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3/17/2010

The Choice blog (The New York Times, Education) is running a series of student entries, which include both written content and video, called “The Envelope, Please: Six Applicants for the Class of 2014 Tell Their Own Stories.” The segment, introduced by Jacque Steinberg, hones in on the classic student-stressors of the admission process––the application, waiting and decision-making––and also focuses on how the recent financial atmosphere is affecting the process.

Four of the six are currently posted and so far, we are introduced to:

A “sucker for name-brand colleges” who has applied to about a dozen schools and worries that if the price is too high, she simply won’t attend even a dream school.
A varsity wrestler who missed his application deadline (only his standardized test scores were late) for his safety school and is now playing “the waiting game” with his other college choices.
An aspiring actor who’s mother instilled in him the value of pushing forward, even in the most stressful circumstances, and has learned from Project College Bound, that “no matter who you are, you can pay for college.”
A self-described “mastodon [who will be] doing a jig in the La Brea tar pits” come April, accepted at his first choice––a highly-selective college where he doesn’t qualify for financial aid, who is re-evaluating fit in the face of expense.

These and the remaining blogs capture what today’s students are going through as they transition. Steinberg notes that the rest of their stories “will unfold for readers in real time. And later in the spring, the Today show on NBC expects to feature some of them in a segment.” The Choice will have updates as they unfold.

Posted at 5:41 PM by Sarah Cox | Category: College Admission | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/11/2010

School Counselors Know They Could Do Better-- Here's How

A great deal of media attention has been focused on a study that shows high school counselors aren’t giving students very much help. Issued by Public Agenda, and prepared for the Gates Foundation, the study shows that 48% of students surveyed felt they were “just another face in the crowd” to their counselor, and many students felt teachers were more helpful in inspiring them to go to college than counselors.

Far from groundbreaking, this survey simply affirms what every student, teacher, parent--and most important, every counselor--has known for 50 years. Counselors are responsible for too many students (as many as 1000), and are saddled with too many duties that have nothing to do with counseling to make a genuine difference in the lives of more students.

The report could have been helpful by offering recommendations on resolving the problem, but it fell remarkably flat. The summary of the report suggests a Web site should be created that would match students to schools based on their interests—the report calls it “a higher education ‘eHarmony.com’”—and states that this problem is “another factor educators and policymakers need to look at.”

As overworked as school counselors are, a phone call to any one of them could have helped the authors of the study realize that many such Web sites already exist, and counselors know exactly how to solve the existing problems. In the event the Gates Foundation is as disappointed with the study as school counselors are, here are the recommendations the report should have made, had the authors decided to break new ground, rather than cover old ground:

Give school counselors training in college advising. Less than 30 counselor training programs in the country offer a course that teaches counselors how to help students and families make sound college choices—that’s about 5 % of all programs nationwide. The Gates Foundation should lobby Congress and state legislatures to require all school counselors to complete this course before they can see a single student.

Mandate time-on-task studies. The Gates Foundation can also nudge Congress to tie Race to the Top funding to the work counselors do. If a school wants Federal funds, it will have to show that counselors spend 75% of their time working face-to-face with students, and not on lunch duty, schedule changes, or other non-counseling tasks.

Get principals on board. Ground breaking research in 2000 showed that there are 5 key things principals can do to improve counselor effectiveness, and these factors can be measured. Building leaders can change the counseling climate now, and incentive grants from the Gates Foundation can inspire them to do so.

The Public Agenda study may mean well, but like the current school counseling climate, good intentions aren’t enough. Three simple, low-cost innovations can change school counseling and the lives of our students overnight. The Gates Foundation would do well to make a wiser investment with their next foray into school counseling, and lead our culture to change, rather than rehash the well-known and hope someone else will take action.

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Posted at 8:41 AM by Patrick O'Connor | Category: Research | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (2)

3/9/2010

A Fair to Remember: The Diary of a New NCF Event Manager

My school sign is wrong. Where’s the bathroom? Somebody spilled soda in front of the Counseling Center. Why CAN’T I give these keychains out to students?

Don’t let them see you cry, Jason.

