College admissions is becoming more selective.
In the past decade, admittance rates at our nation's top colleges have
plummeted. In 2011, Yale's acceptance rate was 11%. Today, it is only 6%.
Meanwhile, Angela Sun has found success for herself and many other students. A
Coca-Cola and Burger King Scholar who received admission into MIT, Angela has
successfully advised students into Harvard, MIT, Columbia, and more. She has
over 4 years of tutoring experience and has edited over 300 college admissions
essays.
The Angela Sun Method
All of our services are one-on-one.
The Angela Sun Method has three phases: Planning, Achievement, and Application
Guidance, covering the student’s complete high school experience and making
sure the entire team (student, family, and Angela) are working together to build
the best result. Ideally, students start the process in the summer before high
school, after 8th grade, allowing us to iterate and change plans when needed
over the course of the student’s high school career.
Planning phase
When: Ideally 8th grade, or ASAP. 6 upfront meetings to determine the long
term plan.
What: The goal of the first 6 meetings is to get to know the student and the
family's goals and to form a plan and timelines based on the student's
strengths, weaknesses, and interests. Our 4 year plan includes determining
coursework, timing of standardized testing, summer plans, and more.
After the first meeting, within 24 hours, you will receive a written summary of
our long term consulting plan, including:
- Recommended meeting cadence
- Key areas of growth and recommendation moving forward
- Strategy for building extracurriculars and improving academics
Achievement phase
When: Over the course of high school until the summer after junior year. For
students who can independently execute our initial plan, we meet monthly. For
students who need assistance with executing (attaining grades, leadership
positions, extracurricular milestones as discussed), we will meet more often,
either biweekly or weekly, depending on the student’s needs. Students use this
time for tutoring on academic topics, time management, or more.
What: Colleges care about much more than just grades and test scores. The
strongest candidates have a well formed story to tell, encompassing their extra
curricular experiences, hobbies, personal worldview, and more.
With regular Achievement phase sessions, we work with the student and family to
outline her narrative and to execute and make it reality over the high school
years.
Achievement phase topics (click a topic to expand):
- Finding summer programs and camps
- Drafting essays and applying to summer programs such as COSMOS
- Wordsmithing and crafting a strong resume to apply to jobs
- Finding internships in your major of choice
- Acquiring research positions within university laboratories
- Crafting spike projects to develop the student’s passions and help the student stand out
- Building communication skills (public speaking, written communication, confidence and delivery)
- Selecting activities in and out of school and how to make an impact
- Finding competitions that match your interest area (USAMO, USACO, Regeneron Science Fair)
- How to be a leader, not a participant, in your extracurriculars
- Building skills for entrepreneurship: networking, outreach, etc.
- Executive functioning skills such as time management, taking notes, planning, and prioritization
- Navigating stress management and test anxiety
- Managing grades and GPA
- Developing a grade tracking system to ensure a stress-free academic year
- Selecting the best class schedule to maximize GPA but also have a strong, rigorous class schedule
- How to make use of school resources like tutorial, the best ways to engage with teachers
- Timelining ACT, SAT, APs, and subject tests
- Tutoring for SAT/ACT/APs/SAT Subject tests/school subjects
- Understanding your strengths and weaknesses, and developing a strategy to grow throughout high school
- Evaluation: if you applied to college today, where would you be positioned for success?
- Understanding your interests
- Career exploration through interest assessments
- Understanding majors and careers
- Getting early experience in these areas through extracurriculars, shadowing, and internships
- How students and parents can take advantage of college fairs
- Finding schools of a good fit (size, location, programs, majors)
- Strategies for parents to put positive pressure on students
- How parents can communicate in a way that students can be receptive
- The best way for parents to monitor grades and share concerns with students
- Dividing responsibilities: what should mom and dad be responsible for? What should the student be responsible for?
Application Guidance
When: Finally, in the summer after Junior year, we start working on the
actual college application, our opportunity to tell the student’s story to
prospective colleges. More than just essay editing, application guidance
includes finalizing the college list, making an action plan so that we’re well
prepared to hit the deadlines, selecting essay topics that paint a holistic
picture of the student, and interview coaching.
Application Guidance topics (click a topic to expand):
- Self assessment and discussion: how have you grown throughout high school? What moments in high school are you most proud of? What was the toughest challenge you overcame? The moment that you were the happiest?
- Brainstorming, outlining, and drafting a thesis
- Crafting the personal statement. We want to work with you to make this the best essay you have ever written your entire life. We will discuss how to create strong narratives and build a story that allows your reader to step into it and journey with you to who you are today.
- Ensuring a balanced portfolio of essays that shows a well rounded student
- Narrative techniques: Show not tell, how to write a hook, how to conclude the essay
- Technical writing: grammar, composition, spell check
- Drafting, timelining, and managing 20-40 supplemental essays.
- Finding schools of a good fit (size, location, programs, majors)
- The best ways to research and differentiate colleges
- How to create a prioritization framework to find the best college of fit
- Creating a balanced college list with reaches, matches, and safeties
- How students and parents can take advantage of college fairs
- Preparing brag sheets to give to letter of recommendation writers
- Ranking and choosing extracurriculars in order of importance
- Describing extracurriculars to maximize your impact
- Thinking on the spot and how to deal with curveball questions
- Top 10 most frequently asked interview questions
- Mock interviews with written and verbal feedback
- Timelining and choosing early decision/early application, or regular decision apps
- Time management of total of 20-40 essays (including personal statement and supplementals)
- Creating Common App, Coalition, and University of California accounts
- Deferral and waitlist analysis
- Helping non-native and international born parents understand the college admissions process
- How parents can help give feedback to students on essays