4 ms·

Show HN: Guide to Elite College Admissions and SAT Prep

23 points by BlackJack 12y ago

BlackJack 12y ago
Hey all, I recently finished this website. It aggregates a lot of material from College Confidential and other sources and just tries to present it in a nice manner. The goal is to explain how top college admission works and most of the rest is on SAT preparation. I used Pelican + Sphinx for all of it. Would love to get your feedback.
akhilcacharya 12y ago
Dang, if only I had this 2-3 years ago...
therobot24 12y ago
nice site, but a lot of the information is very vague: [Essays] > Read a lot of college essay books. See what’s cliche and what’s not. Absolutely avoid cliche topics. Such as.....? [Recommendations] > These can be crucial, but usually aren’t. So they are but they aren't...give an example of when they are, and when they aren't. However, you do have some good information that you don't emphasize enough: [Extracurriculars] > The truth is that most people, high school, college, or otherwise, are not really passionate about anything. The goal of your extracurriculars should be to explore things that you may be interested in. The more unique your ECs are, the better. Don't do math club just because you saw someone online doing it. [Overview] > Being the smartest in your high school doesn’t guarantee you anything. Also if you're going to use references, e.g. in Essays: "Some good books are [1,2,3]", make [1,2,3] links to said sources.
graeme 12y ago
Interesting site. You know the SAT will be redesigned in a year? I tutor the SAT occasionally, and thought about making a site, but the pending change put me off developing anything major.
- BlackJack 12y ago
  I'm aware of it and I plan to develop new material to help prepare for the new format. I'm waiting until the sample test comes out in March 2015 to get a better idea.
peter_l_downs 12y ago
First, I think it's awesome that someone put this together to try to help kids get into better colleges. That's great, and it most likely took a lot of time, and it seems like a project done entirely out of good will. That's awesome. That said, I had a really strong negative reaction after reading the introduction. I'm a college freshman, although since I spent some time working after highschool it's been about 2 years since I applied to colleges. I was aware of College Confidential but it seemed like a shitty site full of people pretending that they knew more than me about the college process. Lots of comments like "no way you could get in there with those scores." As far as I can tell, here's all you need to do to improve your SAT: take lots of practice tests. And I'm not even sure that's the best way to improve your chances of getting into a selective school. If you ask colleges how to improve your chances of getting in, they'll tell you to become more interesting and well-rounded. I don't buy the theory that colleges lie about this out of some ulterior motive – I just don't see the incentive. I ended up getting extremely lucky and got into a great school, but the only thing I can think of that would have made me "stand out" in an applications process is being relatively good at programming. Beyond a certain point of classes / SAT scores, you're going to be much better served doing something productive and interesting with your time than endlessly taking practice tests and posting on a forum full of people who don't know what they're doing. The only people who really know whether or not you're going to get into a college are its admission officers.
- BlackJack 12y ago
  Thanks for your input. To clarify, a lot of this material has been put together by other users - I just transformed the info in website form. I think you're right for the most part. CC is full of kids giving each other advice and none of them really know what they're saying. To me, the SAT is table-stakes. If your scores aren't high enough, it's highly unlikely you'll get into a top school. So most of the site is about how to get to the point where you're consistently scoring 750+ -> 2250 composite. At that point, any additional gains are marginal. After that, you're competitive score wise and you can move on. I'm 100% with you there and I think the website confirms that. The rest of your app is just as important, but you have much less flexibility in changing years of high school. You can control your essay but can't really change much else. So if you're a freshman in high school, then stretching yourself intellectually and doing interesting things is a great way to spend four years. But if you're a 2nd semester junior applying to colleges next fall, you have way less flexibility. So the guide focuses on SAT, and I want to expand on the essay stuff. To summarize, transcript is #1, but everything else matters too. You can control your test scores + essay in a short period of time - the rest you can't. So if you have years of time, then becoming an interesting person is a great investment. If you don't, get competitive scores and a great essay, and hope for the best.

