right, techno-savvy readers, we have joined the ranks of Ashton Kutcher and CNN. We are now on Twitter. Come see what we are tweeting. And, if you have your own account, you can follow us! Perhaps one million followers seems like an astronomical goal, but, hey, we are over-achievers.