SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips

You know it’s important for you to do well on the SATs because better scores will get you into a better college - top colleges want high SAT scores because they are supposed to indicate insight that a particular student is academically strong. Ultimately, a better college education is supposed to help you be more successful in your career. But do your SAT scores really speak to how competent or prepared you are as a potential student? And does a great college really increase your chances of professional success? These are tough, but important, questions - I’ll address them all here.

First, I’ll talk about what the research says about the relationships between SAT scores, college success, and income. Then, I’ll present some explanations for why these factors are (or are not) related - it might not be for the reasons you think. So what’s the real relationship between your SAT scores, college success, and income? Why do these questions even matter? Read on to find out!

Have you heard about volunteer abroad programs and are wondering if you should participate in one? Volunteer abroad programs can provide amazing experiences and the opportunity to help improve the world, but they can also be expensive, frustrating, and at times ineffective.

Read this guide to learn about potential positive and negative effects of volunteer abroad programs and to learn whether you should participate in one.

Are you a college student or starting college soon and wondering which extracurricular activities you should be involved in? Extracurriculars are an important part of college, and they are a great way to meet new people and try new activities.

Read this guide to learn how to choose the best extracurricular activities to help you meet new people, learn about future careers, and explore new interests in college.

If you thought the ACT was a big fan of circles, then brace yourself for its absolutely shameless love of triangles. In one breath, you may be expected to find the various dimensions of an obtuse triangle, and the next, an isosceles right triangle. ACT triangle problems will be as numerous as they are varied, so make sure you familiarize yourself with all the different types before test day.

This will be your complete guide to ACT triangles--the types of triangles that will show up on the ACT, the formulas you’ll need to know to solve them, and the strategies you’ll need to apply when approaching a triangle question. We’ll also break down real ACT math problems and give you the walk-throughs on how to most efficiently and effectively tackle any and all triangle problems you come up against.

The NCAA, the major governing body for intercollegiate sports, separates its member institutions by divisions. Division 2 colleges are generally smaller and have fewer athletic department resources than Division 1 schools, but Division 2 colleges are larger and more well-funded than Division 3 institutions. While Division 2 schools may not have the money or get the publicity of Division 1 institutions, many Division 2 colleges have passionate fan bases that show enthusiastic support for their sports teams.

In this article, I’ll thoroughly explain what makes NCAA Division 2 unique and provide facts about NCAA Division 2 and its member schools.

The NCAA, the major governing body for intercollegiate sports, divides its member institutions by divisions. Division I colleges tend to be the largest, have the biggest athletic department budgets, and have the highest level of athletic talent. Most of the prestigious college sporting events you see on television, from bowl games to March Madness, are competitions between Division I schools.

In this article, I will thoroughly explain what makes NCAA Division 1 unique and provide you with facts about Division I colleges.

Out of the 1.5 million juniors in the US who take the PSAT only about 7,600 will end up with a National Merit Scholarship of $2,500 through the National Merit Scholarship Program. So how do you qualify? If you do qualify, what are your chances of getting the scholarship?

I am going to answer these questions by discussing the basic qualification for National Merit and laying out a timeline for the program.

Forbes is a highly respected source of college rankings and is often consulted by students to help them decide which colleges are objectively the “best” choices. However, relying too much on these rankings can be a dangerous way to go about the college search process. In this article, I’ll outline how Forbes rankings are calculated and give you a rundown of the problematic aspects of these rankings.

Since the U.S. News & World Report college rankings list debuted in 1983, college-bound students and their parents have become quite enamored with college ranking lists. While the U.S. News list may be the most well-known, there are a plethora of college ranking lists out there. All use slightly different criteria to rank colleges and all claim to be the best and most reliable. However, should you trust any of these lists? Should you use them when deciding which college to attend? Do they provide any valuable information?

In this article, I'll answer those questions. I'll let you know how much you can trust college ranking lists. Furthermore, I'll explain the pros and cons of these lists and how to use them to your benefit.

If it's always been a dream of yours to shift around graphs and points on the $x$ and $y$ axes (and why not?), then you are in luck! Points, graphs, and shapes can be manipulated in the coordinate plane to your heart's content. Want to scoot that triangle a little to the left? Flip it? Spin it? With reflections, rotations, and translations, a lot is possible.

This will be your complete guide to rotations, reflections, and translations of points, shapes, and graphs on the SAT—what these terms mean, the types of questions you'll see on the test, and the tips and formulas you'll need to solve these questions in no time.

Lots of students strive for that perfect 36 ACT composite score. You might think you need a completely perfect test, but that's not the case. You have some leeway in how many questions you can miss and still get a 36.

In this article, I'll explain my research into official ACT grading scales, and I'll tell you how many questions you can get wrong and still get that 36.

The ACT is a time crunch, and most students have trouble finishing the whole test in the allotted time. So how many questions can you skip for a good score?

In this article, I'll let you know how many questions you can skip or answer incorrectly and to get a composite score of 26.

The SAT score is one of the most important parts of your college applications because it's one of the only things that's standardized. When all student applicants are taking the same exam, admissions officers can use it as a barometer to compare students that come from different backgrounds, educations, strengths, weaknesses, and intellectual abilities.

If all students take the same exam, and all admissions officers look at those exam scores in the same way, then it should be easy to figure out what an excellent SAT score is, right? Not necessarily. Like most things, an excellent SAT score is all relative. In this post, I'll talk about different types of "excellent" scores in relation to the entire US, your general peer group, your prospective colleges, and (maybe most importantly) yourself.

Between college applications and standardized testing, you’ve probably heard CEEB codes mentioned at some point during your high school career. You may have even wondered what they were other than mysterious four digit numbers.

This guide will explain everything you need to know about CEEB codes.

If you’ve already tackled your single variable equations, then get ready for systems of equations. Multiple variables! Multiple equations! (Whoo!) Even better, systems of equations questions will always have multiple methods with which to solve them, depending on how you like to work best.

So let us look not only at how systems of equations work, but all the various options you have available to solve them.

This will be your complete guide to systems of equations questions—what they are, the many different ways for solving them, and how you’ll see them on the ACT.