23 points by BlackJack 12y ago

Hey all, I recently finished this website. It aggregates a lot of material from College Confidential and other sources and just tries to present it in a nice manner. The goal is to explain how top college admission works and most of the rest is on SAT preparation. I used Pelican + Sphinx for all of it. Would love to get your feedback.

akhilcacharya 12y ago

Dang, if only I had this 2-3 years ago...

therobot24 12y ago

nice site, but a lot of the information is very vague: [Essays] > Read a lot of college essay books. See what’s cliche and what’s not. Absolutely avoid cliche topics. Such as.....? [Recommendations] > These can be crucial, but usually aren’t. So they are but they aren't...give an example of when they are, and when they aren't. However, you do have some good information that you don't emphasize enough: [Extracurriculars] > The truth is that most people, high school, college, or otherwise, are not really passionate about anything. The goal of your extracurriculars should be to explore things that you may be interested in. The more unique your ECs are, the better. Don't do math club just because you saw someone online doing it. [Overview] > Being the smartest in your high school doesn’t guarantee you anything. Also if you're going to use references, e.g. in Essays: "Some good books are [1,2,3]", make [1,2,3] links to said sources.

graeme 12y ago

Interesting site. You know the SAT will be redesigned in a year? I tutor the SAT occasionally, and thought about making a site, but the pending change put me off developing anything major.

BlackJack 12y ago
I'm aware of it and I plan to develop new material to help prepare for the new format. I'm waiting until the sample test comes out in March 2015 to get a better idea.

peter_l_downs 12y ago

First, I think it's awesome that someone put this together to try to help kids get into better colleges. That's great, and it most likely took a lot of time, and it seems like a project done entirely out of good will. That's awesome. That said, I had a really strong negative reaction after reading the introduction. I'm a college freshman, although since I spent some time working after highschool it's been about 2 years since I applied to colleges. I was aware of College Confidential but it seemed like a shitty site full of people pretending that they knew more than me about the college process. Lots of comments like "no way you could get in there with those scores." As far as I can tell, here's all you need to do to improve your SAT: take lots of practice tests. And I'm not even sure that's the best way to improve your chances of getting into a selective school. If you ask colleges how to improve your chances of getting in, they'll tell you to become more interesting and well-rounded. I don't buy the theory that colleges lie about this out of some ulterior motive – I just don't see the incentive. I ended up getting extremely lucky and got into a great school, but the only thing I can think of that would have made me "stand out" in an applications process is being relatively good at programming. Beyond a certain point of classes / SAT scores, you're going to be much better served doing something productive and interesting with your time than endlessly taking practice tests and posting on a forum full of people who don't know what they're doing. The only people who really know whether or not you're going to get into a college are its admission officers.

BlackJack 12y ago
Thanks for your input. To clarify, a lot of this material has been put together by other users - I just transformed the info in website form. I think you're right for the most part. CC is full of kids giving each other advice and none of them really know what they're saying. To me, the SAT is table-stakes. If your scores aren't high enough, it's highly unlikely you'll get into a top school. So most of the site is about how to get to the point where you're consistently scoring 750+ -> 2250 composite. At that point, any additional gains are marginal. After that, you're competitive score wise and you can move on. I'm 100% with you there and I think the website confirms that. The rest of your app is just as important, but you have much less flexibility in changing years of high school. You can control your essay but can't really change much else. So if you're a freshman in high school, then stretching yourself intellectually and doing interesting things is a great way to spend four years. But if you're a 2nd semester junior applying to colleges next fall, you have way less flexibility. So the guide focuses on SAT, and I want to expand on the essay stuff. To summarize, transcript is #1, but everything else matters too. You can control your test scores + essay in a short period of time - the rest you can't. So if you have years of time, then becoming an interesting person is a great investment. If you don't, get competitive scores and a great essay, and hope for the best.