“What’s the most important thing I should teach my children next year?” a parent recently asked in relation to her 4 children. “Work character.” was my two word answer that was met with a a blank stare. 15 years of working with all types of high school students in Connecticut has provided me a distinct sense […]

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Theresa Anzaldua.  She is a journalist for Seasons magazine and a writer of the highly praised book We Had A Job To Do, a book about World War II veterans. I mentioned that one of my mini-lectures that I give to students in our SAT classes is inspired by World […]

While we hear collective groans from our Fairfield County students, the options for test score submission are more favorable today than ever before. Back when most Connecticut parents took the SAT, every score was consequential.  Most took the SAT once or twice and were advised not to take the test a third time as it […]

As March approached, we were bombarded with calls from parents and the media about the New SAT.  Most juniors simply called the test “the SAT.” For them, there is nothing new. Since many parents of high school juniors in Connecticut are losing their minds over the NEW SAT, I thought it would be helpful to relay […]

“No way.” Mrs. Addison exclaimed when I suggested a certain college in the Boston area for her son, Mike, a rising senior at at an elite Connecticut high school. The college matched the criteria for what Mike wanted. But Mrs. Addison’s reaction stemmed from her understanding of colleges thirty years ago. “The C students went to […]

“I hate the college process.” This may be the one thing that Connecticut parents and teens agree upon. My immediate comment: “You should be grateful.” is often met with confused looks. I am a parent of three, one of whom is a senior applying to college. So, I know the stress of applying to college […]

To paraphrase Thomas Friedman, author of The World Is Flat who paraphrased Bill Gates: Twenty years ago, from a purely career-financial perspective, if you had the choice of being a “B” student from Brooklyn or an “A” student from Bombay, you would choose the former because America’s economic domination was so thorough that opportunities were […]

Our SAT-ACT Mastery prep differs in many ways from those run by franchises such as Kaplan and Princeton Review. One of the bigger ways relates to the psychological shifting that occurs through our mini-motivational lectures. Explaining the Growth versus the Fixed Mindset in the context of test prep has been one of the lectures that […]

All of Malcolm Gladwell’s books, The Tipping Point, or Blink or Outliers, among others, are great. Outliers addresses the issue of education. Two theses are important for Connecticut parents to digest: (1) When reviewing the variety of factors that led to student success, how much students worked academically during the summer was the single factor that provided […]

“My daughter attends [high ranking Connecticut public school].  How much do colleges consider the strength of a high school?” We hear this comment a great deal from Fairfield County parents. Unfortunately, probably not as much as you think.  Plentiful exceptions abound so I realize that some admissions officials and some colleges account more heavily than […]