In the last post, I wrote about attending a college representative's visit to your high school as a way of sizing up your possible local competition. On collegeboard.com there is a feature which helps you see how you "stack up". You enter information about your GPA, rank in class and courses taken, etc., and it helps assess your chances for admission to a particular school. Often colleges try to accept a geographically diverse student body and try not to accept too many students from one region and especially not from one school. The Naviance guidance delivery system is a resource to which many schools now subscribe that can help you find out more about with whom you're competing.
The website, www.naviance.com, is interesting but does not allow general access to detailed information. However, if a school district is a subscriber, the information is very extensive and tailored to the individual high school. Students and parents also have access as part of a "Family Connection". The system offers a feature which shows how successful students from the subscriber school have been in gaining admission to specific colleges and universities. I believe this feature is only available to the school's guidance professionals and other personnl. I've only had limited exposure to this system. At the party my niece had for her son's first birthday, she enthusiastically took the time to give me an overview of the program. She, too, is a counselor and, yes, she generously took time from her hosting duties to share this new knowledge with me. What can I say? We're guidance geeks!
I was pretty impressed. If you're fortunate enough to have this tool at your disposal, take the time to learn it and the opportunity to use it.
Showing posts with label College Board. Show all posts
Showing posts with label College Board. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Unigo Revisited
In a blog way back on December 1, 2010, I raved about a website, www.unigo.com, founded by Jordan Goldman who partnered with The Wall Street Journal to provide a free service where over 30,000 "college students tell you what colleges won't". If you aren't familiar with the site, it's definitely worth your time to explore it.
In the previous post I wrote about the interesting videos of panel discussions featuring college admissions personnel and administrators that are available on the site. They also provide rankings as to which schools, according to their findings, are the safest, most political, most intellectual etc. As part of the discussion on choosing a college, I'd like to revisit Unigo to discuss its college match and college search features. If you search a specific college by name, you will see an updated college profile containing information about size, cost, etc. and student reviews.
The college match feature is especially interesting. In less than thirty questions, the search seems to cover all the bases regarding cost, size, entrance difficulty, location, etc. but also addresses safety and social issues such as drugs and drinking. Questions are written in a very conversational style. A portion of one such question follows:
-Looking for a fresh start someplace new? Which of these fake communities seems to be calling your name?
o Carbon Copytown. Everyone here is very much alike. Blending in will be easy.
o Eclectic Falls. This quaint village is as diverse as it is fun and exciting.
Your results are updated as you answer each question. You're given a percentage of how well you match specific colleges which meet the criterion the question addressed. To keep your interest, the questions are sprinkled with little "factoids" like, "More women graduate from high school but more men have bachelor's degrees". Some questions allow you to select more than one answer. You can also find colleges by state and majors.
I presented the first post specifically addressing college search and matching tools in mid-January. That article focused on the search and match features on The College Board site, www.collegeboard.com. If you take one or, better yet, both of these inventories, you'll come away with some very good leads as to colleges that will meet your needs. Many schools have some kind of winter break coming up soon. Juniors should plan to use at least some of that time productively to advance their post high school plans.
In the previous post I wrote about the interesting videos of panel discussions featuring college admissions personnel and administrators that are available on the site. They also provide rankings as to which schools, according to their findings, are the safest, most political, most intellectual etc. As part of the discussion on choosing a college, I'd like to revisit Unigo to discuss its college match and college search features. If you search a specific college by name, you will see an updated college profile containing information about size, cost, etc. and student reviews.
The college match feature is especially interesting. In less than thirty questions, the search seems to cover all the bases regarding cost, size, entrance difficulty, location, etc. but also addresses safety and social issues such as drugs and drinking. Questions are written in a very conversational style. A portion of one such question follows:
-Looking for a fresh start someplace new? Which of these fake communities seems to be calling your name?
o Carbon Copytown. Everyone here is very much alike. Blending in will be easy.
o Eclectic Falls. This quaint village is as diverse as it is fun and exciting.
Your results are updated as you answer each question. You're given a percentage of how well you match specific colleges which meet the criterion the question addressed. To keep your interest, the questions are sprinkled with little "factoids" like, "More women graduate from high school but more men have bachelor's degrees". Some questions allow you to select more than one answer. You can also find colleges by state and majors.
I presented the first post specifically addressing college search and matching tools in mid-January. That article focused on the search and match features on The College Board site, www.collegeboard.com. If you take one or, better yet, both of these inventories, you'll come away with some very good leads as to colleges that will meet your needs. Many schools have some kind of winter break coming up soon. Juniors should plan to use at least some of that time productively to advance their post high school plans.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
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!
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!
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
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!
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!
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