Okay, okay. Maybe I am exaggerating a little bit. My first National College Fair took place in Pittsburgh on February 4- 5 and I promise- I did not cry. Despite my greatest fears (i.e. the roof caving in, no students attending, giant spider monsters attacking the Convention Center, etc.), my first fair went exceptionally well. I learned very quickly that no matter how prepared you think you are, little problems and situations inevitably arise, and you just have to handle them as quickly and as best you can.

About 99.9% of the reason why the 2010 Pittsburgh National College Fair went so well is due to the amazing work of the NACAC local National College Fair Committee in Pittsburgh. Working together, the committee ran like a well-oiled machine. Most committee members were in their third or fourth years of volunteering and they knew exactly what was expected of them on the fair day. For an apprehensive new event manager, this was extremely comforting.

Attendance was very good for both days and the Lead Retrieval program saw an unprecedented 11,002 students preregister. Students attending the fair seemed interested and prepared as they moved through the hall and spoke with school representatives. Even on the second day of the fair, on the eve of Snowmegeddon 2010, 5000 + college hopefuls braved the elements and got some one-on-one time with representatives from their prospective colleges and universities. And, most importantly, with numerous football rivals bumping into each other in the exhibit hall, there were no incidents that required security to intervene.

Having one college fair “under my belt” has certainly given me a great deal of confidence going forward into the fair season. I know each fair will be different and will bring new challenges, but I am sure of my ability to handle each situation accordingly. I am extremely excited to have the opportunity to travel around the country and work with so many passionate, interesting people. I know the 2010 National College Fair season is going to be learning experience, but also a great experience.

Now I just have to worry about the giant spider monsters…

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Posted at 3:20 PM by Jason Smith | Category: National College Fairs | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/8/2010

Support Your Colleagues as they Advocate for College Admission Counseling in Washington

About 20 NACAC/Affiliate ACAC leaders and staff are walking Capitol Hill in Washington today to establish or renew ties with their Members of Congress. In addition, they will be asking their elected officials to support the Pathways to College Act, NACAC's #1 legislative priority for 2010.

For those who can't be here in Washington to make an appeal in person, please help support your colleagues who are here and support the Pathways bill by:

1.) Sending a message to your member of Congress through the NACAC Legislative Action Center, where you will find a ready-made message in support of the Pathways bill that you can personalize, and

2.) Forwarding this message to your friends and colleagues and urging them to take action as well.

Thank you!

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Posted at 8:15 AM by David Hawkins | Category: Legislation | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/4/2010

Representative Bishop blogs about the Pathways to College Act

Congressman Tim Bishop (D-NY-1) blogged about the Pathways to College Act following yesterday's House Education and Labor Committee hearing, where Secretary Duncan testified on education issues (including FY 2011 Budget, SAFRA, and ESEA Reauthorization),

Representative Bishop is a former college administrator, having worked at Southampton College (NY) for 29 years, and works to increase college access. In his blog post, he stated:

"To increase the college-going rate of low-income students, I introduced the Pathways to College ActH.R. 2579). This bipartisan legislation would require the Secretary of Education to award competitive grants to local education agencies in which a majority of secondary schools are 'high need.' Grant recipients would implement or expand programs to increase the number of low-income students who are entering and succeeding at college."

The Congressman also discussed ESEA and SAFRA in his blog post.

Have you taken action to urge your federal legislators to cosponsor the Pathways to College Act? If not, take two minutes and visit the Legislative Action Center to do so.

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Posted at 4:51 PM by Amanda Modar | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/3/2010

Seeking Questions on HBCUs

As of today, The New York Times’ The Choice blog will accept questions for Dr. Marybeth Gasman, an expert in HBCUs from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, and Dr. Kimbrough, the president of Philander Smith College.

Submit questions directly or go to the blog entry for more details. Answers to select reader questions will begin appearing on Monday, March 8.

