The College Board provides a sample PSAT score report, which is a helpful way to become familiar with the different components of your score. Each report begins with a cover page, including the student’s name, high school, and other identifying information. But the second page is where the real information begins..

The turn of the new year is an exciting time. Holiday break provides a perfect and necessary opportunity to relax, unwind, and begin the new year with refreshed energy and motivation. Nevertheless, many schools’ schedules coincide so that early into the new year midterm, or even final exams, loom. Although you may still have a couple weeks before these exams are upon you, it’s critical to begin the studying process now in order to fully retain the substantial amount of material that you’ll be tested on. You don’t want to find yourself at the end of break realizing you have barely reviewed.

The first thing to know about writing a winning private school application essay is that yes, you can do it! This application component might seem daunting, but considering two critical strategies can shift your student’s perspective and evade writer’s block.

With that said, grades and SSAT (or HSPT) test scores are important, but the personal essay is your student’s best opportunity to demonstrate maturity, intellectual curiosity, and a unique perspective. Here is where a strong voice and a vision make them memorable!

How does your student write this fantastic essay? They need to tell their own story with their own voice. Here’s how.

Holiday breaks can be the perfect time to reflect and reassess – what aided success this last semester, and what hindered performance? Here are a few key tips to deepen your understanding of your (or your student’s) academic journey.

Holton offers personalized support for middle school and high school students, whether they’re preparing for the SAT or ACT, strengthening executive functioning and study skills, or drafting a college essay.

In a related turn of events, nine members of the T-14 cohort also opted out of the influential US News & World Report’s rankings for law schools.

College Board releases practice exams for the new test format, showcases onscreen test-taking tools, including a Desmos calculator.

Too often homework emphasizes the wrong aspects of learning, like rote memorization and mechanical intake, and not what matters most about learning: process, experimentation, and iterative improvement. But what happens if we think of homework as process? Homework becomes an opportunity to cultivate study skills that help us become motivated, self-directed learners.

This summer, the College Board announced that it plans to begin offering digital AP exams in May 2023.

The beginning of the year is a great time to reflect, reassess – what worked, or didn’t? – and plan for the new academic year. While it’s infeasible to plan for every contingency, it is helpful to install a few keystone strategies in place to effectively focus, manage time, and study well.

The contemporary college admissions landscape is treacherous. Schools are reporting record application numbers since test-optional policies have gone mainstream, yet the number of available seats remains constant. There aren’t many things seniors can control at this point in the application process, considering GPAs are nearly finalized and suddenly joining four new extracurricular activities is bound to raise red flags for admissions committees. The college essay, though, is the one piece that still needs to be added to the enormous puzzle of lists and numbers that composes your academic portfolio.

Students hoping to attend private middle or high schools will likely need to take either the High School Placement Test (HSPT) or the Secondary School Admission Test (SSAT). The HSPT should be taken by students applying to local Catholic high schools, while the SSAT should be taken by middle and high school students applying to independent private schools, such as Oregon Episcopal School (OES).

College Board is taking seriously the role of students as primary users, and the Digital SAT represents a massive effort to make the test more user-friendly. If this effort is successful, the number of test-takers annually will increase, rather than decrease (as predicted by test-optional proponents), which may make deciding not to submit test scores harder to justify for many students.

At the National Test Prep Association conference in Georgia on the weekend of July 11th, ACT’s CEO Janet Goodwin articulated what changes ACT would make in response to the SAT’s tectonic shift to digital testing. What’s changing? Well, not much.

While the ACT measures the skills and knowledge you have learned in high school, it is also an excellent way to gain more choice in your first-year class schedule, receive merit aid, and stand out from other applicants in the admissions process.

Being able to closely read a text is a skill that will serve you in high school, college, and beyond. It’s also one of the hardest abilities to master. In this post, we will explore what close reading is and how to improve your expertise.

There is no doubt that COVID-19 has disrupted your high school experience and college plans in some way. For the 2022-23 admissions cycle, The Common App will continue to include this question on their application portal as an opportunity for you to elaborate on how the pandemic has affected your life.

We’ve posted a lot lately about the College Board’s announcement of a fully digital SAT test format. In this post, we will break down the most recent round of updates on digital testing from a test preparation industry meeting with the College Board. 

The IB English Exam requires complex analysis and an incisive understanding of rhetorical skills. In this blog, we will provide you with a general overview of the IB English exam and helpful tips for preparation. After all, May is right around the corner. Let’s start, then, with an introduction to the structure of the exam itself.

The IB Extended Essay, rather than a single-day exam, is a mandatory, year-long research project that IB students write with a faculty advisor’s guidance. The essay, which is typically at or around 4,000 words in length, falls within one of the following thematic groups: Studies in Language and Literature, Language Acquisition, Individuals and Societies, Sciences, Mathematics, or the Arts. The IB resource center contains sample essays highlighting the “diverse range of topics” students may cover.

Students with dyscalculia have a significantly more difficult time learning math than most, in this post we will explore how to identify dyscalculia and what we as educators and parents can do to help.

Concerns within and about our contemporary educational systems have been voiced for years. The United States has consistently ranked last amongst OECD countries tested on math gains and second-to-last on literacy gains. 

With winter break behind us, the spring term is finally in sight—the cherry blossoms will soon be blooming, sparrows and chickadees singing, and endless showers bringing about new growth. Oh, and AP exams. With exams being administered in-person again this year (barring any unforeseen circumstances), ‘tis the season to begin preparing!