Book excerpt: The secret to success is not working harder, but working smarter. The College Prep Guidebook provides expert mentoring advice for students encouraging the development of skills and reveals sure and easy paths that win admission to top universities and help achieve success in college. Discover proven strategies and powerful ideas that get results. Learn secrets to boosting your GPA and placement tests scores, while enjoying your high school experience. You can discover easy and proven ways to save time and help guarantee your success and happiness. This new edition of the College Prep Guidebook is updated to include recent changes in the SAT Test. This book explains the best sources of funding for a student’s education, and those that are best avoided to save money and avoid debt and burdensome obligations. It reveals how lower income students can have the ACT, SAT, and college applications fees waived. It shows how students can receive a “free ride,” full tuition, meals and housing at the most prestigious and exclusive universities, and when it may be less costly to attend a private college than a public one. This book helps high school students avoid ineffective routes, filled with drudgery and wasted effort, and reveals surer paths that facilitate the achievement their educational goals. It provides a guide, mapping out safer routes to success so students can thrive and delight in the educational experience. Among of the secrets provided are: • How to study more efficiently, learning more while expending less time and effort. • Which test (the SAT or ACT) students depending on their personal strengths and background, should focus on for the best results. • Placement test tips and strategies, and traps and pitfalls to avoid. • Strategies for achieving superior placement test scores. • How to earn a higher grade point average with minimal extra work. • How to develop the leadership experience that top colleges recruit. • How to create college applications that get the desired results. • How to compose an outstanding college application essay. • How you can, even with the same GPA and placement scores, dramatically multiply your chances gaining acceptance into premiere university. • How students from middle and low-income families can get their college education paid for at private universities. • How to gain the education benefits of an Ivy League college education from a public university. • Advice on the best and worst ways for military service to pay for college. • Advice on which sports scholarships are most advantageous. • Advice on selecting among colleges, which will serve the student best. • Mentoring on how to avoid common pitfalls that doom many college students. • How to succeed and have fun at the same time. While written for high school students, this book should be on interest to tiger-moms, helicopter-pops, counselors and others interested in guiding high school student towards success and independence.