It’s about time! The CollegeBoard, perhaps partly in response to my blog post complaining about the problem (RSS, SAT, OMG!), finally added RSS to the SAT Question of the Day!
Enjoy, folks. If you have any questions about taking advantage of this service to the fullest extent, read this post or get in touch. I’ll be happy to help you out.
Many of my younger friends have been asking me what I did to prepare for my SATs. Watching their eagerness, anger, and elation really brought back the non-too-distant memories of what it was like to grapple with the test. This post is my response to their anxiety.
Besides a review book, I never paid any person or service for help in preparing for the SAT. I’m frugal as it is, and paying for help when it comes to something like this felt dirty to me. However, looking back at my own experience, I fully recommend a paid service. The SAT is just too important not to fully prepare for. If my scores were higher, which I believe an intense paid service may have done, I may have gotten into my reach school. You never know.
In my case, I had a very passive study path for the test. One of the few things I did in preparing for my first spar with the exam was to familiarize myself with its setup; that’s where the review book from the Princeton Review came in handy. I learned about the types of questions and became familiar with the caliber of reading, writing, and mathematics questions given.
The most important component of anything I did for the SAT, though, was to use the CollegeBoard’s SAT Question of the Day service, every single day. Hands down, it’s the best way to prepare. Just do it.
One of more distinctive things I did in preparing for the test was carry around my Hipster PDA. The Hipster PDA is a stack of index cards held together with a binder clip, as invented by Merlin Mann, one of my heroes.
On one side, I kept my next actions list, which is similar to a to-do list. On the other side, I wrote down words I saw or heard in real life that I didn’t know. When I got home that day, I looked the word up and wrote its definition down on another card. On my bus rides and other commutes, I’d review all of the words I’d accumulated.
After following these steps, here were my scores:
Critical Reading: 680
Mathematics: 680
Writing: 730
Total (of 1600): 1360
Total (2400): 2090
At that point, I wanted to bring the two important sections’ scores up: critical reading and mathematics. For me, I was disappointed in my math score. I knew I could have done better, but I reasoned that the length of the test got to me. Critical reading was an uphill battle; it was the section I was weakest at, the one where I’ve always had the most problems.
Over the summer and into the early portion of my senior year, I did a few things. First, I watched the video podcasts from ePrep; they were useful for strategizing and were entertaining, too. I also started listening to This American Life, an entertaining and enlightening public radio program from Chicago Public Radio. Just like reading, something I definitely should have done more of, listening to public radio expands the mind. I read my usual summer amount, which admittedly isn’t much. However, I started listening to audiobooks, which fit much better into my lifestyle. Of course, I continued to take my SAT Question of the Day and write down words I didn’t know on my Hipster PDA.
What’s the takeaway here? I didn’t prepare for my second SAT. I just lived an intellectually healthy lifestyle by taking in useful information through podcasts, blogs, and audiobooks. The biggest component of that was not watching television; I recommend eliminating the stupidity box from your life. Although there is good, compelling content on TV, most of it is pure filth.
And for my elitism, what did I get? I brought up my scores quite a bit.
Critical Reading: 760
Mathematics: 750
Writing: 740
Total (of 1600): 1510
Total (2400): 2250
If I had to prepare for the test yet again, I’d spend almost all of my free time at FreeRice, the altruistic and mind-enriching vocabulary game.
Happy studying!
I’ve been taking some time away from my “online presence” to tend to some real life stuff that’s dominating my world. Believe me, I miss it; limiting my blogging, twitter, RSS, and podcast time is difficult at best. I feel so disconnected.
I’ll be taking a few more days off, but until then, I have a few thoughts about experiences with admissions offices.
I got mail from Lafayette College and RPI last week. The contents of the mail typifies my overall experience with the schools. RPI sent me a very pretty box containing an object that I’d really lost interest in – the Rensselaer Medal. After all this time, I finally received the physical object that accompanies the scholarship I received there; to be honest with you, it isn’t all that impressive. It’s more like the Rensselaer keychain than anything else and it feels too hoity-toity for my taste, much like the entire RPI experience from the mouthes of their admissions officers.
A complete contrast, Lafayette College sent me a letter containing this:
Thank you for notifying us of your decision to withdraw your application for admission to Lafayette College.
Best wishes for a successful conclusion to your senior year. If we can be of assistance to you at any time, please do not hesitate to contact me or any other member of the admissions staff.
After spending a considerable amount of time on the Lafayette campus and more time corresponding with the school’s admissions office, I really believe their offer of help.
Always – it’s all about the brand.
I visited Tufts University today with my family. I’m typing this up from my hotel room, somewhere in Boston, after a nice hot shower – a very nice hot shower. I must say, I haven’t had a shower that nice in years. And after waking up at 5 a.m. and driving 3.5 hours on various interstates… yeah, that shower was a fantastic way to end the day.
But I digress. This is a serious post about serious business – where I’m go to college. It’s coming down to the wire for me. I must decide between two schools that gave me great deals, Lafayette and Tufts. However, that’s a decision for another day. Let’s talk about my visit to Tufts.
It was a beautiful day and the campus was stunning. Everything went swimmingly and I really liked the place. I went to a question and answer session for admitted students, a basic information session, and a tour. The question and answer session was surprisingly helpful while the information session was useless. No big deal, the tour was awesome.
My group’s tour guide was hilarious and wacky. He was frank, told us things he did and did not like about the school, and had a really awesome Boris and Natasha t-shirt. He was either the most honest tour guide I’ve ever had or a master salesman. Either way, I was sold.
Every school has its big themes, parts of the school’s experience that prospective students hear about every five minutes while on campus. Tufts, as expected, had the “liberal arts college with impressive engineering” angle. Sure, that’s great and all, but I’ve heard that one before. On the other hand, they threw around the idea of the potential of a campus that has sufficient on-site opportunities for its students while also being located near a major city. That’s very tempting and requires some thought on my part, and I’d appreciate any thoughts you may have.
I honestly don’t know what to make of it. I liked Tufts, can picture myself there, and have been given a stellar financial aid package. I’m going to take a few days to let the reality distortion field wear off and try some level-headed decision making.
Of course, I’ll post that analysis here. In the meantime, I hope you’ll pardon my grammar and flawed thought processes in this post. I’m exhausted and need to get some sleep. I’ll be sure to come back and clear up this post tomorrow, but I wanted to get some content out to you all as soon as possible.
Two days later, update: The grammar wasn’t all that bad. Nice.
I have an interview with an MIT alumnus on January 9th.
Advice? I’m talking personal advice, not anything that I could get from Google. But really, I’d be grateful for anything, really.
Last Thursday night, I submitted all of my college applications. I’ve been too sick and busy Christmas shopping to make the post with the good news. I plugged in the last piece of information, my SAT chemistry score, checked them over, and pressed submit.
I now wait.