Education Consulting Services for Study in USA, UK, Canada & Abroad - The Red Pen

Are You Choosing the Right Subjects for Class 11 & 12? This is an intense time of year for class 10 students – on the cusp of young adulthood, as these kids face rigorous board exams in the coming months, they are also being asked to select subjects in their 11 th and 12 th standard curriculum. With the expansion of board options, subject selection becomes a tricky question for students who hope to study abroad within the next few years. Unfortunately a wrong choice at this critical phase can dash the dreams of aspiring students, which they only come to realise once it is too late. Depending on where you want to study, your approach to subject selection will vary slightly. In the UK, colleges set minimum entry requirements for specific courses. For example a BSc in Management Science from University College London requires students to achieve top scores in the highest level of math. Note that economics, business studies, accounts are not entry requirements for such courses ...

Waiting for college admissions results can be stressful. Here’s how to make the best use of your time It’s been a couple of months since you submitted your university applications. So after focusing on them for the better part of last year, you may find yourself thinking, now what? What are you supposed to do until you find out which university you have been accepted to? Instead of counting down the days left for acceptance (or rejection) letters to start trickling in and thinking about what you could have done differently, use this time productively. There’s still a lot that you can do. 1)  Focus on your exams: If you are sitting for your 12th grade final exams, push back all thoughts of admission results and focus on studying! Universities take into consideration your final transcripts and in some cases, can retract your acceptance if they see a drop in your academics. If you receive conditional offers, you will need to maintain your grades or achieve high scores to...

Applying for an MBA in the upcoming application cycle? Consider these guidelines for effective time management If you are thinking about applying to MBA programs this year, or even thinking about thinking about MBA programs this year, you probably feel like you have plenty of time to apply. And of course, you do have a lot of time, right now, in this moment, to apply to business school. But the problem with time is that it just slips away from us, doesn’t it? We have countless applicants who, despite signing on early, end up scrambling to make their deadlines. While the pressure of deadlines might be your best motivation, the reality is that the best work submitted to universities is work that has been carefully drafted over a period of time. Applicants who manage their time well and work progressively on their materials not only submit stronger applications, but they tend to have internalised their goals, stories and strengths in ways that help them communicate comfortably du...

Waitlisted? Guidelines on using this time wisely College admissions results are in! Some exciting, some disappointing and some ambiguous. What do you do if you receive a notification that says you have been placed on a school’s waitlist? It is not an outright rejection, rather a position of uncertainty, which can be unsettling. And if you have been waitlisted at a school you love and really want to attend, the main question is “What can I do now?” Below are some useful guidelines to help you navigate this confusing time. Keep in mind, there is no guarantee you will be taken off the waitlist, but in the event the waitlist opens up, your new information might make all the difference and improve your chances of success. Follow instructions and do what the college has asked you to do! If they want you to tell them whether or not you want to remain on the waitlist, do so, immediately. If they want additional materials, or an updated transcript, new test results, send them. Some c...

Don’t Mind the Gap – Top 3 Reasons to Consider a College Gap Year The concept of taking a gap year has been around for a long time, but lately the popularity of the gap year is increasing as high profile students such as Malia Obama opt to take a year out before joining Harvard. According to some reports, there has been a 23% increase in gap year students in the US as of 2016. In fact, more and more prestigious colleges and universities are strongly advocating students take a gap year before joining college. Harvard has seen a 33% increase in gap year students, and even MIT has seen a substantial increase in the number of students opting for a gap year. Institutions such as Tufts, Princeton and The University of North Carolina even have service-based gap year programs and fellowships built into their admissions process. If you haven’t thought about it yet, here are three reasons to get you thinking about why a gap year might be an excellent idea to consider – Better Equipped : Ac...

Accepted? Deciding which college to choose if you have multiple acceptances Add caption There was surely a point in this process when you literally thought you would never be finished with your college application, wasn’t there? And then came the waiting, which also seemed like it might last forever, and all you wanted was to get accepted somewhere. Now, however, as the results have flooded in, and you’ve received a host of positive admissions results, you have a hard decision to make. For students who were accepted to their number one 100% dream school, the choice is easy, but what we find is that many students have multiple dream schools, or realise through the application process that they could be happy in many places and in many programs. So what do you do when you realise you have a lot of great options and you aren’t sure which how to choose? To help with this difficult decision, we’ve compiled a list of things to think about as you consider all your college admissi...

Understanding the new SAT & how international students can prepare for it When The College Board announced they would be transitioning to a new format for the SAT starting in March of 2016, it set off a flurry of questions for students around the world. Updates in 2005 and 2009 had included radical changes to the format, additions to the writing section, an expanded math section and shifting of the score range from 1600 to 2400. Now, the test format has returned to an optional writing section, rather than a mandatory one, a new philosophy behind the math section, and the score range has returned to 1600. But beyond that, the very test itself has a different ethos, which could be confusing to students all over the world. Many worried that this new version would once again overturn testing standards and put students at a disadvantage on a test that is so vital to the admissions process of US colleges. The logic behind this re-design, however, at least as the College Board expl...