Taking The Next Step - In The News

February 3, 2012

Reining in College Tuition
A NY Times Editorial

This article succinctly sets forth the argument for curbing college costs.

Higher education institutions are predictably cool to President Obama’s proposal to shift federal aid away from colleges that fail to control rising tuition. Even though the details of his plan, which would require Congressional approval, will not be fleshed out until later this month, the idea behind it is sound.

Read the entire article: Tuition

January 16, 2012

Back to School, Not on a Campus but in a Beloved Museum
By Douglas Quenqua, NY Times

Wanted: 50 former science majors with an interest in teaching -- no experience, please -- and a willingness to relocate. Must be comfortable sharing a classroom with dinosaur bones and giant squid.

Read the entire article: Museum

January 16, 2012

As a Broader Group Seeks Early Admission, Rejections Rise in the East
By Richard Pérez-Peña and Jenny Anderson, NY Times

Early asmission to top colleges, once the almost exclusive preserve of the East Coast elite, is now being pursued by a much broader and more diverse group of students, including foreigners and minorities.

Read the entire article: Admissions

September 21, 2011

Read the entire article: Financial Calculators

The [financial] calculators will also lay bare some institutions’ methods for distributing financial aid and could lead to conversations about how those methods reflect colleges’ values. Students -- and parents, faculty members, board members or anyone else -- can experiment with the calculator to see whether an improvement in test scores or grades, or a change in a family’s financial status, would make a significant difference. And prospective students can do the same at other colleges where they might apply, leading to an increase in comparison shopping and making a competitive financial aid policy important earlier in the process than it might otherwise have been. "This is a win for the consumer, and I think long-term it's a win for institutions that actually do provide competitive financial aid," said Daniel Lugo, dean of admission and financial aid at Franklin & Marshall College, which recently launched its calculator for need-based aid. "There's going to be a shaking out. There are a lot of places that maybe on paper, from their sticker price, look like an affordable choice. Once people see what their package looks like, they’re going to get the truth about their institution." In the past, the details of financial aid awards -- or even their broad outlines -- were available to only the admissions and financial aid offices. With the calculator, and some curiosity and persistence, anyone could put together a chart of how aid is awarded, generally speaking: the difference between the award for a wealthy but high-achieving student versus an average student with more financial need, or the monetary value of a tenth of a grade point or 100 points on the SAT.

Be sure to read the whole article on a new federal requirement that colleges display "net price calculators,"
which prospective students can use to estimate how much they will have to pay after federal or institutional grants.

September 2, 2011

Applying to colleges? Consultants can demystify the process
By Susan Salisbury, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Robin Abedon, a Wellington-based certified educational planner who operates Taking the Next Step and has been on the college counseling "beat" since 1995, said some students apply to 15 to 20 colleges. "Take one good kid applying widely, and he will only pick one of those schools. But his acceptances create enormous pressure for those other kids who might have been accepted," Abedon said.

Schools also are doing more marketing than ever as enrollment managers seek to increase the number of applications, one of the criteria used to rank colleges in U.S. News & World Report's annual college guide. "The colleges love to hate U.S. News & World Report. By the same token, they are afraid to ignore it. It's a dog-eat-dog world on both sides of the equation," Abedon said. Add to that the admissions processes that vary from school to school, such as early decision, early action, rolling admissions and regular admission, and it's easy to see why some families turn to consultants.

Dawn and Paul Strenk of Parkland hired Abedon to advise their daughter Sara, now a sophomore at Stetson University. Sara plays the oboe and is majoring in music education. "She had to travel for auditions. I knew that Robin would help her with her applications. The colleges have become very picky," Dawn Strenk said. Abedon is now working with the Strenks' younger daughter, Melissa, who is a high school senior. "I want them to get the best place that fits for them. You don't want to go there and it is not the right place. You spend a lot of time and money," Strenk said.

The college consultation business has been around for 30 years but did not begin to grow dramatically until five or six years ago, said Mark Sklarow, executive director of Independent Educational Consultants Association. The group's membership has grown to 1,000 from 550 five years ago, and he estimates there are about 5,000 full-time consultants nationwide. With high school guidance counselors handling as many as 700 students each, there's little time for personalized attention."When a student's need is, 'I do not know where I want to go to college,' that's far down on the list," Sklarow said.

"A great consultant probably tells parents to chill," Sklarow said. "There are no great secrets that consultants know. There are no levers to push, no secret phone calls or handshakes that will get an average kid into the Ivy League. But they can help that family find a school that is just right for their particular child.

