Archive for January, 2009
We usually concentrate on schools stories in North America, here at College — U. Got It? but sometimes things far from our borders catch our attention. Take for instance, one overachieving high school graduate from Pakistan, Ali Moeen Nawazish. When Nawazish decided to apply to the prestigious U.K. institution, Cambridge University, he didn’t settle for taking the recommended four A-Level exams — he decided to sit for 22 instead.
Roughly comparable to the Advanced Placement exams given to students in the U.S., the A-Levels are no cakewalk — yet, Nawazish still snagged an A on 20 of his tests. What’s more, his experience with some of the subjects he was tested on, like psychology, only extended as far back as three days before the test date.
Now working on his computer science degree as a Cambridge freshman, Nawazish plans to move to also get a degree in medicine so that he can join his family in their careers as doctors.
– Genevieve M. Blaber
January 30th, 2009
You might not give retention rates a lot of thought when you’re thumbing through guide books, but for colleges around the country, it’s their bread and butter.
For the past 26 years, ACT, Inc. — yep, the non-profit org responsible for the test by the same name — has been surveying post-secondary institutions to see how many of their freshmen stick around for their second year. While the nationwide retention rate has never been at 100 percent, and probably never will be, the 2007-08 academic year saw a startling two percent drop down to 66 percent.
This may sound alarming at first, but as the ACT points out, the numbers don’t factor in students who chose to take a semester off or those who transferred to another post-secondary institution. Retention rates track how many students stayed at a particular school — which is a good thing to consider when you’re looking at colleges but a poor indicator of the college drop-out rate.
In fact, while many of the private institutions saw a dip in retention rates, two-year public colleges saw a slight increase leading some to speculate that the current economy may influence students to choose less expensive schools that allow them the ability to transfer to traditional four-year colleges after two years, or just settling for a two-year education which usually culminates in the awarding of an associate degree.
– Genevieve M. Blaber
January 22nd, 2009
The lines have been out the door; the requests for help have significantly increased in a short period of time; the demand has increased, but the supply has stayed the same. This is the current financial aid climate, as students and parents rush to get their FAFSA in as soon as possible. And the sentiments throughout the education realm all seem to be the same when it comes to financial aid: the earlier you file, the better your chance is to secure some much-needed cash in a downward economy.
“There is a high level of anxiety and desperation at this time,” says Craig Carroll, CEO of Student Financial Aid Services Inc. (SFAS), a company that he says is a “trusted advisor, helping families across America access available financial aid to pursue their dreams.” According to SFAS, they have seen a huge increase in those applying earlier for financial aid. In fact, says Carroll, SFAS saw a 40 percent increase within the first five days of 2009 as compared to 2008. That’s huge. And, since financial aid is distributed on a first come, first serve basis, the financial aid money will disappear a lot faster this year than in years past.
Christopher Penn, Chief Media Officer at Edvisors, Inc., says that students need to jump on completing the FAFSA as soon as they can. “There are a limited amount of funds from Uncle Sam so the free money is going to run out,” he says. “So do it soon and do it correctly. There are lots of ways to make errors, but the easiest way is by not paying attention.” Penn also explains the great increase he’s seen already. He says that Boston University has seen a 41 percent increase in their mid-year financial aid applications, while the University of Arkansas burned through all their scholarship money in just 11 days.
For some, they are aware of the necessity of filling out the FAFSA early. But, the financial crisis doesn’t seem to be affecting students’ decisions to attend college. For instance, Shayla Price is a first-year law student who hopes her education will better her family. She’s been carefully considering all the decisions she makes on a daily basis. “To ensure my family can afford my education, I am searching for scholarships to pay for my expenses,” she says. “I am also spending less on leisure items […] I feel more pressure to take the burden off of my family; I just want better for us. That’s why I’m pursuing my law education.”
Other students are trying to figure out the FAFSA as quick as possible to ensure they can get the most out of their application. Jeff Marcoux is just finishing up his graduate school applications and is stressing out because both he and his fiancé will be attending school in the Fall. “Our decisions for college are not affected by the current economy because we see the value in attending a tier 1 graduate program due to the ROI [return on investment] once we have our graduate education,” he says. “However, we are VERY concerned about finances and how we are going to afford housing, food, tuition, etc. and are hoping that FAFSA will provide us with enough aid when supplemented with part-time work.”
Both Carroll and Penn give similar advice to students who are concerned about the financial aspects of their education. The earlier you apply, the more of a chance you’ll have to score the cash you need to help you through the process. The demand for financial aid continues to increase, but the supply remains the same. This gives students less of a chance to get the funding they need. So go out now and fill out the FAFSA before it’s too late!
Beyond federal aid, be sure to check out some scholarship stories as well:
And for a line-by-line helpful guide to completing the FAFSA, check out Penn’s e-book at FafsaOnline.com.
