Ciganina

Dear Inginer, As an international student, you might try to the Colorado School of Mines or well I am not in my office, so I cannot remember the name exactly. Also if I were in Bulgaria, I would visit American University in Bulgaria. They are fully accreditated and were started as part of a USAID program. Have you been to your educational advising center in Bulgaria to ask them for help? You can find a center near you by visiting www.educationusa.state.gov. Then just click on the map. Generally these centers have many free services and good research libraries to help you find a school that offers scholarships to international undergrads that have strong math and science skills. You might also consider taking subject tests in Math and Physics just to showcase your talent. International students sometimes get a pass on the reading and writing sections if they apply to a school that has strong math and science programs. Admission committees often realize that your langauge skills will improve quickly once you are in the USA. I have several students who performed poorly on the verbal compared to their math, and now they are carrying about 18 hours per semester with very high GPAs. I think that the educational advising center in Bulgaria could help you with this. Good Luck, Elz

One thing that I would recommend, although this response is a bit late to say the least. . . is to visit your local educational advising center. Many of the services are offered for free and you can locate an educational advising center near you at the website www.educationusa.state.gov I work at the one in Serbia and Montenegro. Educational advising centers are good places for any student from outside the USA to visit and learn about programs and get information. Best of luck

I had some spare time this morning and finally got to skim through some posts. I found this topic of special interest as I also instruct students for these exams. I totally agree about the skimming possibilities for TOEFL and also that the other exams do not lend themselves to this method in any way. Our organization works with international students. English is a second language for our students and the reading passages are just so hard in terms of time. I present all possible strategies known to me in class and assist the group in practicing the methods and trying to find what works for them. Time is such a giant issue for our kids - we get into the best use of their resources and so on. I would be interested in any one's feedback on this. Also we are always actively looking for US partners in exam prep that we can work with here. I am under the impression that some of you have materials available and I would like to know more about what could be provided to our organization. I am not happy with the mainstream materials - we are always looking. I have nothing to market on this forum, but I am shopping! I hope this is not inappropriate. I can be e-mailed at office@iacbg.org if anyone would be interested in working on program development overseas.

Dear Andrei, Since you are an international student, it is also possible to write a well thought out letter to the admissions office and make a case for them to only consider your final SAT score. Especially from critical reading or writing sections. Also students from the English speaking school system can request this if there are circumstances to be taken into consideration. It does not always get approved, but it is worth a try. Great scores!

Sorry I did not mean to frighten anyone. I have just been hearing this on the last couple of rounds of exams and wonder if anyone else has had that experience. If it makes you feel any better, my students are scoring very high on the grammar section.

Dear All, I am curious to hear any feedback on experiences with the CBT and reading passages. My students are coming back with very high scores in grammar and listening, but their reading scores have dropped substantially recently. Also they have told me that these texts were much harder than the ones on Powerprep. Has anyone else noticed this or heard anything about it? Could ETS be launching some sort of experimental material in anticipation of the new TOEFL? I would appreciate any feedback on this issue. Thanks

Based on my experience, it is not unusual to see a sudden nose dive. I would say that the best thing to do would be to try another practice test. Also when this happens I compare the two tests and see if there were any distinct differences in the tests. If I were you, I would certainly take a few more practice tests before I considered changing my exam date. Hopefully some other people will respond to your post and you can get some more ideas about this.

I am curious as to any surcharges on testing fees that students who are taking the SAT abroad have to pay. Do all independent testing centers charge these fees? Some students pay anywhere from 85 to 130 dollars for their SATs and I just wondered if this was common. I have checked the list of services cannot account for these charges as there are no rush score reports or anything else involved. I wonder if it is possible to avoid these charges by registering the students on my own credit card via the internet. Looking forward to hearing what everyone has to say on this issue.

Dear Mandy, You are a true pal indeed. I appreciate the info. Unfortunately this young man came to me very late, with only three weeks before his exam. His English language skills are just not there. I think that the first step is this test because he has a deadline to get his score in. After that I will start to get him ready for academic work in English. Since he is headed for a junior college, I hope that his time there will help him fill in the gaps as well. I really appreciate your response to this as I have been quite worried about strategy. I just wish these kids would not wait until the last minute!!!!

I have an international student in Serbia that I am preparing for SAT. Unfortunately we do not have much time and I have some questions. First of all, he is looking at a basketball scholarship at a junior college. I wonder if he has to meet the 820 minumum required by the NCAA. I visited the NJCAA website but could not find any info on this. Next, since he is quite good at the math, can he just leave the verbal questions unanswered? Or if he tries to answer them, will he still receive the miniumum 200 points no matter how many he misses? I am racking my brain to think of the best strategy for him. Any help would be greatly appreciated.