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Posted at 4:08 PM by Sarah Cox | Category: Access | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

3/2/2010

Digital Dilettantism

(Originally published online by SchooInfoSystem.org in Madison, Wisconsin and by EducationNews.org in Houston, Texas)

The Kaiser Foundation, in its January 2010 report on the use of electronic entertainment media by U.S. students, aged 8-18, found that, on average, these young people are spending more than seven hours a day (53 hours a week) with such (digital) amusements.

For some, this would call into question whether students have time to read the nonfiction books and to write the research papers they will need to work on to get themselves ready for college and careers, not to mention the homework for their other courses.

For the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, however, the problem appears to be that we are not paying enough attention to the possible present and future connections between digital media and learning, so they have decided to invest $50,000,000 in grants to explore that relationship.

One recent two-year grant, “for $650,000 to study the effect of digital media on young people's ethical development and to develop curricula for parents and teachers,” went to the Harvard Education School, which has distinguished itself for, among other things, seeming to have no one on its faculty with any research or teaching interest in the actual academic work of high school students, for example in chemistry, history, economics, physics, foreign languages, calculus, and the like.

The Harvard Ed School faculty do show real interest in poverty, disability, psychological problems, race, gender, ethnicity, and the development of moral character, so they may take to this idea of studying the relation between electronic media and student ethics. A visit to the Harvard Ed School website, and a review of the research interests of the faculty would prove enlightening to anyone who thought, for some odd reason, that they might be paying attention to the academic work of students in the schools.

Whether Harvard will conclude that seven hours a day doesn’t help much with the ethical development of students or not, one could certainly wish that they would discover that spending a lot of their time on digital media does very little for student preparation for college academic work that is at all demanding, not to mention the actual work of their careers, unless they are in the digital entertainment fields, of course.

The National Writing Project, which regularly has received $26,000,000 each year in federal grants for many years to help thousands of teachers feel more comfortable writing about themselves, has now received $1.1 million in grants from the MacArthur Foundation, presumably so that they may now direct some of their efforts to helping students use digital media to write about themselves as well.

Perhaps someone should point out, to MacArthur, the National Writing Project, the Harvard Ed School, and anyone else involved in this egregious folly and waste of money, that our students already spend a great deal of their time each and every day writing and talking about themselves with their friends, using a variety of electronic media.

In fact, it is generally the case that the students (without any grants) are already instructing any of their teachers who are interested in the use of a variety of electronic media.

But like folks in any other self-sustaining educational enterprise, those conversing on the uses of digital media in learning about digital media need a chance to talk about what they are doing, whether it is harmful to serious academic progress for our students or not, so MacArthur has also granted to “the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (in Monterey, California) $2,140,000 to build the field of Digital Media and Learning through a new journal, conferences, and convenings (over five years).”

The MacArthur Foundation website has a list of scores more large grants for these projects in digital media studies and digital learning (it is not clear, of course, what “digital learning” actually means, if anything).

This very expensive and time-consuming distraction from any effort to advance respectable common standards for the actual academic work of students in our nation’s schools must be enjoyable, both for those giving out the $50 million, and, I suppose, for those receiving it, but the chances are good that their efforts will only help to make the college and career readiness of our high school students an even more distant goal.

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Posted at 2:27 PM by William Fitzhugh | Category: Technology | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

2/26/2010

Dining Companions

During its January meeting, the Admission Practices Committee discussed several issues that had been raised by members over the course of the year. Specifically, the Committee worked to determine what role, if any, the Statement of Principles of Good Practice (SPGP) can and should play in addressing these member concerns:

• School-based counselors who also serve private clients

• Test score disclosure for test-optional colleges

• Transfer admission

• Spring admission for fall applicants

The simple summary of our conversation is that none of these issues seems to warrant a change to the SPGP. However… During our conversations, one colleague made an important observation: “I want this group to be seen as an educational committee with an enforcement arm, not an enforcement committee with an educational arm.” Everyone sitting around the table knew what he meant.

Both the Admission Practices Committee specifically and “NACAC” in general (I’ll explain the quotes in a moment) have been the recipients of increasing criticism from members who feel that the SPGP intrudes too much into institutional autonomy. Whether or not you agree with that sentiment, we as a committee are certainly conscious of it as we consider what practices and trends might merit revisions to the document that serves as the association’s moral compass. When we recommend changes to the Board of Directors, we do so only after significant, measured deliberation, knowing full-well that whatever we recommend still needs to be approved by a two-thirds majority in the NACAC Assembly. The path to change, in other words, is neither impulsive nor easy.