Read the entire article: Consultants

September 1, 2011

Generation Limbo: Waiting It Out.
By Jennifer 8. Lee

When Stephanie Kelly, a 2009 graduate of the University of Florida, looked for a job in her chosen field, advertising, she found few prospects and even fewer takers. So now she has two jobs: as a part-time “senior secretary” at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville and a freelance gig writing for Elfster.com, a “secret Santa” Web site.

Read the entire article: Limbo

September 1, 2011

When Roommates were Random
by Dalton Conley, NY Times

EAGER to throw off my nerdy past and reinvent myself at college, I wrote “party animal” on my roommate application form where it asked incoming freshmen whether they wanted to bunk with a smoker or a non-smoker. When I told my mother about this later, she laughed and bought me a T-shirt that sported the image of Spuds MacKenzie, the 1980s Budweiser beer mascot, under the words “the original party animal.”

Read the entire article: Roommates

May 16, 2011

In an effort to attract more applicants, colleges market heavily to rising seniors making them believe they will be accepted once they submit an application. View these emails and mailings with skepticism. They often raise false hopes.

Ivy League Colleges Solicit Students Rejected for Stake of Selectivity
by Janet Lorin, May 12, 2011 - Bloomberg

Nicole Ederer was delighted when Columbia University and Duke University wooed her with e-mails and letters after she scored 214 out of 240 on her preliminary SAT college entrance exam junior year.

Read the entire article: Selectivity

April 11, 2011

In an effort by some colleges to perfect enrollment management, a practice that has been characterized as "borderline unethical" is taking place.

Admission to College, With Catch: Year’s Wait
by Lisa W. Foderaro - NY Times

For as long as there have been selective colleges, the spring ritual has been the same: Some applicants get a warm note of acceptance, and the rest get a curt rejection.

Read the entire article: Admission

April 4, 2011

Google is better than ever, offering a new educational opportunity by getting into the science fair business.

Promoting Science, and Google, to Students
by Claire Cain Miller - NY Times

Google is synonymous with “search engine,” and now, for students, it wants to be synonymous with “science.”

The company is getting into the science fair business with its first Google Science Fair, a global competition for teenagers that spans sciences as diverse as computer engineering, space exploration and medical technology.

Read the complete article: Google

March 25, 2011

The Internship as Inside Track
by Phyllis Korrki - NY Times

Want to land a full-time job after college? Get an internship or two, or even four or more.

Read the complete article: Internship

March 21, 2011

A constant question in today's world is: is there a practical value in a liberal arts education? At haverford, Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore, there is a merger of digital education and the humanities that allows the question to be answered with a resounding, "Yes."

Giving Literature a Virtual Life
by Patricia Cohen - New York Times

BRYN MAWR, Pa. — Prof. Katherine Rowe’s blue-haired avatar was flying across a grassy landscape to a virtual three-dimensional re-creation of the Globe Theater, where some students from her introductory Shakespeare class at Bryn Mawr College had already gathered online. Their assignment was to create characters on the Web site Theatron3 and use them to block scenes from the gory revenge tragedy “Titus Andronicus,” to see how setting can heighten the drama.

Read the complete article: Literature

March 21, 2011

The following articles from the New York Times make me reluctantly acknowledge that Twitter may be earning its place in the world of written communications. Imagine if Twitter could produce poetry in a genre akin to Haiku. And imagine if Twitter could be used to teach students to write a great sentence. That would be a great leap forward, as students undertake writing the good essay.

Twitter, Twitter, Burning Bright
by Randy Kennedy - New York Times

Read the complete article: Twitter

Teaching to the Text Message
by Andy Selsberg - OpEd, New York Times

I’ve been teaching college freshmen to write the five-paragraph essay and its bully of a cousin, the research paper, for years. But these forms invite font-size manipulation, plagiarism and clichés. We need to set our sights not lower, but shorter.

Read the complete article: Teaching to the Text Message

March 4, 2011

College the Easy Way
by Bob Herbert - OpEd, New York Times

The cost of college has skyrocketed and a four-year degree has become an ever more essential cornerstone to a middle-class standard of living. But what are America’s kids actually learning in college?

Read the complete article: College

March 2, 2011

Public Universities Seek More Autonomy as Financing From States Shrinks
by Tamar Lewin -- New York Times

With states providing a dwindling share of money for higher education, many states and public universities are rethinking their ties.

