OK - You've got a few places in mind in which you and your family can justify spending THOUSANDS of dollars! What's next? You need to get up close and personal - visit the campus. This part of the process may seem daunting. You may have a few dozen places of interest all over the country. Luckily, you have an invaluable tool at your disposal - the Internet.
When you look up a specific college on www.collegeboard.com, you are often given a link which will take you directly to the college website. Many times that site will include a virtual tour of the campus. There is another site, www.campustour.com, which provides virtual campus tours for many colleges and universities. As stated in a previous post, www.unigo.com is another excellent resource which links to campus tours as well. While these virtual tours are not a substitute for actually visiting a specific school, something you see or learn from the website may rule out a campus or make it a definite "must see".
Another way to learn about a school is through college fairs or a college representative's visit to your high school. These events are often only as good as the rep sent by the college. However, it is a good way to pick up brochures and applications if the school does not accept the Common Application which I'll cover in a future blog. (Many schools have online application procedures but having a paper copy will help you prepare a rough draft.) If a college representative does visit your school, it's a good idea to attend the session even if you have already visited the college and have decided to definitely apply. If it's a group session, you'll get an idea of which other students in your school are considering that college and you can "size up" your local competition. Try to meet with the rep personally. Be sure to take her card or get contact information such as an email address so that you can get in touch with a follow-up email if you have further questions. If you decide to apply to the college, email the rep to let her know. Considering all the students a rep visits with, she may not remember you but anything that might put a face to the application papers is worth a try!
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Feeder Schools
We're just about at the point where you'll have whittled down your list of college possibilities from a hundred or more to a few dozen or less. In the past few posts, I've written about finding schools with good programs in the areas of study in which you're interested. If you have a goal in mind that includes graduate study, you should consider whether your choices are good "feeder schools".
I've written about what a great resource Dr. Sowell's Choosing a College is. In it he speaks about schools that are good "feeder schools", those from which many respected graduate programs accept applicants. By reading Dr. Sowell's book, I found out that the Office of Institutional Research at Franklin and Marshall College issued a publication called, Baccalaureate Origins of Doctorate Recipients: A Ranking of 4-Year Private Institutions. I contacted the research office at Franklin and Marshall and they no longer issue the publication but Dr. Alan Caniglia was kind enough to respond to me and give me a lead that resulted in finding an article out of the University of Illinois. "Graduate and Research Programs" gives synopses of different sites that offer rankings and information about graduate programs. Studies are referenced that show which pre-professional undergraduate programs graduate the most students who get into graduate programs. I found the article at http://www.library.illinois.edu/edx/rankings/rankgrad.html The National Research Council in Washington is given as a source as it is in Dr. Sowell's book. However, these printouts are not free. Your guidance office or library might have a volume of the printouts entitled, Baccaulaureate Origins of Doctorate Recipients from US Universities.
What I found most helpful in the University of Illinois article was the synopsis of a great FREE article that was written by Elizabeth Bernstein, staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal. The article is entitled, "Want to Go to Harvard Law?" and was published in September 2003. It is available at http://wsjclassroom.com/college/feederschools.htm on The Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition site. (I am struck by the number of times in these posts that I've referred to something I've found through The Wall Street Journal. It is a fantastic resource!) The article gives a list of the most effective feeder colleges and the methodology by which they were chosen. It is an excellent tool for students whose career goal necessitates graduate school.
That may have seemed like a very detailed and roundabout way to direct you to a site I could have given you in one paragraph. In December I posted about "leads", detecting information from a site that leads you to another where you learn even more. That's what I did to find this information. You should be doing the same. In this advanced technological age you can find information in a matter of hours that formerly might have taken days or even weeks. I remember snail-mail and microfiche! (I just asked my 20 something daughter how to spell that word and she said, "What's that?" You kids have it easy!)
I've written about what a great resource Dr. Sowell's Choosing a College is. In it he speaks about schools that are good "feeder schools", those from which many respected graduate programs accept applicants. By reading Dr. Sowell's book, I found out that the Office of Institutional Research at Franklin and Marshall College issued a publication called, Baccalaureate Origins of Doctorate Recipients: A Ranking of 4-Year Private Institutions. I contacted the research office at Franklin and Marshall and they no longer issue the publication but Dr. Alan Caniglia was kind enough to respond to me and give me a lead that resulted in finding an article out of the University of Illinois. "Graduate and Research Programs" gives synopses of different sites that offer rankings and information about graduate programs. Studies are referenced that show which pre-professional undergraduate programs graduate the most students who get into graduate programs. I found the article at http://www.library.illinois.edu/edx/rankings/rankgrad.html The National Research Council in Washington is given as a source as it is in Dr. Sowell's book. However, these printouts are not free. Your guidance office or library might have a volume of the printouts entitled, Baccaulaureate Origins of Doctorate Recipients from US Universities.
