School Girl
Test Optional Colleges and Universities
For a very long time the SAT and ACT are tests that have haunted and sometimes even hurt the odds of admission for students, but many schools are changing their minds about these tests. Here are five schools that've decided to go test-optional. So if you're worried about the SAT or ACT, check out one of these schools!
Sacred Heart University (Fairfield, Connecticut) a Catholic university located in suburban Connecticut. SHU is the second largest Catholic university in New England, behind Boston College, and offers more than 40 degree programs to 5,800 students at the bachelor's, master's, and doctoral levels. Sacred Heart is included in the Princeton Review's Best 368 Colleges 2009, the Princeton Review's Best 366 Colleges 2008, the Best 290 Business Schools 2008, as well as U.S. News and World Report's Best Colleges.
Gustavus Adolphus College (Saint Peter, Minnesota) a private liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It is a coeducational, four-year, residential institution founded in 1862 by Swedish Americans. To this day the school closely identifies with its Swedish heritage, which has motivated the institution to develop a Scandinavian Studies program and ties to the Nobel Foundation. The premier event on campus is the Nobel Conference, which features Nobel-Prize-winning speakers and other world-renowned scholars explaining their expertise to a general audience.
State University of New York at Potsdam (Potsdam, New York) a public university located in the Village of Potsdam in St. Lawrence County, New York. Founded in 1816, it is among the 100 oldest colleges in the United States. It is composed of the College of Arts & Sciences, the School of Education and Professional Studies, and the renowned Crane School of Music.
Augustana College (Rock Island, Illinois) a private liberal arts college enrolling approximately 2,500 students. Covering 115 acres of hilly, wooded land, Augustana is adjacent to the Mississippi River. A large percentage of the student body takes part in a wide variety of groups and activities related to the performing arts, theatre, debate, publications, broadcasting, student government, and a broad spectrum of professional, religious, departmental, political, social, and service organizations.
Green Mountain College (Poultney, VT) a coeducational private environmental liberal arts college. Known as Vermont's Environmental Liberal Arts College, Green Mountain is located in the Vermont countryside, at the foot of the Taconic Mountains between the Green Mountains and Adirondacks. The College has a core set of courses known as the Environmental Liberal Arts (ELA) curriculum, designed to create students well-rounded in environmental and natural sciences, writing, reading, history and philosophy.
Tags: getting in, college admissions, sat-optional, sacred heart university, test-optional, gustavus adolphus, admissions requirements, green mountain, augustana college, green mountain college
Tips on How to Study Right
Okay, admit it. We have all been waiting for this one! Seems like a good topic to start off with! Especially now that school has just started, we all want to start on the right foot, especially when it comes to grades. Be sure to use these tips to study right, and to be the best you can be!- Find a good place to study. If you get distracted easily, you might want to set up a study area. In your study area, try not to do things like, eat, sleep, watch TV, or even dream of cute boys. Sorry girls, but we have to train ourselves to concentrate if we are ever going to ace this test! If you concentrate well and don't get distracted easily, try to study in a different place with each subject. That way, you will be able to recall information that you studied in the certain place!
- Try using the assigned information to make an "easy" outline. It's not hard! Just right down chapter titles, headings, and subheadings. Don't include any details and try to study that for about fifteen minutes. This will help you create organization in your long term memory to get ready for the test. Then, once you study details, you will know where to "store" them in your brain, and it will be easier to recall information when you are taking the test! This is a good way to study if you are taking and essay test or a multiple choice test.
- Make photocopies of any diagrams, boxes, or maps in your textbook and notes. White out the information or labels in them and make at least five copies of them without the information. Then, use the original copy to fill in the blanks. After doing a couple of practice ones, try to do a few without looking. Aim to do about two or three without looking. This will help you break up long, boring study sessions and help you remember it when you have to fill in the information on the test.
- One of the best techniques to use when you study is to try teaching the information to someone who is unfamiliar, or struggling, with the information. It is amazing how much success this creates when it comes to doing well on tests. Make sure when you teach to teach it all the way through, without missing anything. Make sure to ask questions! Teach your mom, your brother, a friend, or even you cat! Anything works!
- Rent a movie! If are studying history, social studies, or science, rent a non fiction documentary on the subject and time frame that your are studying. If you are studying a language such as Spanish or french, rent a movie you have seen before (Disney movies are great!) and watch it without subtitles. Pop some popcorn and invite some friends from your class to come over and watch it with you! Make it a study sleepover!
- If you are studying math, go into the chapter review and do a few problems that look a bit harder than the ones the will be on the test. It will make the test material seem easier, and you will be able to finish the test quicker with more confidence!
- Another good way to study is to write out a whole bunch of bold words from textbooks or power point lectures. Then, as you read the material, any other words that you think will be important on the test. Then, make some flashcard with the words you wrote down. Write the definition on the back and study them! Make sure after studying for a while that you take out the words that you know so that you are only focusing on the things you don't know.
- Last, but not least, don't waste your shower time! Stick a diagram, outline, or notes into a zip-lock bag and tape it onto your shower walls. Now, you can study and rinse at the same time!
New School Girl Columnist!
Hey guys! Angie here, and I am proud to say I am the new columnist for School Girl! Be sure to keep checking back, because we will be having a lot of fun this school year! From school styles, tips on how to study well, and even how the snatch that cute boy in Science class (and how not to be distracted all year...), School Girl will have it all! Send in all of the things you want to see here, and I'll be sure to include it! Thanks for reading!How To Effectively Cram
So you haven't studied. Things got away from you and all of a sudden you realize that that huge exam is tomorrow. You could not study, but that's dumb. So now you're going to cram. But not all cramming is created equal. There are some ways for you to cram more efficiently and hopefully do a little better on that exam. Before you read this article and think "oh how wonderful! I'll never have to study again!", please remember this: Cramming is a last-minute resource. You should not rely on cramming as your only method. I understand that it happens, but you will do exponentially better and retain more information over time if you do actual studying. The following article was found at a website called DegreeDirectory, I suggest you poke around there, there are some great articles. Also, I didn't include the entire article, so if you'd like more information, the article can be found here.Four Starting Steps
- KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO STUDY Knowing how much information you have to cover to be prepared for an exam is essential. Be realistic and make a list. Put the things you already know at the bottom and the things you are clueless about at the top.
- KNOW HOW MANY HOURS YOU HAVE TO CRAM Since it's the night before the exam, your cram session is sure to be limited. Determine how much time you have. Again, be realistic. If you are confident in your ability to successfully pull an all-nighter, by all means do so. But if you know you can't function without sleep, you're better off setting aside time to get some zzz's.
- DECIDE WHERE YOU WILL STUDY You'll need to find a quiet, well-lit place that's completely devoid of distractions. This may mean leaving your room, your house and possibly even your town.
- DECIDE YOUR PLAN OF ATTACK Coming up with some sort of game plan before you get started will save valuable time. To start, decide what study techniques you'll be employing and what you'll need to accomplish your goal. Then, make a schedule or a to-do list to help you execute your plan in a timely manner.
Cramming Techniques
MEMORIZATION TECHNIQUES
- Repeat information over and over again. (Do this until you can easily repeat something ten minutes later.)
- Rewrite information that you want to retain. (Rewrite at least three times for maximum retention.)
- Act it out. (Make up a dance or hand signals to remember whole sentences.)
- Make rhymes and songs out of important dates and facts. (Who can forget that in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue?)
- Use acronyms to remember facts. (SIM translates to Sedimentary, Igneous and Metamorphic--the three basic rock types.)
- Use acrostics to remember words in a specific order. (My Dear Aunt Sally = Multiply and Divide before you Add and Subtract)
USE A TEXTBOOK
Reading an entire textbook is not an effective way to cram for an exam. Instead, try concentrating on the summaries that appear at the beginning and end of each chapter. Chapter end questions, illustrative examples and other sections that are located throughout the book may also prove helpful.- Look for bolded words. Words in a bold or italicized font are probably important. Take note of these words by writing them down, highlighting them or flagging them in some other way.
- Know how to answer chapter end questions. Lazy professors pull their exam questions straight from the back of the book.
- Use the table of contents, the glossary and other overlooked parts of the textbook to get an overview of key information.
- Read introductions and conclusions. These parts always include important points.
USE YOUR NOTES
Hopefully you have class notes. If not, it's time to think about making photocopies of someone else's--preferably someone who takes good notes. If the professor made a specific point of emphasizing specific subject matter in class, it's likely that at least some of this subject matter will appear on the exam.- Look through the notes and try to find things that have been underlined or highlighted in some other way. This information is probably important.
- Scan the notes and look for key information that you can highlight or flag with Post-it notes for easy reference later on.
- Rewrite key information from your notes. This will help you memorize and comprehend important points.
- Read some of your notes aloud into a voice recorder and replay them later.
Tags: how to, studying, cramming, cram, last minute, school girl