SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips

Francesca Fulciniti

Francesca graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and scored in the 99th percentile on the SATs. She's worked with many students on SAT prep and college counseling, and loves helping students capitalize on their strengths.

Recent Posts

The 12 Best Journalism Schools

It can be hard to find good information on the strength of journalism undergraduate programs. To help you get your college search going, we've rounded up a list of the best journalism schools for aspiring writers, editors, and reporters.

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Free ACT Practice Tests: Massive Collection of Online Sources

When you're trying to prepare for the ACT, the last thing you want to worry about is finding ACT practice tests. To help make the process a little less stressful for you, we've compiled this huge list of sources for free ACT practice tests and questions.

Not all practice tests are created equal, though. For each test source, I'll talk about how you can use the practice material to best prepare for the ACT.

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The 12 Best Fashion Schools in the US

Thinking about entering the fashion industry? You're in for a fun, challenging career path. If you want to be well-prepared to enter any area of fashion—either it's the design side or the business side—an education at a well-reputed school will definitely be helpful.

Before getting into the list of best fashion schools, I'll talk a bit about why you might want to attend a fashion school and how I compiled these rankings.

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How to Create a Perfect Bright Futures Application

The Florida Bright Futures scholarships are great funding options for Florida residents who want to stay in the state for college or vocational school. All four awards are easily renewable, which means you could significantly cut your college expenses for several years.

You might think there’s some complicated paperwork involved in submitting the Florida Bright Futures scholarship application. As it turns out, much of the process is streamlined and automated —you actually don’t have to jump through too many hoops to apply. The eligibility requirements are a bit of a different story, but once you meet those, the application process should be pretty easy.

In this post, we'll briefly explain about eligibility requirements before moving on to the application timeline. We end with tips and strategies you can use to submit the best possible Bright Futures application.

 

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Complete Guide to the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship

The Florida Bright Futures scholarship programs are great resources for Florida students who plan on staying in-state for college. To date, the Bright Futures program has helped over 725,000 Florida students go to college!

As with any scholarship program, though, there's a lot of information to process about the awards. Just sifting through all the eligibility requirements and award limitations can be overwhelming, never mind figuring out how to actually submit an application.

In this guide, we've compiled all the information you need about the Bright Futures scholarships. We'll talk about the different award programs, their eligibility requirements, the application process, and strategies to help you win your own.

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Florida Bright Futures Requirements: SAT, ACT, GPA, and More

The Florida Bright Futures Scholarship programs are awesome education funding options for Florida state residents—if you can get through the application process, that is. The scholarships offered are particularly nitpicky and tedious about their eligibility requirements: the official handbook outlining these criteria is its own 14-page book chapter. (Luckily, we've created an overview for you in a different, much shorter post.)

Not to worry! We've outlined all the eligibility criteria for Florida Bright Futures Scholarships (general and specific, for each scholarship, with every single exception or special circumstance) in a way that’s a bit easier to get through.

We've also included information about when to expect notification about your eligibility. Once you’re considered eligible, you’re one (big) step closer to winning a Bright Futures Scholarship. After you’ve processed all this information, we'll get to the good stuff—how to increase your chances of winning your own Bright Futures award.

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How to Win a McDonald's Scholarship

McDonald's charities offer many different scholarships for college-bound seniors all over the country, all with different awards and eligibility requirements. Because there's so much variability among awards, applying for a McDonald's scholarship can seem daunting. Ultimately, though, it's worth it to apply—since 1985, Ronald McDonald House Charities have given out over $65 million in scholarships. Wouldn't it be great to get a small piece of that?

I'll walk you through the different types of scholarship awards that McDonald's offers, in addition to offering tips and strategies to optimize your chances of winning your own award.

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How to Win a Tylenol Scholarship

If you're planning on pursuing an education or career in health care, you should definitely check out the Tylenol Future Care Scholarship, a merit-based award meant for undergraduate and graduate students who are enrolled in any of a wide variety of health care programs, including public health, health education, med school, nursing, and even pharmaceuticals.

We'll talk about the eligibility requirements and the application process first before discussing tips and strategies you can use to optimize your chances of winning a Future Care Scholarship.

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How to Win the Gates Scholarship

 

The Gates Scholarship is a program with a huge impact. Launched in 2017, the program's mission is to give opportunities to outstanding minority students to reach their highest potential.

In this guide, I'll go through all the details of the scholarship and the application protocols. After that, I'll give you expert tips and strategies for putting together the strongest Gates Scholarship application possible. Read on to learn more!

Note: The Gates Scholarship was established in 2017 as a replacement for the Gates Millennium Scholars Program, which reached its goal of 20,000 scholars in 2016.

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The 21 Best Colleges for Students With Learning Disabilities

Figuring out which colleges you're interested in is arguably the most difficult part of the college application process. There's so much information to sift through—how could brief campus visits and informational brochures really tell you where you'll be most successful?

This process is even harder for students with learning disabilities. You want to make sure there are programs in place to help you be the best you can be no matter where you go to school.

If you want to apply to colleges for students with learning disabilities, this article is a great place to start your college search. We'll start off by talking about what these specialty programs have to offer before getting to the rankings. Afterward, we'll discuss the next steps to take if you decide a learning disability program is right for you.

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What Is the PARCC Test? Do You Have to Take It?

Finding reliable information on what PARCC tests are and what they involve can be tough. In this guide, I'll go over everything you need to know about PARCC exams, including where they're administered, what they test, and how to prepare.

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10 Best Interior Design Schools in the US

An education in interior design is getting more and more important for aspiring professionals in the field. In many states, you can't call yourself an interior designer unless you have a license or a certain level of education.

If you're thinking about becoming an interior designer, you'll want to know about the best interior design schools you can attend in the US. Whether you want to work on residential or commercial design, the following programs will prepare you well for your future career as an interior designer. But before we get to the rankings list, let's briefly go over what makes interior design programs unique.

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The 7 Steps to Becoming a Doctor: A Complete Guide

Medicine is one of the most challenging yet rewarding fields a student can enter. But before you decide whether becoming a doctor is right for you, it's important that you know every step you'll have to take along the way.

Here, I'll walk you through exactly how to become a doctor, starting with high school. This career is definitely not for everyone—it requires huge investments of time, money, and effort—but if this path is right for you, this guide is what you should read to start preparing yourself early for a successful career as a doctor.

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Can You Fail the SAT?

The SAT is a pretty high-stakes test - it’s an important part of your college applications, which could mean trouble if you get a low score. But can you fail the SAT altogether?

The good news is that officially, it’s impossible to fail the SAT - but that doesn’t mean that a low score doesn't mean bad news. Here, I’ll review everything you need to know about why you can’t really fail the SAT, but why poor marks may as well count as failing.

Worried about your score? At the end, I’ll go over the steps you should take to pull them up.  

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How to Pay for College Without Parents' Help

Paying for school is daunting enough when you have the financial support of your family. But for students whose parents can't or won't contribute to expenses, figuring out how to pay for college on your own becomes a whole different challenge.

In this guide, I'll lay out everything you need to consider about how to pay for college without parents and all the steps you need to take.

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