-Amanda Fornecker
January 22nd, 2009
The historic inauguration of our 44th president, Barack Obama, took place yesterday. As President Obama readies himself for the next four years and begins his first official day on the job, he needs to be sure he has the right staff to back him up. Looking back at the previous Presidential Cabinets, you might see some sort of pattern as to where they went to college. Are you an aspiring Presidential Cabinet member? Check out which schools might be of interest for the next four years of YOUR life and beyond. Here, you’ll find five as outlined by Dr. Katherine Cohen, CEO and founder of IvyWise:
1. University of California, Berkeley
Cal’s alumni have presided over several cabinet positions (most recently, a Ph.D. graduate Steven Chu for the department of energy) as Cal’s graduate programs in the Sciences, Law and Business consistently produce leaders whose experience is meaningful in D.C.
2. Yale and Georgetown (Tie)
Yale’s Law School still produces high-quality politicians and advisors, and, while Georgetown’s number is actually lower than Yale’s (Rumsfeld didn’t actually graduate G’town Law School), their top-notch Foreign Services, Business and Law Programs are specifically tailored for the future politico
3. Indiana University
The big surprise of the group, Indiana boasts four alumni in cabinet positions since 2001. A closer look at their highly ranked Business (Number 15 overall; Number two for Entrepreneurship) and Management Program reveals that IU’s innovative curriculum based on applicable, “real-world” knowledge builds connections that lead to political leadership.
4. University of Denver
This should not be a surprise for those in the know in the Business and Political World. While Condoleezza Rice is still its most famous alum, Denver has three other cabinet members and a world-class International Studies program, ranked ahead of giants such as University of Chicago, Yale, Stanford, University of California-Berkeley, and MIT.
5. Harvard
Harvard has more alumni in cabinet positions than Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT COMBINED. Whether it was the Law School, Business School, or Harvard college, the Harvard reputation still carries much clout in the beltway.
-Amanda Fornecker
January 21st, 2009
This article is making fast rounds around blogs and social media networks, but it’s also stirring up a fair amount of discussion and criticism along the way.
According to the piece, an aspiring college student ordered a laptop from Dell and found out that it came with the Ubuntu operating system instead of the more widely known and accepted Windows. A salesperson supposedly convinced her to keep her laptop as is, only for her to find out that she couldn’t use her ISP’s Windows-only installation disc and couldn’t install Microsoft Word – which she says was mandatory for her courses. The result? She dropped out of college for two semesters because she couldn’t get online and couldn’t write her papers.
Except she could have if she had tried and done some research on her own. Not only did she not need the ISP installation disc to get online (a fact she would have discovered had she called the ISP company) she also didn’t need Microsoft Word in order to open and save Word docs. Ubuntu, as she even acknowledged in the video, came with OpenOffice.org installed – and one of the perks of OpenOffice.org is that you can use Word docs as you would with Microsoft Word.
So an aspiring college student lets a technical glitch get in the way of two semesters of school because she doesn’t stop to research the issue or contact companies and ask. No wonder everyone online is flabbergasted.
– Genevieve M. Blaber
January 15th, 2009
At College – U. Got It?, we’re always on the lookout for guest bloggers. This week we asked Vincent Mackey, an administrative assistant for The CollegeBound Network, to share his tips on job hunting and interviewing!
It’s a recession and a lot of people are losing their jobs. Unfortunately for budding college graduates, this means that the job market is now incredibly competitive. Here are a few pointers that I use to land a job that I want:
- Define a focus:
The absolute most important point to remember is also the simplest: know what kind of job you want. If you can’t figure this out, then it would be impossible to move on to the next step. Many people set up their resume to be broad so they may apply to many different types of jobs at once. That’s not smart. A future employer wants to see that you know what you want, that you are completely willing to work for them.
- Gear up your resume:
Once you have established what kind of job you want, get to writing your resume. Always begin with a “goal statement” — a sentence or two outlining what kind of job you are looking for — and collect all of the information you need before writing your resume. Take a look at your past jobs and schools and base your resume on your strengths, or what you have the most of (for example, if you have more schooling than job experience, start your resume with the “Education” section). If you’re a complete novice at writing a resume, try using the Microsoft Word® “Resume Wizard” option.
- Where and how to apply:
The internet is an excellent means of sending your resume in quantity, but your local newspaper’s “help wanted” ads hold higher quality jobs. Try both out. It doesn’t hurt to have your name out in as many places as possible. Before you start sending, you may want to write a cover letter: a basic letter format that outlines exactly what you want — you can think of it as the extended “goal statement” of your resume. Sites such as Monster.com and Craigslist are helpful in getting a lot of resumes out. Follow up the next week with thank you letters to your contacts.
