Around finals time, many students feel that everything comes crashing down. The culmination of classes, extracurricular activities, and internships can amount to an overwhelming workload. Now throw on five or six of the largest exams of the semester and you have a balancing act teetering on the edge of collapse. The best way to get through these stressful two weeks are to map it out, take it step by step, and oddly enough stick to a healthy diet.

Time management is an important skill for people to have throughout their lives. Making a calendar and marking down all of your obligations and exams will help you visualize and understand deadlines, high priority assignments, and how much time can be allotted to each task. The template below can be filled in with group meetings, project deadlines, class times, exam times, and even study breaks.

This schedule can be expanded to include more hours of the day. It can also be altered to include shorter or longer time blocks depending on your personal schedule. Having a schedule and sticking to it will help you stay organized for studying and create a more effective and streamlined study schedule.

                Finals can be so overwhelming because of the vast amount of information that you will be tested on.  While the big picture can seem nearly impossible to accomplish, no artist can make a masterpiece with one brush stroke. The best accomplishments have been attained inch by inch, stroke by stroke, piece by piece. When the looming task of studying seems to be too much to accomplish, just look at the information chapter by chapter. Mark down the concepts that you have difficulty understanding and see your professor during office hours or study sessions to clarify each topic one at a time. Great accomplishments take perseverance and patience. A deep breath and a strong focus can help you get through the finals successfully.

                This last part undoubtedly seems completely irrelevant. Unfortunately, many students tend to drop healthy eating habits and let their health take the back seat in times of high stress. Always start the day off with some breakfast, and try to maintain a balanced diet even though cooking time is limited. When you don’t have proper nutrition, your immune system weakens and you are more likely to get sick or tired. Try planning out meals at the beginning of the week or on weeks and doing most of the prep work then so that you can still feel good during finals.

Good luck!

                In recent years, there has been a trend toward SAT optional admissions at a multitude of colleges and universities across the country. This controversial topic can leave many alumni disgruntled, but the decision allows a lot of prospective students to breathe a sigh of relief. In the midst of all of the change and confusion, parents and prospective students alike are left wondering: is it better to submit scores regardless of the change?

                While a school may become SAT optional, admissions counselors review applicants based on all of the information that the students provide to the school. Therefore, if you submit the scores even though they are not mandatory, the scores will still be used when reviewing an application. Thus, if you are an excellent student who tends to freeze under pressure, and do not feel that your scores have or will represent your academic abilities well, then it might be best to leave the scores out of the equation. On the other hand, if you excel at tests and feel like your SAT score is a much better indication of your academic abilities, submit away.

                While this answer is obvious to many, it still leaves a huge problem staring college applicants in the face. Since the scores are not mandatory, the schools will be receiving the strong scores from their applicants, but not all of the weak scores, making SAT cutoffs more difficult to compete with. But does that admission counselor look down upon those who decline to submit their scores to a school completely rather than submitting the mediocre score? The answer is no, since the tests are optional, schools cannot discriminate against those students who do and do not submit the scores; however, in an increasingly competitive admissions process, having a test score may give an applicant the extra edge that they need. For those who do not excel in the face of standardized tests, the ACTs are always a strong option for those who do not feel comfortable leaving out any sort of standardized test score for the schools.

                While the standardized tests may be optional at a growing number of schools, SAT scores will still come in handy for jobs and internships, scholarships, or when transferring between colleges or universities. Thus, it is always a good idea to prepare to the best of your abilities. There is not blanket yes or no answer of whether a student should submit his or her scores. Therefore, it is always a good idea that when in doubt, ask the admissions counselors at the schools that you are applying to whether it would be best for you to submit your scores since each school might have a different preference or policy regarding the shift in admissions.

“Five minutes.” It is a cold Saturday morning and the fluorescent lights of the classroom beam down as you sit confined at a small desk. A man at the front of the room has just given you your last time warning. As the panic takes over, you lose focus on the current question. You tell yourself to relax and stop wasting time worrying. A few deep breaths and you regain concentration. Immersed back into the problem, you find yourself lost in a sea of numbers, forgetting where the answer is going. You scratch it out and start over. You do the math, but your answer does not match any of the five given. Discouraged, you decide to move on to the next one when you are interrupted. “Put your pencils down.”