What I found most helpful in the University of Illinois article was the synopsis of a great FREE article that was written by Elizabeth Bernstein, staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal. The article is entitled, "Want to Go to Harvard Law?" and was published in September 2003. It is available at http://wsjclassroom.com/college/feederschools.htm on The Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition site. (I am struck by the number of times in these posts that I've referred to something I've found through The Wall Street Journal. It is a fantastic resource!) The article gives a list of the most effective feeder colleges and the methodology by which they were chosen. It is an excellent tool for students whose career goal necessitates graduate school.
That may have seemed like a very detailed and roundabout way to direct you to a site I could have given you in one paragraph. In December I posted about "leads", detecting information from a site that leads you to another where you learn even more. That's what I did to find this information. You should be doing the same. In this advanced technological age you can find information in a matter of hours that formerly might have taken days or even weeks. I remember snail-mail and microfiche! (I just asked my 20 something daughter how to spell that word and she said, "What's that?" You kids have it easy!)
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Choosing a College, Continued
In the third post in this series on choosing a college, we are moving from websites to books. You remember those compilations of fact and fiction produced on tree pulp for general consumption. I guess that definition would have to be revised in this "Kindle" generation. Forget the social commentary. In this post I intend to focus on the Princeton Review's publication, The Best 373 Colleges.
In Choosing a College, Dr. Thomas Sowell seems not to place much stock in many of the college guides he reviewed. However, his book was published in 1989 and the Princeton Review series was first published in 1992. Had Dr. Sowell been able to include it in his treatise, I think he may have found many worthwhile features. This post will concentrate on a few that I think are most beneficial.
-The book provides a guide as to what a student should do during each year of high school to enable her to be admitted into college.
-It provides tips for getting financial aid in the form of scholarships and grants.
-It provides listings of "great schools" for 15 of the most popular undergraduate majors and the rationale for inclusion in the lists. The book gives detailed descriptions of how schools were selected from their surveys which included admisnistrative personnel and students.
-The Review presents 62 top 20 rankings in eight categories:
Academics/Administrative
Quality of Life
Politics
Demographics
Town Life
Extracurriculars
Social Scene
School by Type
-There are three "honor rolls" dealing with Financial Aid, Fire Safety and Green Rating.
In Part 3 of this volume, the schools that have been rated as the 373 best are then presented in complete profiles that contain facts and impressions by which you can decide to include or exclude the specific institution from your list of application possibilities.
It's a very good guide which I can personally recommend. Regarding good college guides, Dr. Sowell writes that,
Guides that are in your home can be read
whenever the time and the mood are right,
over a period of weeks and months.
Special things about particular colleges
can be underlined and comments put in the
margins to be looked at perhaps months
later, when you are ready to decide where
to send your applications - and still later
again, when making your final choice among
the colleges that accepted you. (p. 149)
Come to think of it, can you do all that with a Kindle? For these reasons and those listed above, I believe that the Princeton Review's, The Best 373 Colleges is a very wise investment.
As we begin the Spring Season (in reality, Spring Training), the constraints of other commitments will confine these blogs to a biweekly schedule. (I always liked alliteration!) The next post will be on March 16.
In Choosing a College, Dr. Thomas Sowell seems not to place much stock in many of the college guides he reviewed. However, his book was published in 1989 and the Princeton Review series was first published in 1992. Had Dr. Sowell been able to include it in his treatise, I think he may have found many worthwhile features. This post will concentrate on a few that I think are most beneficial.
-The book provides a guide as to what a student should do during each year of high school to enable her to be admitted into college.
-It provides tips for getting financial aid in the form of scholarships and grants.
-It provides listings of "great schools" for 15 of the most popular undergraduate majors and the rationale for inclusion in the lists. The book gives detailed descriptions of how schools were selected from their surveys which included admisnistrative personnel and students.
-The Review presents 62 top 20 rankings in eight categories:
Academics/Administrative
Quality of Life
Politics
Demographics
Town Life
Extracurriculars
Social Scene
School by Type
-There are three "honor rolls" dealing with Financial Aid, Fire Safety and Green Rating.
In Part 3 of this volume, the schools that have been rated as the 373 best are then presented in complete profiles that contain facts and impressions by which you can decide to include or exclude the specific institution from your list of application possibilities.
It's a very good guide which I can personally recommend. Regarding good college guides, Dr. Sowell writes that,
Guides that are in your home can be read
whenever the time and the mood are right,
over a period of weeks and months.
Special things about particular colleges
can be underlined and comments put in the
margins to be looked at perhaps months
later, when you are ready to decide where
to send your applications - and still later
again, when making your final choice among
the colleges that accepted you. (p. 149)
Come to think of it, can you do all that with a Kindle? For these reasons and those listed above, I believe that the Princeton Review's, The Best 373 Colleges is a very wise investment.
As we begin the Spring Season (in reality, Spring Training), the constraints of other commitments will confine these blogs to a biweekly schedule. (I always liked alliteration!) The next post will be on March 16.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)