Back to “NACAC:” I used to work in a boarding school with a dress code. During a dorm faculty meeting, some teachers complained that too many students were heading to dinner with their shirts untucked and something should be done. “The people in the dining room should deal with it,” suggested one colleague. Another one shot back, frustrated: “We ARE the people in the dining room.”

Friends, NACAC is a membership organization. If you have concerns about how the SPGP is enforced or not enforced, or how our practices have become too permissive or too restrictive, you can take specific actions to make sure your voice is heard. Talk to your affiliate delegates, any of whom has the ability to raise your issue before the NACAC Assembly. Contact the AP Committee. Better yet, JOIN the AP Committee. We’re all in the dining room together.

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Posted at 5:07 PM by Scott Anderson | Category: Principles and Practice | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

YouTubing the Admissions River

Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should do it. Cloning afghans (the dog not the blanket), building half-mile high buildings, teaching chickens to count--we just don't need 'em.

The same is true, I think, for inviting students to submit YouTube-style videos as part of their college applications, as Tufts and as at least one other college has done to in the last few days. There's no question that the challenge of creating a video, even a simple one, can be exciting for someone who has grown up with pocket-sized video cameras and iMovie. Capabilities and equipment that were once confined to studios and labs have become commonplace and people have taken full advantage of them, sometimes to great effect.

It's useless to pretend they don't exist or that students haven't grown up with them. But is it appropriate to invite YouTube-style videos as part of a college application? Well, why not? Will it give better-heeled applicants an advantage? Probably. Will it induce migraines and binge drinking in admission officers who have to watch them? Definitely. But the big question is, what will the criteria for evaluation be?

I've already read one comment that said an under-produced video seemed more authentic, and therefore more credible, than a slick one. Is that fair to the slick one? And wouldn't USC or NYU see the situation quite differently? Is a slick clip the equivalent of an essay that's been worked over by Joyce Carol Oates? Or is it just evidence of a real talent that could energize a campus? Does a student who uses a production crew get points for leadership or slammed for having others do his work for him?

I don't buy the argument that students may one day regret sending a clip into a college. They have grown up watching people, famous and ordinary, voluntarily humiliate themselves--sometimes as part of "rehabbing" their careers--in ways that we could only speculate about before. It's a hallmark of every reality show, from "American Idol" to "Jersey Shore" and shows no sign of abating. (Who's the breakout star of "Shore?" Snookie, the most embarrassing member of the group, who now makes highly anticipated appearances seemingly everywhere and is planning her own handbag line.)

It seems normal to confess egregious thoughts and behaviors to millions--think "Hoarders" or "Celebrity Rehab." And to think that only yesterday we were wondering if admission officers trolled social internet sites for dirt about applicants. Why go through that trouble when they'll send it themselves? People are perfectly capable of humiliating or even incriminating themselves if there's a chance they'll be stars. (Recently in Chicago a group of students filmed themselves beating up another student and posted it on YouTube. What's the thought process there?) And who knows, there may be some pretty interesting things to come out of a video, but my guess is more often than not, not.

When I was at Amherst in the far away 90s a transfer applicant sent in a 6-minute VHS videotape (remember them?) of himself in jacket and tie seated behind a desk telling us why he thought he was a good candidate. His final line was "And by the way, I'm not wearing any pants." This might have been amusing except for the fact that when he got up to turn off the camera, he was wearing pants. So, double fault.

Presumably, kids are better editors today. Students have been sending tapes of their auditions, their dance recitals and other performances as part of their applications for a long time, so maybe YouTubing is just the next incarnation, with the problematic addition of self-conscious production values instead of dad's shaky and unfocused videography of an actual deed. The big difference is that the latter is a record of something; the former is of supposed value in and of itself. We're in an age where "broadcasting yourself" makes everyone a potential star, but is that what it all comes down to in a college application?

