Two or Four Year College - "Pulling a Rudy"

In the last post I began a discussion of resources with which to help students find colleges to which to apply. I reviewed the site collegeboard.com which is invaluable in this effort. Unlike other college match sites, one of the first questions it asks the student is whether they're looking for a two or four year program. If the student responds, "No Preference", the college match results produced will not preclude two year programs. A lot of people may falsely stigmatize two year programs as being a last resort for students who "can't get in anywhere else". While sometimes true, that's an unfair generalization.

There are numerous reasons not to rule out a two year program. This post will concentrate on some major ones.

-Some students are interested in careers that require Associate's Degrees or even Certification rather than a four year Bachelor's Degree. Many of these jobs are in the technical or applied sciences. People interested in being a Veterinary Technician or Drafter often are employed with certification or a two year degree (Associate). For students who are unsure of their level of interest in a certain area, this can be a very good option rather than spending upwards of $30,000 a year to find out. Once employed in the field, they can decide if they are interested in advancing to a career that requires further study such as Veterinary Medicine or Architecture.

-Students who decide late that they even want to go to college may be able to "prove themselves" to a college with tougher academic and testing requirements than they acquired in high school. I call this "pulling a Rudy". That's a reference to the movie where the character, Rudy, used his good record in a two year program to transfer to Notre Dame. Many two year programs have bridge programs or articulation agreements with four year colleges where, upon completion. a two year graduate can enter into the four year college as a junior. The Baccalaureate Degree you get at graduation reads the name of the four year college or university, not the community college where you began.

-You've probably already figured out that the transfer option previously mentioned is a great way to save money as well. On the average, a community college costs less than half of what a four year state school charges. At a community college you can take core degree requirements at a much lower cost. Just be sure that the four year program you want to transfer to has an articulation agreement with the two year college or will accept the majority of your credits. Consider your college budget. I went to a very fine state university which was relatively inexpensive. Students who had to transfer there from pricier programs were seldom happy. You always want to trade up.

-If the above reasons aren't sufficient to at least pique your interest in alternatives to applying to a four year program immediately after high school, consider the USA Today article of January 18, 2011. The article by Mary Beth Macklein, which can be found at www.usatoday.com is entitled "Report: First Two Years of College Show Small Gains". In it she refers to a report based on a book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses.
One of the study's conclusions is that, "Nearly half of the nation's undergraduates show almost no gains in learning in their first two years of college." The authors also found that students spent 51% of their time socializing and recreating; 24% sleeping; 9% working, volunteering or in student club activities; 9% attending class and only 7% studying. Sounds like a sweet deal but, unless you have no need to take loans to subsidize this life style, is it really worth going into thousands of dollars in debt?

Choosing a College

By this point you should have an idea of what you would like to do and how to prepare for it. Does your career of interest require college, trade or technical school or even apprenticeship, a topic we'll investigate in the future? For those who require a college degree, the biggest dilemma which now presents itself is which college to choose. An invaluable book which I've referenced in the past is, Choosing a College by Dr. Thomas Sowell. The book doesn't seem to be available from Amazon.com but you may be able to find it in the library. (You remember the library, that brick building somewhere near the center of town with those pre-Kindle paper things called books!?!) Dr. Sowell is a brilliant economist who is quite prolific in writing about economics, education and history. As stated previously, the book was first published in 1989. While some of the information about specific schools is dated, the philosophy and technique underlying the college choice process is relevant and that's the major purpose of the book.

There are numerous resources available to help you in your search. Since I wrote about the College Board in the last post outlining use of PSAT results, I'll begin with that. There are many features of www.collegeboard.com that are excellent resources for students, parents and education professionals. The college search and match features are well worth investigating. If you know of a college in which you're interested, you can search it by name and get a complete profile of one of over 3,500 schools. If you haven't a clue or only have a school or two that you know of, use the college match feature. You are asked a series of questions which, based on your responses, will match you with specific schools that meet your preferences as to size, cost, majors and a host of relevant characteristics. You can then use the list of results to further refine your choices.

