SAT Testing Dates — Plan your testing dates and register for the test here. Find out what else you need to bring to the test and about accommodations if you need them.

ACT Registration — Plan your testing dates and register for the test here. Find out what else you need to bring to the test and about accommodations if you need them.

Which Test Should You Take? — Check out my blog for more information on which test you should consider sticking with.

Test-Taking Strategies For Exam Day — Intelligent.com has written a helpful article with tips for before, during, and after a big exam (like the SAT!). Pay special attention to pre-test tips #2 and #4, they’re important!

Princeton Review — Which test you should take, along with some self-study resources. You can also sign up for tutoring and small group classes.

Khan Academy — Khan Academy has partnered with CollegeBoard to provide free SAT preparation resources.

Kaplan — Kaplan provides test preparation resources for a fee for both the SAT and ACT. But ACT has partnered with Kaplan to provide their official study courses, both live-tutored and self-paced.

Peterson’s — Check their College Test Prep section to get help with SAT, PSAT, and AP tests.

Prepfactory — An affordable online resource to help students prepare for the SAT or ACT.

Become — A career and educational resource that provides study resources for a wide variety of standardized tests, from the SAT and ACT to career-specific tests like EMT, LSAT, and the PTCB exam.

Chegg — Create an account to get SAT and ACT preparation services or tutoring. Or search for the SAT and ACT for free to get recommendations for test-prep materials.

Sparknotes Blog Posts — Check out these search results for some interesting SAT prep blog posts from SparkNotes.

AJ Tutoring — A local company with centers around the bay area that can help with SAT and ACT preparation. Sign up for a free consultation to see if their mission fits your student.

Core Academics — This is a local company in Cupertino created by two former C2 Education directors. A great alternative to the big tutoring centers for SAT/ACT prep. Sign up for a free initial consultation.

C2 Education — A national tutoring company with centers around the bay. Tutors here are hit-and-miss, and sometimes your student’s tutor will leave to go to graduate school, and they’ll pair your child up with someone new. But they have a core curriculum that addresses SAT/ACT competencies. Sign up for a free consultation, which usually includes a free diagnostic SAT or ACT practice test.

Sylvan Learning — Another national company with centers around the bay. They specialize in core academics, but they do provide SAT and ACT test prep services as well. Call or register for a consultation.

Compass Prep — Another national tutoring company with a regional branch in Larkspur, CA. They have a history of exhaustively breaking down the SAT and ACT, and a track record of success. Sign up for a free consultation on their website.

How To Take Effective Notes — Whether a teacher has foisted them upon students or students discovered them independently, most are familiar with Cornell notes. But there are other, alternative note-taking strategies here that you might find useful. There’s also a useful discussion of handwritten versus typed notes (spoiler: handwritten is better; feel free to ask me why!).

Managing Your Stress — There are helpful tips here for identifying when you’re stressed (or disregulated), complete with ideas for how to cope in the moment and how to prepare yourself to manage long-term (I find chunking tasks and avoiding procrastination particularly helpful).

CollegeBoard BigFuture — explore colleges, careers, and costs to attend. This is a great first-stop for beginning to narrow down your search or to discover schools you may not have considered.

Appily — (formerly Cappex) Explore colleges and scholarships. Another great resource for early in your college search.

College Navigator — A free tool provided by the US National Center for Education Statistics that contains a wealth of information on over 7,000 postsecondary institutions. Compare the campus statistics that matter most to you.

US Department of Education College Scorecard — Comprehensive college search tool that compares performance data for every postsecondary institution in the US. Includes data points like school size, type, cost, graduation rates, employment rates, average starting salaries by major, and more.

College Express — This search tool has been around since 1995, providing not only a search tool, but specialized lists based on student interests or needs (music schools, best school bands, colleges with robust support for learning differences, etc.). You can also cross-reference lists to find schools with multiple interests that a student desires.

Best Accredited Colleges — Another search platform that has filtered out all the for-profit colleges. This site only includes accredited, non-profit public and private colleges. You can search by major or field, and each major area includes a wealth of information about the speciality beneath the list that breaks down different career paths and ways to use the learning.

Coalition for College Access — An alternative to the Common Application that allows you to upload resources to a “locker,” a kind of virtual resume and portfolio, to help your student collect their work for when they do apply. Create a free account today.

Noodle — Another resource for searching colleges, but also allows you to search by program, major, degree, and other information.

Unigo — Create a free account to begin searching through college reviews, statistics, and scholarships.

CampusTours — Search for colleges by state, by country, or by name. Pull up panoramic virtual tours or maps, and look at their academic profile and other college-specific data. You do not need to sign up, just start searching.

Students & Financial Literacy — New to paying for college? Most families are! Start with this article from Annuity.org, which outlines Need-Based Scholarships, the FAFSA, Merit Aid, and Financial Fit! This is a great primer to help get your college aid journey started on the right foot.

Department of Education Resources — Get helpful brochures and watch videos about the entire college affordability process: from types of aid and loans to budgeting and responsible borrowing, in multiple languages.

FinAid — A public-service site dedicated to providing detailed information about financial aid and scholarships for college. They link directly to Fastweb for specific scholarship groupings, but FinAid itself can answer a lot of your college affordability and FAFSA-related questions.

FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) — This is the link to begin filing for financial aid. This form requires your 1040 or 1040EZ to complete, and is necessary for not only federal financial aid or need-based aid, but also for many scholarships. Every family should fill this out.

Fastweb — A national scholarship database that will help you identify scholarships and complete the applications.

College Express — This search tool has been around since 1995, providing another source for scholarship searching akin to Fastweb.

Peterson’s Scholarship Search — Check here for information on scholarships, grants, and other financial awards to help pay for school.

Global Scholarships — This is a website with scholarship resources for universities around the world. You can search for scholarships in the US as well. This is a great resource for international students coming to the Americas or for US students looking to go abroad. They will break down the deadlines and requirements for each scholarship, and you can search by field, degree type (BA/BS, MA/MS/MFA, PhD), and country.

RaiseMe — A profile-based system in which a student inputs their activities, achievements, and academics, then, when searching colleges, the system will tell them which schools will give them money and for what achievements and activities. This shouldn’t be a student’s first, or even primary, way of finding scholarships, but it can absolutely help to see when affordability is a concern.

Unigo — Create a free account to search through scholarships, college reviews, and statistics.

Coalition for College Access — Create a free account and you can search for scholarships, in addition to storing your documents and looking at member colleges.

Appily — (formerly Cappex) Explore scholarships and colleges here.