Getting to Know the Common App
Anybody aspiring to attend college in the United States will come across the Common Application. In excess of one million students use it each year to make their application to colleges from Maine to California. Here is the Ivy Central quick guide to the Common App.
Make Application Season Less Stressful with These 5 Tips
It is not surprising that, with the need to juggle the demands of school, extra-curricular activities alongside applying to college, application season can be highly stressful.
There’s also the worrying: Students worry about missing deadlines or not scoring high enough in their standardised tests. They worry that their peers will receive dazzling scholarship offers and acceptance letters, while they’ll be stuck with a pile of rejections.
They worry that there simply isn’t enough time for everything they need to accomplish.
Fortunately, you can reduce college application stress by following the 5 tips explored in this article.
Test Optional: What Does It Mean?
What Does Test Optional Mean In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of U.S. colleges quickly shifted to test-optional admissions to ensure access and flexibility for students facing canceled or limited SAT and ACT dates. Now, in 2025, the landscape continues to evolve. While many institutions have made test-optional policies permanent, others, including highly […]
Planning for College: What to do Over the Long Summer Break?
If you are finishing grades 9 and 10, then the summer is the time for you to delve into your interests and explore new ones. Good grades will only get you so far in the college application process, colleges will also want to know about activities you have been a part of, and the long break provides the perfect opportunity for you to put time into these activities.
Do I need to take an English Language test?
Colleges and universities will look for an international student’s ability to study in English as part of their admissions process. All courses will be taught in English, so it makes sense that anybody they accept will need to understand what they are being taught. The two most common tests used to assess non-native students’ English language ability are the International English Language Testing System (TOEFL) and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS). TOEFL is most common in the US, while IELTS is more commonly used in the UK.
Qualities You Should Demonstrate to Colleges.
One of the most common questions that college counsellors are asked is “How do I get accepted by ????? University?” There is not a straightforward answer, each college or university in the USA will have their own peculiarities in what they are looking for, but there are some things that are common across just about all of them.
If you look on the websites you will often find something about how they make their admissions decisions, schools may rank them differently in order of importance but in this article I share some of the key qualities that colleges and universities will look for in your application.
Building a College List with Reach, Target, and Safety
When you are building your college list you will often come across people recommending that you have a mix of reach, target and safety schools in your list. What you are less likely to find is a description of how you can decide which colleges fit into which category, so that is what I am going to do with this blog.
Planning for College: A Guide for High School Students
These first few months of the school year are busy, busy, busy! For those entering their freshman year/Grade 9 it can be a new start to their learning while for those entering their senior year, it can very much feel like the beginning of the end. Whether you are in Grade 9, 10, 11 or 12, there is lots to be doing to help you prepare for college and in this article, I’m going to give you some pointers to help keep you on track.
Choosing the Right College Setting and Location
In a previous blog, I gave five tips to help students find their perfect college match. In the article, I asked students to reflect on what they need around them to flourish, by which I meant what do they need, to feel comfortable during their time living at college. In this blog I’m going to explore this further by looking in more detail about just one aspect that students should consider, how does the setting and location of a college contribute to the college experience.
Eight Tips on Getting Accepted by an Ivy League College
For many students and families aspiring to a higher education experience in the United States of America, the Ivy League remains the pinnacle of educational achievement. Irrespective of whether they are right in that belief, the reality is that if pushed to name a US college many families of international students would name an Ivy League institution. Every year more and more students apply to one of the eight colleges that make up the Ivy League, drawn by their mix of high academic achievement, social prestige, wonderful facilities and extensive networking opportunities. If you are one of those who dream of walking the campuses of these colleges, here is what you need to know and eight tips on what it takes to win a coveted acceptance letter.