Jefferson Prep

To complete a half-dozen college applications, Morgan Malone lined up letters of recommendation, penned essays, compiled her resume and – for George Mason University – carried around a video camera for several days.

The result was a nearly two-minute-long video essay that opens with Malone introducing herself from atop the sign outside Mountain View High School in Stafford County. There are clips of her walking the school’s hallways, participating in a quiz bowl and volunteering. At the very end, her assistant principal jumps on a desk and shouts, “I approve this message.”

“Instead of having an application and words in an essay, they get to see me,” said Malone, 17. “Hopefully, when they are watching the video, they will get a picture of what I am like. The way I talk in the video is the same way I talk every day.”

This is the second year GMU has formally given students the option to submit a video about themselves. This year’s theme is,”Why is Mason the right school for you?”

Video essays are a hot topic in college admissions these days as a growing number of schools allow students to express themselves via YouTube instead of (or in addition to) a traditional essay. The option is most often offered by small liberal arts schools, although some larger schools like GMU have found that videos are an easy way to personalize the often impersonal admissions process.

“Some of them are awful, and some of them are phenomenal. And some of them are really interesting,” said GMU Dean of Admissions Andrew Flagel. “A couple of the best video essays that I received were just genuine.”

GMU used to conduct face-to-face interviews with many of the few thousand students who applied each year. But as the number of applications multiplied – this year it’s expected to reach nearly 20,000 – the college had to phase out the program. Flagel hopes the videos will help his office once again put faces with names.

At GMU, the videos are optional, and fewer than 100 students participated last year. This year, students have until Jan. 15 to apply for the fall semester, but the admissions office has already enjoyed watching dozens of videos, which are posted on a university Web site. (The video is removed if a student is rejected.)
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In one video, a student travels around campus and D.C. with posters listing the alphabet of reasons why she wants to attend GMU – like Q for Quidditch, a club that “can translate my love of books into a sport.” Another student filmed an episode of “GMUpardy” that featured contestants representing all of his activities and questions about campus. And an applicant from Colorado danced to a song she wrote that includes this line: “G-M-U, G-M-U is a place where I want to be. It’s the greatest university.”

David Dorsey took his viewers behind the scenes of his New Jersey high school’s morning announcements, which he reads with another student “every single morning.” It’s one of the many tasks he performs as student council president.

The presidency is “by far the greatest office I have ever held in the seven years I have been involved in student government,” he explains in the video before going into the lunchroom to demonstrate his school spirit.

Dorsey said the video gives admission officials a better idea of who he is.
“I’m applying to seven schools, and I feel like I’ve written the same essay seven times,” said Dorsey, 18, who plans to study history and political science. “I thought this was a way to be different. I think my personality – well, anyone’s personality – is better expressed on video.”

The idea isn’t entirely new. Back in the days of VHS tapes, GMU often stockpiled the unsolicited videos it received from some students, then hosted a movie night to celebrate the end of reading season, Flagel said.

St. Mary’s College of Maryland has accepted videos on and off for more than 20 years, along with artwork, poetry, music recordings and other artistic forms of expression, school officials said. The public liberal arts college also allows family members to write letters of recommendation and doesn’t limit the length of application essays. Years ago, the college received a long, unedited underwater video from a student who wanted to study marine biology. The admission staff at the time waited in suspense as they watched minute after minute of murky water until – finally – a blurry fish scooted by.

Video quality has increased substantially since then, and this year, students have the option of submitting an “audition tape” for a casting call for the incoming class instead of an essay. One student video spoofed an Old Spice commercial and included an outtakes reel.

While the staff would be impressed by a student with a perfect GPA and SAT score, “essays make a student memorable,” said Richard Edgar, director of admissions at St. Mary’s.

In addition, producing a video can be a lot more work than writing an essay; students have to develop a script, and film and edit their productions. And Flagel said videos factor in only slightly in the decision on whether to admit a student. He said he encourages students to use technology they already have – like a webcam or the video feature on a point-and-shoot camera – and have fun.

“I can count on one hand the number [of videos] that really affected the process,” he said. “This is just a piece of the process. This is not worth dropping your grade in physics.”

Courtesy Washington Post, January 3, 2011

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/03/AR2011010302546_2.html?wprss=rss_metro

Tips to Maximize Chances of Admission to College

1. Match Up Grades and SAT Scores

A mismatch between GPA and class rank and standardized test scores is just one warning sign of a weak application, according to Bev Taylor, founder and president of New York-based college counseling firm The Ivy Coach. Some other pitfalls: sending in a list of activities without any explanations to bring them to life, and penning essays on subjects like napping, which paint a picture of a passive student.

2. Improve Teacher Recommendations

Instead of giving the teacher writing the recommendation a laundry list of extracurriculars, Taylor suggests students impart a more nuanced sense of their interests and motivations. “Remind them about how you were in their class, what you did and accomplished, what you found exciting about the class,” she says. “So few students will go to that extreme, because it takes a lot of work.”

3. Leadership in the Community

It’s more important to show you spearheaded original and creative initiatives at home than participated in a pricey public service trip abroad. “Show that you’ve got other people involved, that you did something great in your own backyard,” Taylor says. “You didn’t have to go off to Guatemala to build houses.”