The public universities say that with less money from state coffers, they cannot afford the complicated web of state regulations governing areas like procurement and building, and that they need more flexibility to compete with private institutions.

Read the complete article: Autonomy

March 1, 2011

Bright Futures scholarship program faces $100 million funding cut
by Scott Travis -- The Palm Beach Post

Florida's popular Bright Futures scholarship program may suffer big cuts at the same time students are facing rapidly rising tuition at state universities.

Read the complete article at this link: Bright Futures

March 1, 2011

More College Graduates Take Public Service Jobs
by Catherine Rampell -- New York Times

If Alison Sadock had finished college before the financial crisis, she probably would have done something corporate. Maybe a job in retail, or finance, or brand management at a big company — the kind of work her oldest sister, who graduated in the economically effervescent year of 2005, does at PepsiCo.

“You know, a normal job,” Ms. Sadock says.

But she graduated in a deep recession in the spring of 2009 when jobs were scarce. Instead of the merchandising career she had imagined, she landed in public service, working on behalf of America’s sickest children.

Read the complete article at this link: Public Service

February 24, 2011

Harvard and Princeton Restore Early Admission
by Tamar Lewin -- New York Times

Harvard and Princeton each announced Thursday that they would revive their early-admission programs, allowing high school seniors who apply by next Nov. 15 to get a decision by Dec. 15 without having to promise to attend the college if admitted.

Read the complete article at this link: Harvard and Princeton

January 17, 2011

In Florida, Virtual Classrooms With No Teachers
by Laura Herrera -- New York Times

MIAMI — On the first day of her senior year at North Miami Beach Senior High School, Naomi Baptiste expected to be greeted by a teacher when she walked into her precalculus class.

Read the complete article at this link: Florida

January 14, 2011

Harvard Seats Sought by Record Number of Students
by Janet Lorin -- Bloomberg

Harvard University’s applications for undergraduate admission rose to an all-time high, making it harder than ever before to get into the college.

Read the complete article at this link: Harvard

January 4, 2011

Raynard S. Kington may not have been the likeliest choice to be president of Grinnell College. His (numerous) degrees came from research universities, and his career has been focused on biomedical research institutions in large metropolitan areas -- he was deputy director of the National Institutes of Health when he was named to lead Grinnell.

Read the complete article at this link: Kingston

December 29, 2010

Defending the Liberal Arts College

Learn Spanish, then Chinese
Primero Hay Que Aprender Español. Ranhou Zai Xue Zhongwen.

By New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Nicholas D. Kristof

A quiz: If a person who speaks three languages is trilingual, and one who speaks four languages is quadrilingual, what is someone called who speaks no foreign languages at all?

Read the complete article at this link: Languages

December 9, 2010

Parents Embrace Documentary on Pressures of School
By Trip Gabriel

It isn’t often that a third of a movie audience sticks around to discuss its message, but that is the effect of “Race to Nowhere,” a look at the downside of childhoods spent on résumé-building.

Read the complete article at this link: Pressures

November 21, 2010

College admissions, beyond the No. 2 pencil
by Robert J. Sternberg

Wait list. That was the outcome of my application to Yale. It was better than the outcome at Harvard, which was a rejection, and not as good as the outcome at Princeton, which was an acceptance. I was eventually admitted to Yale, and I later had an opportunity that very few applicants ever have: I got to find out why I had been wait-listed.

Read the complete article at this link: College Admissions

November 2010

Learning in Dorm, Because Class Is on the Web
by Trip Gabriel

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Like most other undergraduates, Anish Patel likes to sleep in. Even though his Principles of Microeconomics class at 9:35 a.m. is just a five-minute stroll from his dorm, he would rather flip open his laptop in his room to watch the lecture, streamed live over the campus network.

Read the complete article at this link: Learning in the Dorm

November 7, 2010

Application Inflation: When is Enough Enough?
By Eric Hoover

The numbers keep rising, the superlatives keep glowing. Each year, selective colleges promote their application totals, along with the virtues of their applicants.

For this fall’s freshman class, the statistics reached remarkable levels. Stanford received a record 32,022 applications from students it called “simply amazing,” and accepted 7 percent of them. Brown saw an unprecedented 30,135 applicants, who left the admissions staff “deeply impressed and at times awed.” Nine percent were admitted.

