The official e-newsletter of The Equestrian College Advisor.

Something new is coming in 2020!

A coming New Year calls for a new and improved newsletter experience from the Equestrian College Advisor and that's what will come your way in January, 2020.Instead of the present format of a short newsletter featuring mostly current college admission and college riding news pieces landing in your inbox every Friday, you'll begin to receive one newsletter on the second Friday of every month. The new format will be a bit longer and more in-depth with a streamlined, cleaner look that will present more information and offer month-by-month suggestions for students who are in the college search and application process.Clients will also find specific information to enhance the work they do with Randi on a regular basis.This will be the last newsletter you receive in 2019 to accommodate the change to the new format. Wishing you and your family happiest of holidays and a very Happy New Year!

From the blog:

The final stop of our two-day campus tour extravaganza led our intrepid group of educational consultants just a bit closer to our final destination of Atlanta, Georgia (where our conference was held) via the university that U.S. News & World Report has labeled the #27 public university in the nation and the one with the best career services of them all.

I’m talking about Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina. Read More

There are 12 things every family should know about merit aid from colleges and universities. 

Here they are.

From EventingNation:

"Dear Young Riders,

We all need to be a lot nicer.

It seems simple doesn’t it? It seems like something we should already be. But kindness is not a practice embraced by everyone in our community."Read the full letter here.

Making Sense of Your PSAT Score ReportIf you’re one of the thousands of students who sat for the PSAT in the fall, the results of your exam should arrive in mid-December. But what do all of the numbers, percentiles, and benchmarks actually mean?Here’s a basic breakdown:

• Your total score. Just like it says, much like the SAT, your total score (the upper left hand side of your score report) is the total of the points earned in the math and reading/writing sections of the PSAT. The scores for the individual sections are then broken down in the next section so you can see how your strengths in math and in reading/writing compared (and how your scores ranked against other test takers nationwide).

• Test scores/cross-test scores/sub-scores. This section is color-coded to break down your total scores farther and show your strong spots and weak spots that you’ll want to concentrate on improving before you take the SAT as a junior. Green scores are strong, scores in yellow are in need of improvement (but almost there), and scores in red are the ones you’ll really want to focus on in your SAT preparation. (The “Skills Insight” section of the score report can help with this as well.)

• AP Potential. If you aren’t already taking AP courses at your high school, the PSAT can also serve as a predictor of your success on AP exams. When viewing your score report online, click over to the AP Potential section to see which AP coursework you should add to your schedule junior year.

• National Merit selection. If your scores on the PSAT are particularly high, you might achieve candidacy for National Merit recognition – a great honor and one that might be worth a lot of scholarship money down the road!

Finally, it’s important to know that studies have shown that students improve – on average – thirty-three percent between taking the PSAT and the SAT. That’s a substantial improvement in scores in just a few short months! So while your PSAT score is certainly an important part of your college planning process, it’s only a tiny piece of a much larger puzzle and in the end, it won’t make or break the strength of your college application.

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