Expert: Todd Johnson - 6/7/2008

Question
Hello,
I'm an upcoming high school junior. Currently, I have a 4.0 gpa. I'm a student who is involved with orchestra and journalism in school and art, piano, and Chinese school (outside of school). I take accelerated classes as well as honors and AP Courses. What is your advice in terms of doing well on the SAT? What resources do you recommend to me? What can I do to make myself stand out? What are colleges looking for? Also, apart from fastweb.com, what other sources or scholarships are you familiar with? Any scholarships for Asian-Americans? Lastly, describe the college process and how I can prepare for it.

Answer
Stacy,

Thanks for writing. It is always great to hear from students who are ahead of the curve in the search for the right college. The questions you ask are so broad that it is difficult to answer in this sort of format. That being said let me give you some resources that will hopefully get you started in the right direction.

As far as the SAT it depends in large part on you and whether you are disciplined enough to study for the test by yourself. I would suggest that you start by getting The Official SAT Study Guide put out by the Collegeboard. You can find this at most bookstores. Taking a number of the tests in this book will give you a strong background for taking the test. However, you should also take a practice ACT test to see on which test you do better. All colleges will now accept either test and some students do better on one type of test or the other. See http://www.collegeadmissionspartners.com/standardized_test.htm which is from my website and has links to a number of helpful articles and sources for studying for each test.

As to the question of standing out the colleges are looking for students that have a passion in a particular area. What the subject is really doesn't matter that much as long as you look like someone that really loves that particular topic.

What are colleges looking for? Take a look at this page from my web site.

http://www.collegeadmissionspartners.com/what_colleges_want.htm

Finally, as to scholarships I would suggest that you look at this page that describes the college financial aid process and what you need to know.

http://www.collegeadmissionspartners.com/financial_aid_basics.htm

You will note that finding scholarships is not always the best way to go. Rather you need to understand how financial aid works. If you don't qualify for financial aid then outside scholarships can be helpful. As to a list of scholarship sites take at look here:

http://www.collegeadmissionspartners.com/good_web_sites.htm

I hope this information is helpful and gets you going in your college search.

Good luck.