Unfortunately, this is not a nightmare from a television dream sequence. Keeping track of time is crucial during standardized tests, but it’s a skill that many people struggle with. Although you may be able to complete every question correctly, you will still have time going against you. Instead of always worrying about obtaining the right answer, worry about how fast you can do them.

Take one of the math sections. You have 25 minutes to complete 20 questions. By dividing the time in the amount of questions, you have 1 minute and 25 seconds to complete each question. Though not all questions are the same. Some may take longer than the allotted time, right? Well along with questions that take longer, there are those that are less time intensive. If you go over time for one question, you better be sure to salvage some extra time from the next question to fit the time lost.

It is like a puzzle. Every question must fit into a time slot and if you carry over then you still have to make up for that exact amount on the next one.

Practice this at home. Time yourself on each question. Get comfortable with the pressure. Try doing this every day. Take 25 minutes and complete 20 individually timed questions. If you can get yourself up to speed, you will have a much better result. Remember, time stops for no one.

                In the wise words of Rod Stewart, “I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger.” Going through the college admission and application process, my vision was somewhat clouded. While in the midst of choosing my future, I found it very difficult to separate myself from the situation at hand and sometimes found myself chickening out of applications. My final list of schools varied from the biggest to the smallest, the public to the private, and the near to the far. With no correlation, it was obvious that I had no idea what I wanted. Luckily, it became clear and I landed myself at a place that I now fondly call my home.  As I continue to be surrounded by those who are struggling and pushing through graduate school applications and uncertainty, I come with a few words of advice.

First, get started as soon as possible. As a freshman I began orienting myself with the various business school MBA programs by creating spreadsheets to compare the options and figuring out which type of program I would like to pursue, which programs were strongest in my areas of interest, what the costs were, and prerequisites for the programs. Rather than having to tailor my graduate school search based on how I blindly performed in my courses, I was going to tailor my undergraduate performance to the programs that I was most interested in. Surprisingly, many students wait until senior year to begin looking toward the next step and many are left having to take a year off. If you end up in this position, look into which certifications that you can get in the meantime to show schools that you’re still eager to learn and practice your specialty.

Second, ask someone for advice. Your school career center is not limited to information about jobs and internships, but they can help you stay on track for graduate school, as well. These resources, along with your professors, who have gone through the process themselves, will provide you will valuable insight about which path would be best for you.

Third, get to know your professors. Many programs require recommendations from academic sources. Your professors will only see how you perform on assignments and in class, but many times the A’s and B’s can blend together. Showing up to class and office hours to talk to your professors one-on-one gives them a basis and insight into how you think, how hard you work, and how interested you are in the content.

Lastly, don’t stress! The more you stress, the more likely you are to make irrational decisions during the application process. Keep a cool head and understand your options. The calmer you stay, the better your results will be.

Best of luck in the admission process everyone!

Test-taking preparation and the right attitude can give any student a better chance of succeeding in their classes. Here are 10 tips for you to follow that will enhance your scholastic performance:

1. Preparing for tests in college should begin after the first day of classes. This should include completing daily homework assignments (even assignments that will not be handed in), and reviewing study materials on a regular basis, (e.g. notes and handouts are extremely important).

2. Time management is essential. Make sure that you budget your time to comfortably cover all of the material.

3. Go the extra mile and meet with teachers during office hours to get to know them on a personal basis. Go to review sessions and pay attention to certain hints that the instructor may give about the test.

4. Ask the instructor to specify the areas that will be emphasized on the test. Make sure that you ask them about the format as well, (e.g. multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, short answer or essays)

5. Make sure you give yourself enough time before the class starts to ask any final questions to the teacher that you are still not 100% sure about.

6. Go over all material from practice tests, pervious homework assignments, sample problems, review material, the textbook, and class notes.

7. Eat before an exam. Having food in your stomach will give you energy and help you focus. An energy bar or a piece of fruit is an excellent source of nutrition.

8. Don’t ever try to pull an all-nighter. Get at least six hours of sleep before the test.

9. Make a review sheet from all of the main ideas and information that were in your notes or handouts. This makes your materials much more organized and easier to retain the key concepts.

10. Try to show up at least 10 minutes before the test will start. Mentally get “in the zone” and be confident that you are fully prepared for the exam. Bring #2 pencils, pens, calculators or anything that you will need for the test. A few deep breaths never hurt either!

Nick Scutari