Services

Educational Consultation

Building Superior Academic Portfolios

Students need to show breadth and depth when building superior academic portfolios. While our U.S. Test Prep faculty trains students extremely hard for admissions tests, such as the ACT, SAT, Advanced Placement (AP) tests and GRE, we will also push students hard with school subjects. Instead of only showing strength in one subject, we motivate students to take a variety of challenging subjects. This exemplifies to potential schools how students can be strong in subjects they love, but also can be strong in subjects they may not love. This academic versatility builds confidence and encourages students to target rigorous academic institutions.

Meaningful Extracurricular Activities

College admissions departments will see right through inflated portfolios. These portfolios just stack extracurricular activities that students rarely participate in, or reveal activities that are joined just before applications are due. Academic portfolios should incorporate meaningful extracurricular activities to illustrate well-rounded character and depth. This includes joining athletic teams or social clubs, but also regularly volunteering within communities. We provide creative ideas for individual students and foster them to be game-changers within their academic and social communities. Please visit our sustainability sections or contact our Sustainability Team for volunteering inspiration.

Choosing the Right School

We implore students to work towards schools that are right for them. Targeting schools simply to showcase school brands or names is counterproductive. We advise students to target schools that will give them the most well-rounded education. Students must objectively evaluate what potential schools offer, such as courses, facilities and resources. For example, while some students may prefer large schools, others may prefer small schools so professors can get to know each student. Our educational consultation team holds transparent meetings with families to develop the best list of schools for each student. We kindly remind students to uphold reasonable expectations.

Writing Application Essays

Successful application essays are never those that are copied, exaggerated, nor rushed. On the contrary, the best application essays are those that are genuine, thoughtful and creative. This is why we encourage students to write with transparency. This means illustrating strengths and dreams, but also conceding weaknesses, hardships and vulnerabilities. Application essays require an enormous amount of self-reflection. But this power is what moves readers. While our faculty will guide students as best we can, we are very clear that we will not write application essays for students. Academic honesty must be upheld at all times.

ENGLISH WRITING

In order for me to produce higher quality free-response questions (FRQs), Ryan also gave me training on grammar. Ryan constantly reminded me of my common grammatical errors since I have a tendency to not learn from my careless mistake. This caused me to pay more attention to my use of words and punctuations. Ryan is the strictest tutor I have ever encountered. Although he is strict, the atmosphere was still friendly and we did have good bants. Ryan always supported me and believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself. With his high standards, he only let me off the hook if he was satisfied with my work. I have learned to aim higher and to expect more from myself. I would be lying if I said I enjoyed every one of his classes but I am extremely grateful for everything he has taught me.

The Common Application