A lot of people believe that if they can't get in to a top-tier college or graduate school, it's not worth going.
Yet, there are a lot of considerations that play into your decision to go back to school, and the prestige of the program is only one factor in choosing the school that's right for you.
In this episode of The Dominate Test Prep Podcast we catch up with Harvard Kennedy School of Government alumnus Jake Taylor who recounts his journey from working on Wall Street to teaching middle school math in Spanish Harlem to ultimately going back to graduate school at Harvard -- and he answers the question of whether it was worth paying full sticker price at Harvard vs. going to a less-prestigious school where he would have received scholarship money.
Take a listen to our conversation:
We discuss a number of important topics that can help inform your own decision about if/where to go to school, including:
Conventional wisdom tells us that if we study hard, high test scores will inevitably follow.
But what if we are unmotivated to study or hampered by fear of failure?
Or what happens if when we do study, we are plagued by feeling nervous and anxious, and we are not able to perform to our potential?
It's no surprise that if you enter your test feeling anything but focused and calm, you risk a subpar performance. But how does one easily get there?
We answer those questions -- and more -- in this episode of The Dominate Test Prep Podcast as we are joined by Bara Sapir, CEO/Founder of City Test Prep, who shares proven techniques to help students master the "Inner Game" of test preparation.
Specifically, we discuss:
A recent survey shows that 40% of admissions officers reported to have looked at a candidate's social media while reviewing his/her application, a trend that is expected to continue and even grow in the coming years.
What does this mean for you?
We invited Taylor Siebert, co-founder of Class Intercom and social media expert, to The Dominate Test Prep Podcast to weigh in on how you can use social media to your advantage as you position yourself holistically during the application process.
Listen to our conversation here:
Specifically, we discuss:
Are you struggling with reading comprehension questions on your standardized test?
Often that's the case when you're not reading the passages in the most effective way.
In this episode of The Dominate Test Prep Podcast, we share three strategies for improving your overall reading proficiency, for reading the passages in a way that sets you up for success on a majority of questions, for quickly and accurately determining the author's primary purpose, and for adopting the right mindset when you're dealing with reading comprehension passages in general.
Listen to it here:
The core content for this episode is excerpted from a webinar we recently did for the Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine. While the webinar was geared toward GRE candidates for whom English isn't their native language, the tips and strategies are relevant for all test takers.
When you get to the part about "finding the thesis sentence" and using the "bracketing technique" to focus on Big...
Is a limited English vocabulary holding you back from getting the verbal score you need on your standardized test? And is there anything you can do about it in the limited amount of time you have between now and test day?
The answer is yes, and we break it all down for you in this episode of The Dominate Test Prep Podcast where we give you "The Best Way to Improve Your Vocabulary":
Specifically, we cover:
Even the highest scorers on standardized tests get questions wrong.
Sometimes you get questions wrong because you simply don't know or remember the underlying content well enough.
Sometimes it's because you didn't employ the proper strategy.
But sometimes you get wrong answers because you make careless errors — and those are the most frustrating because they can be avoided in most cases.
In this episode of The Dominate Test Prep Podcast, we show you nine (9) ways that you can avoid making careless mistakes on test day, thereby increasing the number of questions you get right and boosting your overall score. Check it out:
This is a long show, so here are some timing benchmarks you can use if you want to jump around or need to come back and pick up where you left off:
0:00 - Introduction
4:43 - Four reasons why you make careless errors in the first place
8:32 - Strategy #1 for avoiding careless errors
13:10 - Strategy #2 for avoiding careless errors
18:11 - Strategy #3...
Several interesting bits of news and insights came out of the recently-held summit at the headquarters of the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), makers of the GMAT and Executive Assessment exams, and we were there to get the scoop.
We relate the most relevant takeaways in Episode 10 of The Dominate Test Prep Podcast, including:
Brandon Royal, Ace the GMAT author, joins the podcast this week to share his expertise on an important logical reasoning skill that comes into play on numerous standardized tests — identifying assumptions.
He has categorized logical fallacies into six common assumption categories, and he breaks them down for you in an easy-to-understand way so that you’re better able to tackle reasoning-related questions on your exam.
Listen to it here:
Specifically, Brandon covers:
Success is often as simple as finding someone who has done what you want to do, and doing what they did. If you want to significantly improve your standardized test score, then, look no further than Matt Kunzler, who recently raised his GMAT score +120 points through a combination of strategic planning, a helpful prep course, and some good 'ole fashioned hard work.
In this episode of The Dominate Test Prep Podcast, Matt shares his secrets of exactly what he did to get such great results despite not having had a math class in 11 years and only having five weeks to prepare. Listen in:
Specifically, Matt shares:
Application essays are a crucial part of the admissions process, and effective essays essentially come down to good storytelling.
Your goal as the protagonist of your own story is to become a hero that admissions officers want to root for, says Michael Noltemeyer, founder of North Star Editing and guest on this episode of The Dominate Test Prep Podcast:
During our wide-ranging conversation, Micheal sheds light on just how to become that hero while sharing examples of successful essays from his 10+ years as a professional editor.
Specifically, in this episode you will learn: