Hiatus

Just a reminder - Posts Will Resume on Wednesday, Septemer 21, 2011. ENJOY!

The College Application Essay

Years ago, it seemed only a handful of colleges used the Common Application. Actually, when I began my career as a counselor, only fifteen schools used the program and it was, as I found out on their website, their Pilot Project year. Now, over 400 programs use the Application and 134 schools use it exclusively. Many of those 134 are quite exclusive as well, e.g., Williams, Brown, Yale, et. al.

On the Common Application home page, www.commonapp.org, under "Additional Resources", you'll find a link to the National Association for College Admission Counselling, www.nacacnet.org, which provides valuable information on parent and student resources. There is also a link to the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, www.nasfaa.org.

Those rising juniors who know the schools to which they plan to apply as seniors, can begin their applications now. The Application website provides online and print versions of its first year and transfer applications. The preview of the 2011-2012 application can be accessed online. It provides six topics from which you may choose to write a 250-500 word essay. One of the selections is "Topic of your choice". The LEAST you should do this summer is prepare a rough draft. Even if your senior English teacher plans to cover this in next year's curriculum, this is a head start you will not regret having taken.

I rate essays for a major educational testing program and I can commiserate with application essay readers in admissions offices. Nothing stands out more than a well written, creative essay. Of the hundreds, if not thousands, of essays they must read, I'm sure the majority neither have these qualities nor give the reader a real sense of the writer's voice, of who he is. As a former English teacher, I know that one great tip we have imparted through the years is, "Read your essay aloud". Things that would have been missed in a silent edit of your essay will be picked up and language that is confusing and stilted will not go unnoticed, nor will run-on sentences, which this one has become! All kidding aside, a great website which will help you navigate this process is www.englishclub.com. Just search "College Application Essays Help" and you'll be taken through a series of "lessons" (six in all) that will help you write a good, if not great, application essay. As the saying goes, you've only got one chance to make a good first impression. The college application essay is your chance to do that.

Bi-weekly posts will resume on September 21, 2011.
HAVE A WONDERFUL SUMMER!

Summer Vacation

This is the penultimate (Look it up!) post until Wednesday, September 21. In this post, I will propose a new twist to an old topic. The September "Back to School" theme of "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" will become "How You Should Spend Your Summer Vacation". I'd like to suggest a few things that you should do this summer to help you reach your goals.

1. Define Your Goals
Students in middle school and beyond can use the sites I've written about this past year to help achieve this end. My post of December 14, 2010 lists some good ones where you can find career and interest inventories to help you pinpoint career interests.

2. Investigate Possible Careers
Hopefully, you've used some of the information I've posted to enroll in a summer program that will assist you in this endeavor. www.bls.gov and www.careercornerstone.org are two excellent websites.

3. Investigate Training for Specific Careers
The websites above will help you find out what kind of educational background a specific career requires. You can find out more about these programs and schools at www.collegeboard.com and www.unigo.com.

4. Visit Specific Schools
Actually travel to places where you might enroll after high school. At the very least, use the sites mentioned to find out more about a school. In addition to these and individual college websites, www.campustour.com provides virtual tours of many campuses. www.neighborhoodscout.com gives a wealth of information about the region and city in which a school is located. www.thefire.org gives information as to the school's protection of the individual's Constitutional free speech rights.

5. Determine Entrance Requirements and Prepare for Entrance Exams
Students should be sure they have the proper courses to fulfill entrance requirements. These can be found on the school's website or by looking up the school on www.collegeboard.com. If you need to take a class/classes that you haven't scheduled, you'll have to notify your counselor as soon as possible. Students entering junior year in the fall should spend some time preparing for SAT's. Those entering senior year who haven't taken the SAT should be sure to apply to take the first one to be given on October 1, 2011. Register by September 9, 2011. Go to the College Board site for more information.

6. Begin Your College Application
Hopefully, those students who are entering senior year have done all of the previous things on the list and should spend some time this summer to prepare as much of their college applications as possible, specifically THE DREADED ESSAY! More on that next time!

Safe and Sound - Part II

In my last post, I wrote about ways to ensure that you'll be able to keep a "safe body" while on campus. This week I'll write about the "sound mind" portion of the equation.

In his pamphlet, "What is a College Education? (and How to Get One)" published by the National Review Institute, Jeffrey Hart, professor emeritus of English at Dartmouth College, writes about Allan Bloom's, The Closing of the American Mind. Hart states that,
"Bloom's great theme throughout is that ideology has invaded
the academy to an absolutely unprecedented degree, closing the
American mind - at least the academic American mind - to the
truths about human nature as it actually is and has aspired to
be."
Often on college campuses, speech codes and victim group sensitivies trump the rights of the individual to express, debate or even examine ideas that run counter to the pervasive campus ideology. It is important to know if your school of choice is tolerant of and, even better, fosters individual intellectual freedom. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, FIRE, is an organization whose mission
"is to defend and sustain individual rights at America's
increasingly repressive and partisan colleges and
universities. These rights include freedom of speech,
legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and
sanctity of conscience - the essential qualities of
individual liberty and dignity. FIRE's core mission
is to protect the unprotected and to educate the
public and communities of concerned Americans about
the threats to these rights on our campuses and about
the means to preserve them."
The Foundation has taken an active role in adjudicating specific cases where a student's Constitutional rights have been violated. One such case involved a student who actively and openly opposed the construction of a parking garage on campus. While this issue may seem mundane, the student was expelled. He filed suit in cooperation with a First Amendment attorney who is a FIRE Legal Network member. Not only was the student's expulsion reversed, the university president was held personally liable for damages owed to the student.

By going to FIRE's website, theFIRE.org, and surfing FIRE's Spotlight, you can find information on speech codes and rights violations at over 400 academic institutions. Each school's page also displays FIRE's red, yellow or green light speech code rating and links to the campus' current policies "restricting individual rights, as well as that campus' advertised commitments to freedom of expression".

Another way to judge a college's adherence to the philosophy that it is a "marketplace of ideas" is to see who has been invited to speak on campus and what the reception of the speaker was like. Were they allowed to present their views or heckled and disrupted to such an extent that they were unable to present? College, among other things, is supposed to be a place for the civil exchange of ideas - a place where one is encouraged to perfect how to think not what to think. If your college won't encourage that, you're not going to get your money's worth!

Safe and Sound - Part I

One of the suggestions that unigo.com makes on its campus tour checklist is that you tour the city and town around campus. While you are not planning to buy a home, you will be living in or near this community for the better part of the next four years and, as with real estate, one of the prime considerations is location, location, location! Depending on the distance the campus is from your family home, you may not be able to leave the environs often during your college years so you need to know as much as you can about the area surrounding your campus.

A site which is actually geared for prospective real estate buyers is invaluable for those searching not only for a college that fits their wants but a community that suits their needs, specifically safety. www.neighborhoodscout.com is touted as a "Neighborhood Search for Home Buyers and Real Estate Investment". You can search an address or neighborhood by city, state or zip code or actually click on a state on the map. You will be taken to information about the area which includes a "Crime Rates" tab. You will be able to locate the "10 Safest Cities" in that state. If you put in the college's actual address, (You can use the location of the admissions building.) you can get details for that specific area. These details include a shaded map of the area which denotes the safest to least safe areas.

You could and should visit the college's security division and ask for this information but keep in mind that they are part of the institution. The local police department or precinct would also have these statistics but someone may not be available to you on your visit. Another source would be the school paper but not all security incidents may be reported. Overall, www.neighborhoodscout.com might provide the most detailed and accurate information regarding the degree of safety and security you can expect in a specific locale.

College Campus Tours and Visits

While I've written in previous posts about websites on which you can find vitual tours of college campuses (collegeboard.com, unigo.com, and www.campustour.com), nothing beats actually visiting the campus of a school in which you're interested. You can find out most of what you need to know to arrange a tour on the school's website. Many of the colleges that require pre-registration to visit, ask you to do so online. In order to get the most out of the trip, you should have a plan of action. After all, you don't want to possibly travel many miles just to take a hopefully pleasant stroll around campus with a guide who's probably a Work Study student and might know less about the university than you do!

On the homepage of unigo.com there is a site index on which you'll find the link "Checklists and Worksheets". A mere click brings you to a comprehensive three page "College Visit Checklist" that you can review and even bring with you on your visit. (What you might consider "nerdy" - checklist, clipboard, etc. - might be perceived as conscientious and well-thought-out to those you meet while at the college of interest.)

Under the preparation section of the list there are two items I would add. Notify a college representative whom you might have already met at a college fair or high school visit that you are visiting the school. If you are involved in a sport which you would like to play in college, notify the athletic department as well. Obviously, most of the sought after, scouted players already have a relationship with the athletic department. But if the school has an intramural or even club team for a certain sport, there are coaches and advisors for that also. The same holds true if you have a certain talent. If you play an instrument, act, sing in the choir, cheer, or tutor, notify the advisor of the pertinent club or group on campus. Anything that you can use to stand out from the crowd, put a face to the name - anyone you can meet who might take an interest in your gaining admission to that school is an asset.

A lot of the answers to the questions on the checklist can be found on the college's website or on other sites such as Unigo. You might want to jot down brief answers to the ones you already know. Shortly after your visit, while it's still fresh in your mind, take a few minutes to write your impressions of the college on the back of the checklist. In that way you can save the checklist and use it as a resource when you narrow down your choices as to which schools you will actually apply.

One question which is not included that I feel is very important is, "How are dormitory accomodations and roommates decided?" Unless you have special needs, freshman year assignments are often random but many schools allow accepted students to ask to room with other accepted students whom they already know. Find out if assignments after freshman year are made on a lottery or point system. Personally, I feel the lottery system is lazy and doesn't reward students who work harder to earn prime dorm locations/choice of living companions.

In the next post, I'll write about intellectual freedom and physical safety on campus.

My Niece and Naviance

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.