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How Can High School Students Excel Without SATs?


Chapters

0:0 Cal's Intro
0:22 Cal reads a question about SATs
0:40 Applying to selective colleges

Transcript

All right, we got time here for-- we'll do two more quick DeepLife questions. So we have one here from Charles. Charles says, how can high school students excel in this new age without SATs? Well, Ben, focus on your grades. I mean, the academic formula has always been grades plus SAT scores.

For the vast majority of colleges, basically the only thing that matters is your grades and SAT scores. If they're where they need to be, you get in. If they're not, you don't. So now you're just doing grades instead of grades plus SAT scores. If you're in one of the very narrow group of people who's applying to a college that is selective enough that grades alone are not going to be enough to determine if you get in and they're going to look at other aspects of your life and your activities, read my book, How to Become a High School Superstar.

I get into how to do that game sustainably, how to make yourself impressive to college admissions officers without living a overworked, miserable, grind life. It's a cool book. I profile a bunch of students I call relaxed superstars who got into good schools without stressing out. And I deconstruct how they do it.

So you'll like that book. But again, for the most part, for 95% of the people, get good grades. (upbeat music)