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ILUMIN Blog

Helpful tips about college admissions, test preparation and just being a better student, leader and person from ILUMIN Education.

Filtering by Category: Student Success

Webinar Transcript: College Essay Series: Crafting Your Personal Statement For The Common Application

Elton Lin

Today we’re talking about the personal statement, but you might also be looking at the UC questions, since that's a place where we like to point students to start off first. But today we'll give you a crash course about the personal statement, how you're gonna pick your prompt. You're gonna work out of seven.

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Webinar Transcript: Featuring UIUC: A Conversation with Students and Alumni

Elton Lin

We've got a special treat again: featuring our students from UIUC. As students are winding down their college lists, we wanted to highlight UIUC to make sure you guys get a chance to ask any questions to current and former students here.

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Webinar Transcript: Featuring Northeastern: A Conversation with Undergraduate Students

Elton Lin

We are continuing our ILUMIN Education webinar series – and this is the first time that we're having students come and share about their experiences, and their time at specific universities. This week's panel is from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.

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Introducing Jon Castro!

Elton Lin

As a new and experienced consultant, Jon Castro joined ILUMIN Education’s consulting team in May 2021. After six years abroad, working as a teacher and educational consultant in China, Jon has gained valuable experience helping nearly 100 students into universities such as Penn, Yale, Duke, Brown, and Middlebury.

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Webinar Transcript: Building STEM Major Pathways

Elton Lin

We'll be chatting more about majors today. Last webinar, earlier this week, we did a talk about summer programs: what you should be thinking about? We systematically went through the different options. We'll be going through that with majors through – that similar process of going through the different options: what students are looking at, and best practices, or what students should be looking at doing and achieving, and programs – things like that.

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Webinar Transcript: Last Minute Summer Plans

Elton Lin

Today Katie and Sarah will be with us introducing these different options, programs, and really just debriefing this entire process of how to plan out a summer. So we'll be talking a little bit more about that, and then we'll go through all the different options we have available.

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How to Plan for Teachers Letters of Recommendation

Elton Lin

Good letters of recommendation can give colleges insight into the applicant from the teachers’ point of view, revealing personal or academic qualities about the student that grades don’t cover. These letters provide nuance and additional context to reinforce what’s already in the application and vouch for an applicant’s character both as a student and as a human being.

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Webinar Transcript: Freshman and Sophomores: What Should I Be Doing?

Elton Lin

This webinar occurred on March 10, 2021 and featured Anthony Su, Katie Young, and Sarah Yiu.

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How To Prepare For Your College Admissions Interview

Elton Lin

Interviewing is tough. Especially when it’s for something you really want (like getting into college), and you’re doing it for a LOT of different schools, all at about the same time. But here’s interview advice tip #1: be school-specific.

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Tools for Better Time Management

Elton Lin

Here are seven key steps to mastering time management and some accompanying online tools to help you succeed.

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