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ENGENIUS PRIVACY POLICY

This Privacy Policy provides the general rules governing your use of our Website. On some areas of our site, you may be required to agree to additional terms and conditions. Engenius Learning Centers, LLC (Engenius) understands your privacy rights regarding any information we may collect while operating our website. We respect your privacy and will protect personally identifiable information you may provide us through the Website. This Privacy Policy applies only to information we collect through the Website and our collection of information from other sources.

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Mike Flynn

Stop Calling Them Safety Schools!

By Mike Flynn on November 8, 2020

Seniors – For years you have been told to use the terms Safety and Reach colleges when making a college list. The first thing to do is to STOP CALLING THEM SAFETY SCHOOLS! Just like you don’t want to be called a “safety date” for your prom, why would you call the place where you will call home for years a “safety school?” Or, when you go to the prom and you go with someone who is “too good for you,” do you call that person your “reach date?”

If you end up at a college after careful thought and acceptance, it most likely was the right place for you. Picking colleges is hard but using the right approach to finish your college list will make all the difference in the end. To start your path to college on the right foot, throw away the terms Reach and Safety school. While you are at it, toss aside Target schools because if the school wasn’t a possible target, why would you aim for it? Instead of these antiquated terms, let’s use the concept of how you “match” and then what probability you have of matching at that school.

For example, if you have grades and test scores that exceed the college average, and the college has high acceptance rates, then that school is a “high probability match.” If your grades or test scores are below the average, then that school is a “low probability match.”

Up to that point, people consider this to be similar to safety and reach schools. Where these terms let you down is when your grades and tests scores exceed the averages, but the college has a large number of applicants and a very low acceptance rate. Technically this should be a target school, but because there is a low probability of acceptance, it really isn’t a target. It isn’t a reach school either because you clearly “match” in terms of grades and test scores. Because of the weakness of the old classification, the term “low probability” or “medium probability match” work so much better because it explains how you rank.

To learn more about this concept, watch the video STOP CALLING THEM SAFETY SCHOOLS!

How to Write Common Essay Prompts #1 – #8

By Mike Flynn on October 23, 2020

Learning how to write Common App essays is not as hard as it seems. These prompts are all asking for personal information about you, what you have done, and how you have reacted to a variety of different situations in your life. While not everyone has been a captain of a team or created a killer app that sold millions of copies, these prompts are more interested in how you handled the situation and what you learned. This video is from a live seminar for my students, and I will show you how easy it is to write Common App essays from the prompts and let you use fictional storytelling devices to write about your story! Follow a few simple guidelines and you will be well on your way to an essay the colleges will love!

If you need help with UC applications prompts, please check out these videos:

How to Write UC Personal Insight Questions #5 – #8

By Mike Flynn on October 14, 2020

Seniors – if the UC essays require no research and just want you to write about your experiences, why are they so hard? Simply put, you haven’t trained to write this sort of essay in high school, so it is hard to put everything you have learned about introductions and conclusions aside and write an essay straight from the heart.

If you are uncertain about how to begin, this video will give you the tips and tricks to get going and write an essay the colleges will love!

This video is focused specifically on prompts #5 – #8.

How to Write UC Personal Insight Questions Prompts #1 – #4

By Mike Flynn on October 7, 2020

Seniors – if the UC essays require no research and just want you to write about your experiences, why are they so hard? Simply put, you haven’t trained to write this sort of essay in high school, so it is hard to put everything you have learned about introductions and conclusions aside and write an essay straight from the heart.

If you are uncertain about how to begin, this video will give you the tips and tricks to get going and write an essay the colleges will love!

If you are interested in watching a recording of a live seminar, please watch the video below:


If you need help with the Common App, please click on the link below:

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