College is just around the corner for many kids and most will have questions about how to fund this endeavor. Savings, student loans, grants and scholarships are all part of covering college fees, but scholarships can provide great benefits because unlike loans, scholarship payouts do not have to be repaid. Free money essentially — provided you (more…)

The College Board reported Tuesday that the high school class of 2007 had the lowest combined math and reading scores since 1999. Reading scores fell from 503 to 502, math scores dropped from 518 to 515 and the writing section saw a drop of 3 points from 497 to 494. All scores are out of a possible 800 points.

Why the drastic drop? The College Board — the firm that runs the SAT claims the test’s new redesign lead to lower scores, plus they say that an increased diversity in the pool of students taking the SAT is another reason scores took a tumble this year. In this vein they cite the following statistics: (more…)

According to The Washington Post the College Board, the firm that runs the SAT test and NCS Pearson, the company that scans SAT answer sheets announced last Friday that they will pay nearly $3 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over the botched scores of thousands of SAT taking students. About 4,400 of the 500,000 students who took the test in October 2005 were affected by an answer sheet scanning problem. The affected students filed a lawsuit citing that they mistakenly received lower scores as a result of the scanning issue. Per the settlement, (more…)

SAT Vocabulary Building Manga?

For SAT students that dread traditional vocabulary building techniques but love manga media, there is a new product on the market — the manga graphic novel edited to contain SAT vocabulary words. Take a popular fantasy book, rewrite it a bit to include SAT required vocabulary words and you have an academic twist on a manga story. (more…)

As part of this summer’s alpha test of ePrep’s new SAT prep product, ePrep for the SAT, students were required to submit essays that I agreed to hand-grade. Since grading essays always gets me thinking about some of the common mistakes that keep students from scoring high on the essay, I though I would share a few while they are fresh in my mind. (more…)

We conclude our question and answer session with expert Don Betterton with a question submitted by Maha:

Do you have any financial aid tips (including Princeton) that you could give to homeschooled students? How does financial aid actually work? Is it like a loan – if one applies for financial aid and the college gives the student money to pay for the courses, classes, etc., would the student have to pay the college back later on?

This concludes my discussion with Don to the great questions posted to ePrep. We’ll be grabbing Seamus Malin for our next round of questions. If you’d like to have your question heard regarding college admissions and financial aid, be sure to post it here!

Standard Podcast Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We continue our question and answer session with expert Don Betterton with a question submitted by Masha:

Is financial aid available for international students?

(more…)

Standard Podcast [ 2:11 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We continue our question and answer session with expert Don Betterton with a question submitted by Luke:

Let’s say you indicate, on your application, that you will be applying for financial aid. Will this affect your chances of being admitted? I was just wondering.

(more…)

Standard Podcast Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hard to believe it’s been a year since I first launched ePrep.com. The time certainly flew. Together with colleagues and guest experts, we’ve developed quite an online following from students, parents and educators. Thank you for your continued interest and voice in the discussion.

As I posted weeks ago, I’ve been working with a great team for the past year to develop what we believe will be the most effective SAT study program on the market. You can get a tiny sliver of the experience from our online demo (it’s just the tip of the iceberg!). We’re in alpha testing mode right now and expect to launch the service very soon. Rest assured, this ePrep blog will continue to serve up engaging (and free) test prep, (more…)

We continue our question and answer session with expert Don Betterton with a question submitted by Gary:

Does grade 9 in high school matter at all? I heard from a couple friends in Princeton that American universities don’t take grade 9 into consideration when you are applying to them. Is this true?

(more…)

Standard Podcast [ 2:05 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download