- Pre-interview:
So you finally landed an interview date, but you’ve never been interviewed before? Take advantage of the days before your interview to really impress your potential future boss. Always research the company you are interviewing for. This will make it easier to have questions the day of and to understand what you are getting into. Review potential questions in your head and try to really work on quick answers. An important tip to remember is to always turn a negative question into a positive (e.g., if they ask you what your weakness is, mention how you will improve on your weakness).
- Interview:
Your appearance is very important for this part. Just use your head and follow common sense: don’t pack on the cologne/perfume, guys should be sure to shave and girls shouldn’t over-apply their makeup. You can never be too dressed up for an interview, but keep it tasteful. You’re going to a job interview, not a club, so dress in business-minded attire. You’ve prepared for everything up until this point, so all you can do is compose yourself and be confident. Do this and you will land the job guaranteed.
– Vincent Mackey
January 15th, 2009
There are a variety of different boarding schools out there. From junior boarding schools to college preparatory boarding schools to boarding schools for troubled teens, students and parents will find many different options within the boarding school field of interest. From time to time, CollegeBound spotlights one of these boarding schools to shed light on the variety of possibilities that exist. This week’s boarding school spotlight is on Fay School, which is located in Southborough, Mass.
There’s a lot that Fay has to offer its students, including a rigorous curriculum, course flexibility, a wealth of extracurriculars, and more. Jamie Ramsdell, director of admissions at Fay School, suggests students go see the boarding schools they are considering because each one is very different from the next. You can begin your research on the web, but you must go out there, visit, and ask questions.
So begin your research today by checking out Boarding School Spotlight: Fay School and good luck in your search!
-Amanda Fornecker
January 14th, 2009
College is great but the reality sure can differ from your expectations — especially when colleges sugar-coat the truth. That’s why we decided to round-up some of the facts you’ll hear during your college tours and give you the real deal on what to expect. There’s also a healthy dose of advice for how to deal with these situations before they become problems.
Just head on over to College Facts You Have to Face (What Colleges Won’t Tell You).
– Genevieve M. Blaber
January 13th, 2009
Last Friday, The Daily Beast gave us the bad news we didn’t want: college admissions officers aren’t always fair and their affections can be fair-weather. With never-before-seen candor, former and current admissions officers gave the 4-1-1 on what students do to warrant a rejection (boring essays: understandable) as well as the fickle biases that keep them from letting a student in (food poisoning: unbelievable).
Below are excerpts from The Daily Beast’s extensive expose.
“One year I had a student with a near-perfect SAT score and straight A’s. I’d originally put him in the submitted pool but then we had to reduce the list. I reread his essays and frankly, they were just a little more boring than the other kids. So I cut him. Boring was the only justification that I needed and he was out.”
While, it’s not right to reject a student solely based upon his essay — how were his grades compared to other applicants’? — the importance of the essay can’t be understated. The essay is your time to shine and stand apart from the other thousands of applications with identical grades and coursework. Make it great, make it memorable, and make it you.
“One night, I got food poisoning at a restaurant in Buffalo. The next day, I rejected all the Buffalo applications. I couldn’t stomach reading them.”
What on Earth? We have a hard time believing this one — who can come into work the day after food poisoning? — but if it is true, it’s a travesty. A hopeful college applicant shouldn’t have to pay for an admissions officer’s bad menu choice with his/her college dreams.
“Some middle-tier schools will reject top applicants, too […] But the admissions officer’s attitude is, ‘Oh, he just applied here as a safety. He’ll never come.’ They don’t want to lower the yield they have to report for the college rankings.”
Rejecting applicants who are “too good” in order to fix a school’s rankings and out of fear that they’ll pass on admissions is anything but fair. Unfortunately, there’s no way you can possibly predict how good of a student you should be so you’ll need to use your essay to convey how much you want to get into a school. Just don’t preface it with an ego-filled declaration like, “I could have gone to Harvard but decided to attend your school because…”
– Genevieve M. Blaber
January 12th, 2009
The recession hasn’t just taken its toll on jobs and sales, it’s also hitting education — standardized testing, to be precise. The College Board, ruler of all things AP and SAT, just announced that it would cease to offer Advanced Placement exams in Italian, computer science AB, French literature, and Latin literature. The decision, according to the College Board, was made in light of inadequate funding for the exams and a lack of interest on the part of high school students. While the AP exams in English and history regularly score hundreds of thousands of test takers, the exams being dropped only had in the range of 2,000 to 5,000 test takers each.
Interestingly enough, the recently added Chinese and Japanese AP exams will continue despite equally low interest amongst high school students. Reports say that this is because these new exams are administered by computer while tests like the Italian AP exam are taken the old-fashioned, pen-and-paper way. Our question: why can’t the College Board just bring the four defunct AP exams into the digital age and cut costs at the same time? It’s unfair that students eager to get a start on earning their college credits (and cutting down their tuition costs) will no longer be able to thanks to a money-minded business decision.
– Genevieve M. Blaber
January 9th, 2009
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