The registration deadline for the January 23rd SAT is coming up soon -- registrations need to be received by December 15th, and late registration (a $23 fee) runs until December 30th. Scores from the January 23rd exam are released electronically on February 11th. This is too late to meet application deadlines for many schools in the United States, but the January exam is a good choice for juniors or ambitious sophomores who want to see how they measure up. Registration can be done easily online at the College Board website.

More SAT Information

• What's a Good SAT Score?
• Does the SAT Writing Section Matter?
• Should I Use SAT Score Choice?
• SAT Scores for Top Engineering Schools
• SAT Scores for Top Universities

A couple weeks ago Mike Sexton, the Vice President of Enrollment Management at Santa Clara University, offered us 5 tips for a college applicant and 5 tips for a college applicant's parents. The advice was excellent, and it also got me taking a closer look at Santa Clara University. The school is definitely worth a spotlight.

Santa Clara is a Jesuit, Catholic university that ranks among the top master's universities in the country. The university wins high marks for its community service programs, alumni salaries, and sustainability efforts. The school also has pleasingly high retention and graduation rates. The 78% four-year graduation rate is three or four times higher than many of California's public universities, a factor that prospective students should keep in mind when calculating the cost of college.

Other notable features of Santa Clara University include the well-regarded Leavey School of Business, and an athletic program that competes in the NCAA Division I West Coast Conference.

If you'd like to learn more about Santa Clara University and what it takes to get accepted, visit the SCU Admissions Profile and the university's official website. If you have visited or attended the Santa Clara University, please share your experiences below.

Every week I spotlight a great college that might be off the radar of college applicants. If there's a college you'd like to see featured here, please post your recommendation in the College Admissions Forum.

Erin Lewis over at The Ivy Compass Blog recently fielded a question about a borderline SAT math score for a student applying for computer science at top universities. The student's critical reading and writing scores were phenomenal, but the math score was a little low, especially when the student indicated an interest in a math-heavy major. Erin, a former admissions officer at Yale and Barnard, offers some excellent strategies to the student for playing up his strengths. Erin's advice nicely compliments my recent post on SAT scores for top engineering schools.

If you're thinking of going to college for engineering, it's important to realize that the admissions standards for engineering can be different than those for other areas of study. At universities such as Berkeley, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Cornell, the bar for admission to the engineering programs is higher than that for most other applicants.

Not all schools break down their admissions data by program, but this engineering SAT chart gives a fairly complete picture of what types of SAT scores are typical for admission to the best engineering schools in the United States.

Related Articles

• SAT Scores for the Ivy League
• SAT Scores for Top Liberal Arts Colleges
• SAT Scores for Top Public Universities