Sign-up for Excel Academy College Counseling Workshop → Sign-up for Excel Academy SAT Prep → The #1 FAFSA Mistake High School Seniors Make—and How to Avoid It For high school seniors and their families, completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid—better known as the FAFSA—is one of the most important steps in preparing for [...]

Sign-up for Excel Academy College Counseling Workshop → Sign-up for Excel Academy SAT Prep → LinkedIn’s Top Colleges 2026: A New Way to Measure College and Career Success Many families face tough choices when assessing academic programs, admissions selectivity, affordability, campus culture, location, student life, and other factors shaping a final college list. Increasingly, one [...]

Sign-up for Excel Academy College Counseling Workshop → Sign-up for Excel Academy SAT Prep → Is the Midwest the Next College Admissions Hotspot? For the past several years, one of the biggest trends in college admissions has been the surging popularity of Southern universities. Schools across the SEC and ACC have attracted record numbers of [...]

Sign-up for Excel Academy SAT Prep → Admissions Testing Timeline: When Should My Student Prepare for the PSAT, SAT, ACT, AP, ISEE or SSAT? Timing is everything in admissions testing. The strongest test prep plans do not begin a few weeks before test day. They begin with a roadmap: when to establish a baseline, when [...]

Sign-up for Excel Academy College Counseling Workshop → Sign-up for Excel Academy SAT Prep → SAT vs. ACT Test Prep: Which Exam Fits Your Student? Choosing between the SAT and ACT is not about identifying the “easier” exam. It’s all about identifying which test better matches your student’s pacing, reading style, math habits, and preferred [...]

How Parents Can Motivate Students for Life: build resilient, successful students using insights from Coach Val’s TED Talk Today’s data-driven, high-stakes testing, fiercely competitive scholastic environment creates a perfect recipe for parents and educators to fall into the “win-at-all-costs” trap. Straight A’s, perfect test scores, and top-tier college acceptances are justifiably proud achievements, well deserving [...]

What Is Grit? How Students Can Build Resilience, Motivation, and Confidence What is GRIT? Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth is the global bestseller launched a decade ago and still resonating in educational circles, corporate training, elite sports coaching  and more. What is GRIT? Rather than a fixed trait, Duckworth’s definition [...]

Students Need Less Screen Time: What the Netherlands and Other Schools Are Changing More devices. More apps. More digital platforms. More screen-based instruction. Advancing technologies over the past couple of decades have indelibly reformatted the learning landscape, along with virtually all other aspects of our daily lives. Have student outcomes lived up to expectations for [...]

Sign-up for Excel Academy College Counseling Workshop → “Safety Schools” are Selective: The Brave New World of College Application Lists Dream school, Target School, Safety School is the 1-2-3 formula familiar to us for generations. Only now many “Safety Schools” are selective in their own right. This paradigm shift has turned the traditional comfort of [...]

AP Exam Prep: The Ultimate Guide to Scoring a 5 You’ve survived the mountain of homework and the specialized vocabulary, but now the final hurdle approaches: Exam Day. Advanced Placement coursework provides significant value towards your academic record and future college costs. Successfully achieving these rewards depends upon earning top scores on your AP exams. [...]