I don't see any reason not to look if students send a video (shouldn't we call it something else now? Or do we and I just don't know it?), but I'd exercise caution before making it even an optional part of a college application. At a College Board Forum session I attended last weekend here in Chicago about using new media to communicate with students, YouTubing wasn't even mentioned. If it does become a fixture, I hope at least that admission committees will figure out just what they'll be looking for first.

Do you have an opinion about student videos in the admission process? To comment on this posting, you must be signed into the NACAC Web site first and then click “Comments” below or start your own discussion on NACAC's MemberToMember community.

Posted at 10:04 AM by Willard Dix | Category: Technology | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

2/23/2010

Do Standardized Tests Discourage Low-Income Minority Students from Going to College?

Standardized tests are a ritual rite of passage for students seeking to gain admission to competitive four-year colleges. However, do test scores discourage some low-income minority students from ever applying to college? What cultural, social, and psychological factors contribute to these students’ interpretations of test scores, and how do they relate to college choices? This is the focus of a recent study by Regina Deil-Amen and Tenisha LaShawn Tevis, “Circumscribed Agency: The Relevance of Standardized College Entrance Exams for Low SES High School Students,” designed to analyze the college choice process of low-income students in light of their standardized test scores.

Through a longitudinal study of 110 African-American and Latino inner-city Chicago students at high-poverty high schools, Amen and Tevis explore the extent to which students’ college plans are affected by their interpretations of their ACT scores. The study finds that students’ cultural paradigms and communal understandings specific to their social group (termed “habitus” in the academic literature) include family encouragement in their decisions to go to college but very little knowledge of the college admission process, leaving high schools to fill the void. As the authors show, students’ high schools were doing an adequate job inspiring students to pursue postsecondary education but were not preparing students to take standardized tests or to academically perform well in college, contributing to the “aspiration-attainment” paradox that low-income minority students experience—having high college aspirations but low rates of postsecondary degree attainment.

The authors also concluded that the social context of the high school affected students’ understanding of the role of standardized tests in the admission process and the connection between their test scores and chances for success in college. The lack of adequate information and preparation for these tests left students viewing standardized tests as a measure of intelligence and consequently feeling incapable of raising their scores. Additionally, schools were inflating students’ perception of their scores by encouraging them to aim for the school testing average (17 or 18) instead of national averages (21 or 22). Therefore students who scored in the range of the national averages viewed their score as relatively high.

This inflated sense of achievement allowed students to follow through on their college plans with very few students actually reporting low scores dampening their college aspirations. Yet, coupled with a misconstrued understanding of standardized tests and a lack of academic preparation, students who enrolled at selective four-year colleges confronted the reality that their scores were very low compared to their peers and struggled academically. Although students who enrolled at less selective schools fared slightly better, those who were able to quickly adjust to the unexpected rigor of the postsecondary academic environment persisted in college. Nearly half of the students in the study who enrolled at four-year colleges had either transferred to less selective schools or dropped out after three years.

The authors of the study conclude that although low standardized test scores did not discourage students from pursuing their college aspirations, high school environments play a large part in shaping students’ perceptions of these tests and academically preparing them to succeed in college. Survey results showed that teachers and counselors unintentionally disserved students by overemphasizing four-year colleges and not presenting community colleges as potential, and in many cases, better fit postsecondary options. Ultimately, the authors conclude that students’ sense of agency in the college preparation and choice process is circumscribed by the social context of the high school, which unintentionally contributes to the perpetuation of the aspiration-attainment paradox.

Please address questions about the study to Regina Deil-Amen at the Center for Study of Higher Education University of Arizona, Education Building, P.O. Box 210069, Tucson, AZ 85721; telephone: (502) 621-8468; email: reginad1@email.arizona.edu.

Deil-Amen, Regina, and Tenisha LaShawn Tevis. “Circumscribed Agency: The Relevance of Standardized College Entrance Exams for Low SES High School Students.” The Review of Higher Education 33 No. 2 (2010): 141-175.

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Posted at 3:05 PM by Sean Nyhan | Category: Standardized Testing | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

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