If you are interested in this service, please have some patience because this page is a little bit long.
When are you supposed to begin your college application preparation?
“I guess no earlier than the beginning summer of senior year,” many seniors may say. Most high school students whom Dr. Huang knows have done so. If you are going to try to get into an excellent state college, an excellent private college, or below, you are right. If, however, you are trying to get into one of those top 30 colleges ranked by USNews.com, your preparation should start no later than 9th grade, and you need to know how to prepare.
Every fall semester, Dr. Huang provides one-on-one hands-on support to seniors for their college applications. Too many times every year, Dr. Huang has found that some academically outstanding students have nothing to offer besides an outstanding cumulative GPA and an outstanding SAT score. Both outstanding GPA and standardized test scores are tremendously important, of course. The problem is that almost all students who dare to set their eyes on those top colleges, such as Harvard, Princeton, or Stanford, have both. So what else can you compete with? Community service? Club activities? Competitions? Sure. They are needed. But how should you do your community service, how many clubs and what kind of clubs should you join, and how do you compete to make your credential shine in front of college admissions officers? Should you do anything else?
Here are some facts. First, many high-school students do not have an impressive community service record. Most high school students do participate in community service, but they do so to fulfill the community service requirement from their schools. How many students have learned something very useful or something exciting from such experiences to the point they want to write about it later in their college application essays? Very few. Let alone the fact that many other students, especially many international students, have rarely or never participated in community service because their schools do not have such a requirement.
Second, when entering high school, many students have no idea as to how many clubs they are supposed to join. Counselors will tell their students that number is not the most important; rather, quality is more important. So what counts as high-quality performances in school clubs? Should you join clubs only? Can you create one? How? How can you spend not so much time on clubs but still make your club activities look shining? Many students have hardly figured out or have not had enough time to figure out such answers. They end up with having some club activities, but such activities can hardly add significant weight for admissions purpose.
Third, it is common sense that the qualities of teaching in different high schools are different. Straight A’s in one high school may turn into B’s or even C’s in another high school. Only when a student competes on the national level or state level and win big awards can s/he tell unambiguously to the admission officers that s/he is one of the best. Many high school students Dr. Huang knows have never participated in any national-level extracurricular competitions. As a result, when trying to say in different ways “I am the best and admit me” to the admissions officers from those top colleges, these students have little convincing power.
Finally, does a student need to prepare for his or her writing skill? How? In the fall of 2014, Dr. Huang got to know an ambitious senior. He stayed in Dr. Huang’s SAT class for only a month during senior year. Soon afterwards, the senior’s mother approached Dr. Huang for help with her son’s college applications, and Dr. Huang took the case. In mid-October, the student learned that his earlier application, mainly based on an essay, to a big scholarship failed. Then, he asked Dr. Huang if the essay for that scholarship is appropriate for answering one of the questions from Harvard. Dr. Huang found that the essay was full of bombastic sentences with little substance. The essay also suffered from multiple logical problems and an excessive number of grammar mistakes. The student lost a four-year free ride largely because of the poor essay. A student may say, “I am not that terrible.” Well. That student, academically, was in the top 1% nationally because he was a Siemens Finalist. The problem is he did not sell himself well both conceptually and technically. The lesson to learn here is that a student must learn to write professionally. When a student is not strong enough yet in self-presentation, s/he should seek professional support. Or s/he may risk losing opportunities. From SAT essay, ACT essay, AP essays, to scholarship essays, essay writing competition essays, science competition papers, college application essays, and beyond, a person’s writing ability plays a very big part in his or her successes. Meaningful progress in writing skill takes time. Dr. Huang teaches writing skills in his SAT English class. High school students need such writing training to raise their critical thinking skill and to learn logical flow, grammar, usage, persuasive techniques, and style.
Many parents also try to find answers to the questions above, especially when the first child in a family is going through high school. Parents and their children do not have to probe in the dark. Dr. Huang is a parent, too. All his three children benefitted from SEEC. His three children graduated from Rice, Stanford, and Harvard. Dr. Huang has helped numerous students get into those top U.S. colleges. Dr. Huang probably can help your child get into those elite colleges, too, so long as s/he
- has the ambition,
- has good work ethic,
- has a good attitude, and
- is willing to accept professional guidance.
Harvard is not that far-fetched.
Dr. Huang has a synergetic team to provide college application preparation support to a limited number of high school students from 9th grade till they submit their college applications in senior year. Limiting the number is for providing quality support. Dr. Huang takes it his responsibility to provide his advisees with strategies and tactics in their development of potentials, competitiveness, and presentation skills so that they can eventually enter their dream colleges. The purpose of this service is to help a high-school student successfully gain admission to one of the Top-30 colleges mentioned above or the college that the child desires. On the other hand, both the student and his or her parents must understand that the admission into such a select college is an outcome of the willing and close collaboration of SEEC, the parent(s), and the child.
This service includes the following package:
- Communicating with the students and/or the parent(s) for 30 minutes to 1 hour every month to go over the student’s life in the high school, development of character and personality traits, and development of interests and talents until the college application process is over. The advising after the January 1 during the senior year is provided when necessary. There is no regular meeting in June or July.
- Keeping in touch with the parents and the student via phone or email to provide frequent guidance
- Evaluating the student’s strengths and weaknesses at different stages and helping the student further develop strengths and minimize weaknesses
- Providing guidance to the student’s summer activities
- The student is strongly suggested to take Dr. Huang’s SAT English class.
- Providing occasional private SAT English tutoring to the student, especially before the real test.
- Helping the student find the best time and strategy for taking standardized tests, such as SATI, SATII, ACT, AP, etc.
- Suggesting the student to participate in college-level activities and activities that will develop leadership
- Guiding the student to work on up to five various kinds of competitive writings, such as summer camp application essays, competition essays, and scholarship application essays each year to drastically improve the chances to winning opportunities and winning awards.
- Helping the student learn how to get the best recommendation letters from teachers and counselors
- Recommending appropriate extracurricular activities, including competitions, to the student
- Helping the student and the parents understand how college admission officers evaluate a student for admission
- Based on the student’s status quo and interests at the senior year, recommending appropriate colleges to apply to
- Providing guidance to interviews
- Providing guidance to college application essay writing for up to four colleges
- Providing guidance to every step of every college application, including filling out the Common App form, writing a resume, checking all required documents, and submitting application in time (The student will be responsible for all the application fees)
- Following up on the application process, communicate with the colleges when necessary
- Advising the student to get well prepared for college life in terms of physical health, social health, emotional health, and mental health.
Dr. Huang respects the student’s privacy and will keep confidential all information provided by the student and the parents and all the information regarding the ongoing efforts in this service. A face-to-face interview or Skype interview of the student and the parents is mandatory. If you are interested, please contact Dr. Huang at SATEnglish@gmail.com