<p>How early is early? Can you start writing the essays the summer before 8th grade or is that too early?</p>
<p>That’s a little early, then again I didn’t find out about prep schools until November</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s a bit WAY too early lol. Wait till your really into the process so you can give detail and focus on what the school wants (your strengths etc) plus would you even know where you were applying summer before 8th grade?</p>
<p>Any idea how much the essay questions change from one year to the next?</p>
<p>Personally, I left all my essays till the week they were due and I have no regrets but that’s just me… Probably not good advice! ;)</p>
<p>I worked on mine over winter break but ended up finishing them pretty close to the deadline. It wasn’t fun for me, but it didn’t seem to matter to them how close to the deadline you submit the essays. If you don’t think you’ll be too busy over break, that’s a great time to do your essays. Don’t postpone everything until then, but you can get most of your work done over break. It’s good to be able to start break knowing what topics you want to do, though, because choosing a topic can take a lot of time for some people.</p>
<p>Somnus
Note it’s “preliminary”. Applying to 20+ schools is insane. </p>
<p>I’m applying to 7-10 schools I guess. It depends on how I procastinate…</p>
<p>Begin in time and then I mean when you receive the damn thing (the application). You have no idea how fast time slips away as I found myself spending better part of December writing essayes. If I hadn’t been fortunate enough to have a editor-in-cheif father that would be an almost impossible feat. Study damn hard for the SSAT again begin in time. Myself I began in August and received a score that I was most content with, same here time is crucial and don’t repeat my mistake by buying several different guides. Buy one and make sure it’s the Princeton review, by all means the most comprehensive and yet understandable guide giving me many helpful tips on the way. Without them my SSAT score wuld’ve been down the tubes (or well atleast the verbal part) practice hard as **** on that part otherwise you won’t stand a chance. If you’re taking the TOEFL it’s a lot easier than you might think. Although I recommend you to buy the official ETS guide and do their practice cd’s. Remember to practice on the speaking parts even if they’re not recorded same with the writing part even if it’s not scored or corrected. That was golden in my case and it gave me a great score.</p>
<p>There’s no secret formula to admisson but here are some very helpful of being succesful:</p>
<p>If you can afford it hire an educational consultant.
Practice way before the test date. But don’t quit even if you’re done with the guide READ IT AGAIN!
Have someone you know read your essay SEVERAL times (preferably someone educated best case is a writer, journalist, editor, english major etc.), spellcheck won’t do
Hand out recommendations to your teachers in time, preferably as soon as you get them.
Begin early, I can’t even mention how important this is.
Don’t overextend yourself. Meaning applying to waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to many schools. Keep it around 5-7 and you should be admitted to atleast one. 20+ schools are just insane and both you and your teachers will go nuts about all the paperwork.</p>
<p>Seriously guys, trust me on this one I just went through this hell and I’m happy the next one is two years away.</p>
<p>WARNING: the following post is a mix of randomness and rambling…ness</p>
<p>is there a certain income that you have to be below in order to get FA, because I’m looking up FA on various school, and my family’s annual income slightly exceeds the average, but my sister is going to college and we have other expenses as well, so would schools take that into account? Sorry, this is random but my sis brought that up and now I’m worried I wouldn’t even qualify because I’m asking for a substantial amount = [</p>
<p>Yeah I decided to go to Exeter as a repeat freshman. Sometimes I wish I came as a sophomore though. Exeter is really open to new lowers (there’s like 60-70 of them). But then I think about all of the stuff I’d be missing out on if I came as a lower. I wouldn’t have the time capsule and I would just basically miss out on prep year. I wanted to get the four year experience and I was an athlete recruit so I got an extra year of sports. It is kind of weird though everyone at home is getting ready for junior year and I’m still a freshman.</p>
<p>bump…I’ve been bumping a lot of threads lately.oh well bump</p>
<p>When I read this stuff I feel like I did nothing… Which I guess is true. Still got in though :D.</p>
<p>what do you mean by that</p>
<p>definitely have some variety. i made the mistake of applying to only reaches (thank god i got into one), so make sure you have some safeties/matches (single-sex schools are good and usually easier to get into).</p>
<p>I mean that I wrote my essays the day before they were due, applied to reaches and didn’t prep for the SSAT. I got lucky though.</p>
<p>Any one know how the scores are reported to schools if you take SSATs multiple/two times? Do they report all the scores or the ones you decide to send them? Do the schools look down upon multiple-test-takers? If you score in the upper 80s/low 90s, is it advisable to retake to get it up to say upper 90s?</p>
<p>What did you feel during the '09 admission process about the order of importance of 1. grades, 2. recommendations, 3. SSATs, 4. Interview, 5. ECs, 6. Hooks etc. in the admission process?</p>
<p>they send/ look at your best scores.</p>
<p>upper 80s/low 90s:
No, that’s still a very good score. and SSATs aren’t even that big of a factor. focus on grades and ECs</p>
<p>Personally in your list I would put SSATs last. The others are a lot more important.</p>
<p>My grades weren’t amazing… My SSAT was good though and my interview fantastic.</p>
<p>I had quite the opposite, grades were very good last year, SSAT score wasn’t too astonishing, TOEFL score was AWESOME and interview went fantastic with every school except for SPS.</p>
<p>Yeah, your english is REALLY good. Better than some of the doofs that come on here…<em>coughthecurrenttrollcough</em></p>