4. Take Advantage of Social Media

Though stories of college admissions officers scoping out applicants’ credentials on Facebook is exaggerated, it does happen. Applicants should be careful about what information they make public. Says Taylor: “If you’re a dancer, put up all your recital videos. If you’re an artist, let’s see what you’ve done. Your portfolio can be up there.”

5. Don’t Be Redundant

“Make sure that every time you have the opportunity to write an essay that it’s about some different aspect about you,” says Katherine Cohen of the New York-based college consulting firm IvyWise. If a student’s résumé says she is captain of the soccer team, and her coach wrote an extra letter of recommendation, the student should turn to another topic. Says Cohen: “Maybe I don’t know that you’re a vegetarian. Tell me about that.”

6. Don’t Send in Too Much

Deciding how much information to send in is a tricky balancing act. “[Some students] will send in copies of every award they’ve won since sixth grade and repeat all their test scores on their résumés as well as all of their senior-year courses,” details that are already listed on the application, Cohen says. In addition, letters from influential people or notable names may hurt more than they help, if the person writing doesn’t really know the applicant well.

7. And Don’t Send in Too Little

“Some kids will shortchange themselves on their résumés or activity lists. They won’t think about the number of hours per week and weeks per year they spend,” Cohen says. And there are times when supplemental letters are appropriate, she adds, such as “from a coach or an employer or someone you’ve worked closely with over a long period of time, who you think would share new and different information about you.”

8. Start Early

Cohen recommends her clients start working on their essays in early summer. Though the latest iteration of the so-called Common Application, which is used by more than 150 schools, isn’t available until Aug. 1, there is a preliminary version available. Things that are always required: a résumé; a short essay on a meaningful extracurricular activity or work experience; and a longer personal statement.

9. Become a Specialist

“The most selective colleges aren’t really looking for well-rounded students. They are looking to create a well-rounded student body made up of specialists,” Cohen says.” Pick a focus–academic or extracurricular–and try to dive deep. Instead of being a ’serial joiner,’ focus on those couple of things that you enjoy and can do well.”

10. Avoid Taboo Essay Topics

There are certain subjects–national disasters, homeland visits and sex–which applicants should avoid unless they have a unique and personal perspective. “People are going to write about the oil spill now, or they used to write 9/11 a lot … It’s sort of hard to write about something in the public consciousness,” Cohen says. “Stay away from writing the ‘trip to the homeland’ essay. It’s a hard essay to do well, and it happens to be cliché and kind of common.”

Courtesy:  Forbes, July 2010

Across the US, a surge of student curiosity about Arabic after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 is evolving into a demand for more courses, especially upper-level classes as novices resolve to master the language. A full 73% of 640 Arabic-language students surveyed at 37 institutions in 2004 said they were “determined to achieve a level of proficiency in Arabic that would allow me to function in it comfortably in my professional activities,” according to the National Middle East Language Resource Center at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

Only a minority of students reach proficiency. One in four first-year students in the best programs eventually reach the third-year level, says center director R. Kirk Belnap. In weaker programs, he says, the dropout rate is even higher.

To meet the demand, schools that already offer Arabic are expanding old programs, creating new ones and scrambling, sometimes in vain, to find qualified teachers. Purdue relies on six grad students to teach its courses. Vermont’s Middlebury College recruits from Syria and Egypt to staff its summer language program. Yet even with extra efforts, various constraints are making it a challenge for schools to keep up.

“More students have begun to realize they have to study it for a number of years to be really proficient,” says William Mayers, coordinator of the Arabic Language School at Middlebury College’s Sunderland Language Center.

“We get enough good applicants from the really high-caliber schools — and these are straight-A students — and a lot of them we’re turning down because of limited space.”

The numbers help show how interest in Arabic keeps growing. Enrollment in Arabic courses nationwide jumped from 5,500 to 10,600, a 92% increase, from 1998 to 2002, according to the most recent data from the Modern Language Association. Only American Sign Language boosted enrollments by a larger percentage in that time period. Since 2002, enrollments have climbed again by an estimated 15% to 25%, the Middle East language center says.

To keep pace, some institutions are beefing up what they offer on an advanced level. The Center for Advanced Proficiency in Arabic, the nation’s first intensive program offered for a full academic year, opens this fall at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Middlebury College is expanding its summer program by about 10% this year and is planning to start offering third-year Arabic during the academic year as soon as this fall.

Yet with fewer than 10% of U.S. colleges offering any Arabic courses, some fear that higher-learning institutions on the whole aren’t doing enough to adjust.

“Demand is there, but they’re not offering (courses) because of budgetary constraints or whatever,” Belnap says. “These are very curious things in a time when your country is clamoring for more foreign-language expertise.”

Jefferson Prep’s expert Arabic instructors are perfectly suited to provide personally-tailored Arabic services at every academic level. 

