In - Your Guide to College Admissions from The Princeton Review

Smart Strategies for Paying Off a Student Loan

It’s a good idea to limit the amount of money you borrow to pay for college. If, for example, you ever need to make a decision between two equally attractive schools, you should probably choose the one that requires you to borrow less.

That said, student loans end up being substantial part of most financial aid packages, and you should have an idea of how you will pay them back once you graduate.

InvestingAnswers.com recently provided seven smart strategies for paying back student loans—check them out below.

• Know what you owe.
• Make a budget and stick to it.
• Consolidate your loans.
• Pay more than required.
• Start paying early.
• Do not take on more debt.
• Let your employer pay it back.

View full article for more info on each one.

Reader Response: How Much Do You Use Your Brain During the Summer?

Earlier this week I posted that U.S. high school students lose, on average, a month of math and reading skills over summer vacation. So I asked IN readers: what are you doing to stay sharp this summer? Below are some of the serious and not-so-serious answers I received.

• “Doing the crossword puzzle.” (Tom P.)
• “I’m a cashier at an ice cream shop, so I do like 500 subtraction problems every day.” (P.A.)
• “Watching ‘Sesame Street.’” (Chris K.)
• “I’m taking my first college class.” (April F.)
• “A lot of napping . . . so I’m well-rested for my junior year.” (J.D.)

Would you like to add to the conversation? If so, email me at INblog@review.com!

Decorating Your Dorm Room on a Budget

Don’t have much cash for dorm room decorations? A new video on the Hartford Courant website shows how you get the job done for less than $200. (Note: the stuff for guys is at the end.) Check it out below!

 

The ACT: Test-Day Tips

This spring, I put up a series of posts with The Princeton Review’s signature SAT advice. Now, in weekly posts, I’m showing the same love for the ACT.

This week's post is all about performing your best on test day. (Check out last week's post on the process of elimination and guessing here.)

For more information on these and other strategies, see The Princeton Review’s Cracking the ACT guidebook!

The Night Before the Test

Unless you are the kind of person who remains calm only by staying up all night to do last-minute studying, we recommend that you take the evening off. Go see a movie or read a good book, and make sure you get to bed at a normal hour. No final, frantically memorized math formula or grammatical rule is going to make or break your score. A positive mental attitude comes from treating yourself decently. If you’ve prepared over the last several weeks or months, then you’re ready.

If you haven’t really prepared, there will be other opportunities to take the test, so get some rest and do the best you can. Remember, colleges will see only the score you choose to let them see. No single ACT is going to be crucial. We don’t think night-before-the-test cramming is very effective. For example, we would not recommend that you try going through this book in one night.

Your Application Essay: Follow the Limit

This year’s Common Application essay prompts have been known for almost two months, and most schools will release their own prompts in about a week.

As you think about and—hopefully—start early drafts of your essays, you may be wondering about length. Is it actually important to stick to those word limits (typically 500 words)?

In a word: yes. For more info, I recommend you check out College Planning Blog’s post on this topic. It reminds us that Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” was only 187 words.

In Lieu of Tuition Hikes, Some Colleges Add New Fees

Most public colleges and universities are making do with decreased state funding nowadays.

While many are implementing substantial tuition hikes to make up for their decreased funding, others are creating new fees to close the gap, reports USA Today.

On fall semester bills, many college students will see new fees—e.g., a "temporary repair and maintenance fee" or a "special institutional fee."

Why does this matter? Fees are meant to cover specific services, not general operating costs. Colleges shouldn’t use them to escape the stigma of a sharp tuition increase.

Additionally, some forms of financial aid cover tuition but not fees, reports USA Today. To learn more, check out the full article here.

How Much Do You Use Your Brain During the Summer?

For many students, the answer is "not much."

According to the New York Times, U.S. high school students lose, on average, about a “month” of math and reading skills during their summer vacations.

What are you doing to stay mentally sharp this summer? Anything? Email me at INblog@review.com and let me know!

Introducing “A Student’s View”

Want to peek inside the life of another college applicant? An upcoming new feature on IN—“A Student’s View”—will follow a current high school senior as she navigates her college search and admissions process.

Upcoming topics on “A Student’s View” include the following:

• Using college rankings
• Getting mail from colleges
• Choosing the right high school classes
• Finding extracurricular activities
• Making a list of colleges

Look for “A Student’s View” posts several times a month on IN!

About the author:

Jennifer Angelo is a rising senior and a member of Key Club and National Honor Society. Her ideal college would be a medium-sized school in a typical college town. She currently plans to major in journalism and finance, and she is considering law school after college. In her spare time, she enjoys playing lacrosse. She also loves Italian food.

Rules for Successful College Dating

College dating is different from high school dating, and it poses a unique set of challenges. Wondering how you can make it work? CollegeCandy.com recently presented “ten commandments” for college dating. Check out a few below.

• “Thou shall not take me to the dining hall as a date.”
• “Thou shall not move into my dorm room.”
• “Thou shall not engage in excessive amounts of PDA on the quad.”

Click here to read about these and seven other “commandments” of college dating.

Reader Response: Unusual College Majors

Earlier this week, I posted about some of the more unusual majors that students take in college. I recently received the following reply from Sam J.:

Honestly, I’m surprised that there are majors like this out there. I understand why someone might want to study each of these things, but they seem like they should be hobbies or interests rather than college majors. Wouldn’t someone want to study something “meatier” in college? And wouldn’t doing so give you a better chance of finding a job?

Thanks, Sam, for the thought-provoking email. It should be noted that, while the majors referenced in my post might seem rather obscure, several of them—for example, Citrus Studies—are tied to rather specific career paths. Depending on your point of view, this specificity might be a good thing or a bad thing.

The president of Connecticut College recently wrote an article for the Huffington Post on the value of a liberal arts education. To him, the main benefit of a college education is the mental flexibility it gives you to perform a variety of jobs in your post-college life. Within this context, one might that say there’s value in the serious study of nearly any subject.

Would you like to add to the conversation? If so, email me at INblog@review.com!