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Capstone

April 24th, 2014

For many years, our tutors have been helping seniors at Palos Verdes High School complete their senior projects called the Capstone. This project consists of a research paper on a topic the student is interested in or affected by and a corresponding research project or experiment. Study Hut owners Rob and Sean Patrick, together with Redondo Beach manager, Justin, are all industry partners and judge the Capstone projects at the end of the year to decide which students will receive prizes and scholarships. In the past, the entire project has been completed during the course of the student’s senior year, but during the 2013-2014 school year, the school made some changes. Now students are required to finish their entire paper in the last quarter of their junior year, leaving the entire senior year to dedicate to their physical project and research. As the school is aware that this can be a very stressful time for students due to Advanced Placement exams in May, AP students are not required to begin working on their Capstone papers until after they have completed all their AP exams.

Early in the school year, I worked with a senior named Cara whose project analyzed the effectiveness of three different teaching styles. She works as a swim teacher at the South Bay Aquatic Center, which was the perfect place for her to experiment with different teaching styles in her swim classes.  I recently worked with a junior named Halle who studied the societal influence on the evolution of music. While expanding on previously learned academic skills and preparing students for college level papers and projects, the Capstone also provides students an opportunity to pursue further education about a topic of personal interest.

Helping with the College Application Process

October 17th, 2012

The overall majority of high school students, if not all, have the ultimate goal to complete high school and move onto the bigger world of colleges and universities. Now we are in the major season of application process with students taking final SATs, narrowing down schools and writing entrance essays. With so many things that go into getting into college, choosing a school out of the over 2,000 universities in America and almost 4,700 universities worldwide, the daunting and often times confusing application process and trying to find scholarships, many students often end up rushing through applications at the last minute or not even going through the effort. However, it does not need to be that way – with the proper preparation and effort, the process can be a breeze!

I recommend having a student start the application process around the summer before their senior year in high school. Generally the student has lots of free time to surf the internet and read through lots of information about different school, which is the first and most important step in the process: deciding which schools to apply to out of the thousands to choose from. The best way to do this is scour the internet for information, visit the campus and talk to friends and relatives that have attended the schools they are interested in. After this preliminary survey, try and narrow the potential schools to a list of 25-30, then go into a full depth research of those schools and start eliminating the ones that fall out of favor. From this new research, try and get to between 10-20 schools. Then you will want to visit these schools to narrow it down to your final 7-12 schools to actually send applications to.

The next step after choosing the schools is to actually apply! This process may seem daunting as almost every school has a different application process and requirements. The solution to this should have come from the earlier research done from choosing which schools to apply to: Application deadline, online application process, essay and letters of recommendation requirements.
The final step after applying to these schools is hopefully finding some free money to pay for the schools since we could all use some free money. Often times high schools have school programs or scholarship binders to send to local businesses, but there are countless scholarships for almost anything and everything you can think of, and all this requires is more research.
However, if after all of this you still have no clue – never fear! All of us at the Study Hut have gone through the process of applying ourselves, and have helped many other students get into their dream school. We offer a comprehensive College Application program to help with every application need, be it writing personal statements, getting scholarships, or even just filling out the applications. Time is running out – many deadlines are in November and December of this year, so let’s get a move on!

College Application Packages

Getting into College and Paying for It

April 13th, 2012

Hey everyone. After hours of research and planning we at Study Hut are almost ready to start a new line of services aimed at helping college-ready-high schooler’s not just choose the best college for them but also help get into and pay for school. The first half of our new services will be geared at having students “Brand” themselves by identifying their own unique set of skills and strengths which they can then use to better their chances of getting to the college of their choosing. By better understanding and realizing his/her own strengths students will be better able to write insightful and stronger college application essays and articulate their worth to colleges during the application process.
After you get in the school of your dreams we offer another set of services, which mom and will love, that help reduce the cost of college. We will help students apply and win scholarships by coaching them how to best present themselves when applying for scholarships. We are also able to find other ways of reducing the college cost by getting in-state tuition, testing out of some college courses (which is not just limited to AP tests), help with FASFA application and process, tuition reimbursement, and other programs offered to help students reduce the cost of college tuition.
We at the Hut have all ourselves gone through the marathon of college apps and are aware how much stress the process can be. We are happy to offer our own experience and expertise in aiding students doing their very best to get in and pay for college.