The computer-adaptive structure of the GMAT

The computer-adaptive test (CAT) version of the GMAT is designed to get a more accurate assessment of your skills while asking you fewer questions than its paper-based predecessor did. Here is how it works: the first question you see in any given section will be of average difficulty. If you get the answer right, your next question will be slightly more difficult. If you get the answer wrong, your next question will be slightly easier. The software will also ask you different types of questions in a rather unpredictable order, as determined by its algorithm, rather than clustering question types as the written GMAT did.

You can not skip a question or go back to an earlier question. Unlike the paper version, once you click the ‘answer confirm’ box, your answer can not be changed.

The types of exam questions asked and their common fallacies

Examples and explanations of these can be found in the pages describing the individual component sections of the GMAT posted on this website. We strongly encourage our clients to spend time learning these question types before brushing up on their verbal and math skills.

How to manage your time wisely

Practice

The main way to develop GMAT time management skills is to practice taking the test. You will repeatedly see us return to the theme of practice throughout this website.  It is very hard to overstate its importance. Therefore you are strongly encouraged to take at least a few mock GMAT exams, in the computer-adaptive format and to try to simulate the actual testing environment. (That means refraining from taking food breaks, engaging in telephone conversations, etc. until you have completed a section.)

Spend adequate time on the first 5 questions

Earlier, we discussed how the GMAT CAT’s underlying algorithm determines the difficulty of questions you are asked, based on your performance in answering previous questions. Difficult questions are weighted more heavily in scoring than easier questions. The first couple questions in any GMAT CAT section are used to determine the range of questions that the program ‘thinks’ you are able to handle. After you have answered these first few questions, the testing software will give you questions to fine tune your score within that rather narrowly predetermined range. Thus, your answers to the first 5 questions will make a HUGE difference in your final section score.

It is imperative that you answer these pivotal questions with extra care. Always double check your answers to these questions. Verify that the answer choices that you judged to be incorrect are indeed incorrect. If you are unsure of the answer to one of these first questions, at the very least, take a very good educated guess using process of elimination.

Prepare yourself to finish the test – at all costs!

There is a huge scoring penalty for failing to finish any section of the GMAT. For example, say you’re in line to get a score that will put you in the 70 percentile of test takers, based on your test performance so far – but then run out of time and fail to answer the last five questions in the section. That failure will lower your score to about the 55 percentile. The lesson to take away from this is to prepare yourself to finish the test at all costs. Answering a question incorrectly will hurt you, but not as much as leaving the question unanswered will. Train yourself to work your best within the time limits of the exam. But train yourself, too, to be able to recognize when only a minute or so remains on the clock, and at that point to just answer “C” (or whatever your lucky letter is) for any remaining questions. As the GMAT’s Chief Psychometrician put it to us, random guessing is like shooting yourself in the foot – but leaving answers blank is like shooting yourself in both feet.

Don’t waste time

This advice probably sounds self evident. However, we mention it because we’ve had clients tell us how they inadvertently wasted test time by revisiting the help screen or requesting extra scrap paper after they began their test. These activities, if undertaken once the section has begun, will take time away from working on the questions.

Read the Questions Carefully

As silly as this advice may seem, it’s worth remembering. An undisciplined test taker will feel the stress of the clock during the timed sections and will try to cut corners to save time, wherever and whenever possible. As a result, he or she often misinterprets questions. GMAT test writers are well aware of this dynamic, and happy to capitalize on it. We guarantee that you will encounter questions on the GMAT that include incorrect answer choices that were deliberately designed to exploit likely misinterpretations of what the question is really asking.

Avoid Random Guessing

The GMAT CAT does not allow you to skip questions and come back to them later, as you can on a written test. You must answer each question on the GMAT CAT before it will allow you to move on to the next question. Consequently, even if you don’t know the answer to a particular question, you have to answer it. It is always in your best interest to take an educated guess rather than resorting to random guessing – even if you are running out of time on the section. Usually you will be able to identify at least one answer choice that is clearly wrong. Eliminating even one incorrect choice will improve your odds of answering the question correctly.

Eliminate the Deliberately Deceptive Wrong Choices

With practice, you will begin to learn how to recognize answer choices that are deliberately deceptive – and wrong. There are a few common patterns here that will become apparent as you proceed with your test preparation.

One recognizable pattern is commonly found in the Problem Solving section. It involves an erroneous answer choice giving a value that would result from following a common computational error. You can avoid these deceptive choices by using scrap paper, checking your answers and using estimation to at least judge the general range of the correct choice.

Practice, Practice, Practice

As we stated at the top of this page, there are a number of tips and techniques to taking the GMAT that will significantly raise your overall score. This is a test that you can prepare for, despite anything the test-makers state. We strongly encourage you to use actual questions from previous exams as you practice, as we have noticed a material difference in the nature and quality of test questions prepared by ETS versus those written by GMAT prep companies. We also strongly encourage you to practice taking the exam in its computer-adaptive format.

Finally, we encourage you to spend most of your preparation time studying and practicing questions in your weakest subject area. While we believe every test taker benefits by reviewing each GMAT exam section, focusing on your weakest areas will make the most efficient use of your test-prep time.

For more information, please email info@jeffersonprep.com, or call 1.888.533.3773