Admissions Expertise We don't have time or money to visit some schools I’m really interested in. What can I do? Visiting colleges online is the next best thing to an actual visit. Most colleges provide tours of their campuses online. But, dig deeper. Use social media to find current students at the college. Ask some of these students what the college is really like. Try emailing a few questions to professors from a department in which you might want to major. Their answers will tell you something about the kind of contact you might with the faculty. Read the student newspaper online to find out what issues are important on that campus. Your virtual visit can provide all sorts of helpful information. 266 Likes Like This Answer Already Liked This Answer Thank you, this item will be reviewed. What are the most significant, avoidable mistakes students make in the admissions process? 1) Your personal essay needs to tell the admissions office something about you they don’t otherwise find in the application. Give them some insight into why you are the person you are. 2) Don’t recycle “why do you want to attend college X” essays. Writing a generic essay for this prompt is very obvious to even first time readers. Do your homework and tell them why their college is really a good choice for you. 3) Submit the application at least 2 weeks before the deadline. Computer systems often crash when you wait to the last minute. Trust me on this. 844 Likes Like This Answer Already Liked This Answer Thank you, this item will be reviewed. What if students can’t afford any of the schools they were accepted to? You have options if you weren’t accepted anywhere. You have several options if you were not accepted to any of the colleges you applied to. One option is to consider attending a local community college. These colleges accept everyone who applies. A second option is to look for colleges that still have openings for this fall. The National Association for College Admission Counseling publishes a list of colleges that still have openings in early May. Finally, you may want to consider taking a gap year and applying to a new group of colleges for fall 2013. Whatever your choice, you do have options. Likes Like This Answer Already Liked This Answer Thank you, this item will be reviewed. What are the best ways to prepare for the SAT and which study methods are worth paying for? I recommend that students buy the official test guide from the College Board which has 10 actual old tests. Take those practice tests and when you grade your test, pay particular attention to those questions you get wrong. Try to understand the concept behind the question. While the questions are different on each test, the concepts stay the same. If you can understand the concepts you are getting wrong, when you take the actual test, you will hopefully get those concepts right. 418 Likes Like This Answer Already Liked This Answer Thank you, this item will be reviewed.