Read the complete article at this link: Application Inflation

September 28, 2010

College Admissions for the 21st Century

Robert J. Sternberg, the new provost of Oklahoma State University, has just finished a five-year term as dean of arts and science at Tufts University, during which time he had the opportunity to test out his ideas about non-cognitive evaluation of applicants. Sternberg has long argued that standardized testing and high school grades -- while appropriate considerations in determining who gets into which colleges -- tell only part of the story. At Tufts, he helped add optional admissions questions designed to measure creativity and other qualities that might well make someone an outstanding college student. In a new book -- College Admissions for the 21st Century (Harvard University Press) -- Sternberg discusses the experiment at Tufts and why it shows, in his belief, the inadequacy of traditional college admissions tools. In an e-mail interview, in which he stressed that the book reflects his personal views as a scholar and not the views of Tufts, he discussed the work.

Read the complete article at this link: Admissions

September 11, 2010

A major demographic shift is dramatically changing the college admissions game.
Kathleen Kingsbury reports on the population dip that means it’s easier to get into college this year.

It may be easier to get into college this year than it has been in a decade.

Read the complete article at this link: Admissions

August 11, 2010

Pulling an All-Nighter for the College Application

Cree Bautista's application for next year's freshman class at New York University isn't due until Jan. 1,
but Cree, an incoming high school senior from Pflugerville, TX chances.

Just after 12:01 a.m. on Aug. 1 -- when this year's version of the Common Application, the passport to N.Y.U and more
than 400 other institutions, was first posted on the Web -- Cree sat down at the computer in his parents' bedroom and began filling out the form.

Read the complete article at this link: Applying

July 3, 2010

International Program Catches On in U.S. Schools

CUMBERLAND, Me. — SAT, ACT, A.P. ... I.B.?

The alphabet soup of college admissions is getting more complicated as the International Baccalaureate, or I.B., grows in popularity as an alternative to the better-known Advanced Placement program.

The College Board’s A.P. program, which offers a long menu of single-subject courses, is still by far the most common option for giving students a head start on college work, and a potential edge in admissions.

The lesser-known I.B., a two-year curriculum developed in the 1960s at an international school in Switzerland, first took hold in the United States in private schools. But it is now offered in more than 700 American high schools — more than 90 percent of them public schools — and almost 200 more have begun the long certification process.

Read the complete article at this link: IB

June 13, 2010

If at first you don't succeed .... may not work with SATs

by Beth J. Harpaz, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Why don't most students' SAT scores dramatically improve the more times they take the test?

A. They don't study hard enough.

B. Their parents don't enroll them in fancy test-prep classes.

C. Most kids who take the SAT twice simply do not see large improvements in their scores.

See the answer and read the full article: SouthCoastToday

March 31, 2010

Stanford Admitting Record 7.2% Sets New Normal for Ivy League

March 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. colleges that have been hard to get into are getting even harder.

Duke University offered admission this year to 3,972, or 15 percent of aspirants, down from 18 percent last year, after applications soared, according to Duke officials. Stanford University admitted 2,300 -- or 7.2 percent, the least ever -- said Shawn Abbott, admission director. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology saw its admittance drop below 10 percent for the first time, said Stuart Schmill, admissions dean.

Read the complete article at this link: Stanford

March 24, 2010

Before They Were Titans, Moguls and Newsmakers, These People Were...Rejected

Few events arouse more teenage angst than the springtime arrival of college rejection letters. With next fall's college freshman class expected to approach a record 2.9 million students, hundreds of thousands of applicants will soon be receiving the dreaded letters.

Teenagers who face rejection will be joining good company, including Nobel laureates, billionaire philanthropists, university presidents, constitutional scholars, best-selling authors and other leaders of business, media and the arts who once received college or graduate-school rejection letters of their own.

Read the complete article at this link: Rejected

January 14, 2010

A first for Harvard

Applications to Harvard surpass historic 30,000 mark

For the first time in Harvard’s history, more than 30,000 students have applied for undergraduate admission. Applications have doubled since 1994, and about half of the increase has come since the University implemented a series of financial aid initiatives over the past five years to ensure that a Harvard College education remains accessible and affordable to talented students from all economic backgrounds.

Read the complete article by clicking here: Harvard

Making College 'Relevant'
by Kate Zernike
Published: January 3, 2010

Does Service Learning Really Help?
by Stephanie Strom
Published: January 3, 2010

Taking the Magic Out of College
By Lauren Edelson
Published: December 5, 2009

Helping Teenagers Find Their Dreams - October 24, 2009