Preparing For The Best Colleges

As parents, we all want our child to get into the best college or university. Striving to get into a top University is a great achievement, but to get accepted into an Ivy League College is even better. Many notable and accomplished people have attended Ivy League colleges. Ivy League college's education tend to open more job opportunities, high salary pay, and high status jobs for your child's future. Here are a list of qualifications Ivy League' administrators look for in an applicant:

1. Excel Academically: GPA is the primary feature Ivy League' administrators look in at an applicant's resume or admission form. On average, Ivy League Colleges seek students with a GPA of 3.7 - 4.0. It is not always easy to earn a high GPA, especially if you are juggling multiple responsibilities such as a part-time work or an after school activity. Sometime, kids need some extra help with their school work, therefore it is best to find a tutor for your child. There are many tutors to choose from with various level of expertise. See were your child struggle the most in school subjects and hire a tutor that can help solve that problem. Tutors are beneficial in raising your child test score and eventually their GPA. If your child can be selected as his or her high school's valedictorian, which would require a 4.0 GPA, that will also help increase your child chances of getting into an Ivy League College.

2. Score High in College Entrance Exams: SAT score is the secondary feature Ivy League' administrators look at on an applicant's resume or admission form. SAT scores for Ivy League Colleges acceptance typically range between 2,100-2,400 total. The breakdown for each SAT exam scores are the follow:

Reading: 630-800

Mathematics: 670-800

Writing: 670-800

These scores are very difficult to achieve. A lot of time are needed to study and prepare for the SAT exams. One way that can help your child score high on the exam is having them take a SAT Prep class or hire a personal SAT tutor. These options are helpful in getting your child to learn how to manage their time well while taking the exam as well as learn techniques that can help them find the answers to the questions more quickly.

3. Participate in Extra Curricular Activities: Volunteering in non-profit organizations or community services, playing sports, or joining school clubs, are all great ways to boost your child resume or admission form. By participating in extracurricular activities, Ivy League' administrators can see that your kids have talent, leadership skills, can take on responsibility as well as have work experience and be able to multitask.

4. Win Competitions/Awards: An excellent way for your kid to stand out among other applicants, is to participate and win an award or competition. It could be in anything, such as sports, science fair, singing competition, art contest, spelling bee, debate, or a local pageant. As long as your kids can demonstrate competitiveness, leadership skills, the ability to take initiative, have a strong will and desire to win, having a never-giving-up mentality, and are accomplished, these are all great quality Ivy League' administrators want in their students. Winning an award or competition, tells Ivy League' administrators that these kids will excel in their college as well as eventually becoming very successful once they've graduated.

1) Emma Watson - While attending Brown University she decided that going back and forth between the UK and college was too stressful so she decided to pursue her film career. She's a perfectionist and thought that maintaining her grades and traveling all the time would be too hard and she didn't need the stress.

2) David Duchovny - He received his undergrad degree at Princeton and then his masters at Yale. He started his doctorate degree at Yale as well but decided this wasn't for him so he choose to pursue acting and fled to New York City where he starred in a ...... beer commercial.

3) Claire Danes - She attended Yale for a roughly two years before she called it quits and moved to Hollywood to focus on her acting career. Most people would call her crazy but she obviously made a great choice. She played "Angela Chase" in "My So-Called Life" (1994). She won an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe award for her performance. Her career has taken off since, playing "Juliet", opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996). After making Brokedown Palace (1999), Danes took a break from her acting career to complete her education at Yale. She returned to the screen in 2002 and continued acting in such varied project as The Hours (2002), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) and Stardust (2007).

4) Matt Damon - He attended Harvard as an English major and started skipping his classes to attend auditions where he landed a role in "School Ties" and he got to play a student. That decision wasn't so bad was it?

5) Jake Gyllenhaal - He decided Columbia University wasn't what he wanted at the time and dropped out to attend the Hollywood School of Movie Stardom. I mean who wouldn't want to take that over Columbia? Although he has done well in life, he does wish to go back to school one day to earn his degree.

Are you ready to take your SAT's? Well before you decide to go off and take the SAT's, I wanted to provide pointers and helpful tips to prepare for the big test. What most people don't understand when taking a the SAT's is they should be completely relaxed and have a clear mind. Going into the test nervous and stressed doesn't work well. Remember that studying for the SAT's isn't easy so don't cram the studying all in one night.

Schedule a time to sit down and study each week to prepare for the SAT's. Remember a tutor can be a great decision to prepare for the SAT's. They know what's on it and will give you advice to help you succeed. I've always told my students to make sure to get a good nights rest before taking a test of this caliber because the last thing you want is waking up late and rushing to get there. I wanted to provide a check list of items to bring below so you don't forget anything important.

Before heading off here's a checklist of items to bring:

• Your Admission Ticket
• Photo identification
• An Acceptable Calculator
• Two No. 2 Pencils and Eraser
  
  Calculators that are accepted:
  
  • Graphing calculators
  • Scientific calculators
  • Four-function calculators (not recommended)

• Other Items I would recommend bringing:
  
  
  1. Extra Batteries (in case your calculator runs out_
  2. Snacks (The test is long and you'll get a break to eat)
  3. Watch (So you don't loose track of time)