An excellent feature on this site is the side by side comparison. You can compare up to four colleges at one time. Once you put in the names, a one page "side by side comparison" results which gives you location, admissions criteria, size and cost. In addition, there is the "How do I stack up?" feature which lets you put in personal information as to your grades and test scores and results in a comparison of how you "stack up" against the competition at that school. You can save all of these results in a personal account which you can set up free of charge as a PSAT/SAT taker. This site is definitely a keeper!

It's January and Junior Year

When I began this blog, I thought I should begin with junior year in high school. However, there is so much preliminary work that should be done before that. On the www.college.gov site, mentioned in an earlier post, they use three main sub-headings the first of which is "Why Go?". If you have been following the blog, you have, hopefully, done the suggested career exploration and have an idea in mind as to the kind of career(s) you would like to have and the type of post-secondary training/education it requires. If not, review some of the previous posts and go from there. From this point we're going to discuss how to find the place that moves you forward toward your career goal.

By this time juniors should have received the results of the PSAT/NMSQT they took in October. Many sophomores may have taken the test as well, although they are not yet eligible for the National Merit Scholarships for which juniors may qualify. If you took the test and have not received your results, be sure to see your guidance counselor.

If used properly, these results are invaluable to help you prepare for the Scholastic Aptitude Test required by most college admissions offices. The ACT (American College Test) is another test which many schools use as part of their application process and will be discussed in a future post. The PSAT provides you with your scores (ranging from 20-80) on each of three subtests: critical reading; mathematics and writing skills. More importantly, they give you a percentile by which you can see how your scores stack up against other students in your grade level who took the test. A score of 48 in critical reading, roughly what would be a 480 on the SAT, doesn't seem so great. However, when you see that that score was better than 69% of the other students in that grade level who took the test, it's much more competitive. These other students are those who will compete against you for college admissions. As a visual, in a room of 100 students in your grade throughout the country who took the test, you did better than 69 of them. Looks a lot better, doesn't it?

If you don't want to bank on the rest of your group sleeping through segments of the SAT, use your PSAT scores to prepare. Your test booklet should have been returned to you so now you can actually review the specific questions you got right or wrong. The results also give you the level of difficulty of each question and the specific skill it was meant to assess. They also provide an analysis of which skill areas you can improve and provide suggestions as to how to do so.

On the second page of your results you are given a code with which you can fully access the College Board website and use its services for free. The MyRoad program offers the ORA Personality Profile, mentioned earlier. If you don't have a career goal in mind, this will help you. Even if you have a life long dream of a specific job, take the profile to see if it produces results compatible with your plans. It may even broaden the scope of possibilities.

Collegeboard.com provides information on the SAT, which they also administer, and suggestions as to how to prepare. There's a lot of money in SAT preparation. Many students hire private tutors who "tutor to the test", giving them tips and exercises to hone their test skills in general and SAT taking specifically. The Princeton and Kaplan Review(s) along with Huntington and Sylvan Learning Center(s) are just a few among many companies that charge handsomely for these services. Books are available for those who are self-starters and can discipline themselves to prepare at a much lower cost. Among over 1500 titles amazon.com lists when you search "SAT prep" are: The Official SAT Guide by the College Board

; Kaplan SAT 2011; Barron's SAT and McGraw Hill's 12 SAT Practice Tests
There is an interesting online test prep program at www.grockit.com.

No matter what plan(s) you follow, don't just wing it. DO SOMETHING! At the very least, READ - not just subjects you enjoy but pick up something technical if you're a poet and poetic if you're a scientist. You can be both. Decipher it - read with a dictionary - understand it - seek the guidance of a parent or teacher. In May or June many juniors with take the SAT for the first time. (I recommend the May date, as it provides a question/answer service which can be further used to prep for the test if you decide to take it again.) Colleges use a composite of the highest scores for each section of the SAT(s) a student takes.

It may not seem so now, especially for those of us in colder climates, but Spring is just a blink away!