On July 30th, the New York Times published a piece about college orientations for parents called
Parents’ Rights (and Wrongs)

Parents walk a delicate line when their children fly away to college. No one wants to be known as a helicoptering parent, a mother or father who hovers and swoops in at the first sign of trouble. Most parents know they should cut the electronic umbilical cord (the cellphone). Yet what concerned mother can resist arguing with a professor over an unfair grade or trying to resolve a squabble among roommates?

Colleges fear that parental interference prevents students from developing into independent and resilient adults. So they hold special orientation sessions to help parents understand what role they should play in their child’s next four years. This summer, for example, the University of Vermont is offering two days of information sessions, including “Parenting From a Distance,” a pilot program that will walk them through the stages of separation anxiety and offer guidance on the transition. Then again, the university has had to hire returning students as “bouncers” to keep parents from butting in on orientation events — like course registration — meant solely for incoming students.

As an up-and-coming freshman at Northeastern University , my dad actually attended Ms. Turner’s speech about independence in college, and subsequently agreed with most of it. As far as my own independence goes, the discussion with my parents got started during the age-old teen argument about curfews during high school. I essentially said that once I am in college I will have no one to answer to but myself.

Since then I have had a few discussions with my parents. My mom and dad have the same general ideas; however, some of their more ardent worries are mutually exclusive. My mom is most concerned about me being able to take care of myself. She has never been away from her son for more than a few days, so it will be tough seeing me move 3000 miles away. My dad’s worries come more on the academic side of things. He is at least somewhat guilty of over involvement in my academics during high school. (more…)

I graduated from Skyline High School in Sammamish Washington a few months ago. This fall I’ll be attending Northeastern University in Boston Massachusetts. I love everything about the city (except the Red Sox) and extremely excited to start campus life. I am certainly no expert on college admissions but I can definitely empathize with any high school senior that is lost or confused in their search to find the right school. The following is some information that helped me during the applications process and I hope at least some of the information can be useful to students going through the same process as I did.

The Common Application
For those who dread filling out thousands (ok, dozens) of college applications, relax, applications are all essentially the same. When I filled out my first application in November of 2005 it was a long, awkward and tedious project. However, once I began applying to more schools it became a much easier undertaking. I ended up applying to 9 schools in the end.

Most schools accept the common application, which can be filled out and submitted to as many schools as your willing to pay for. But make sure you pay attention to the details! A friend used the common app and in his essay he described his immense desire to attend the University of Washington. He sent the same application to about 6 different schools.

Telling a Story
I used the same essay for all of my apps and found that a good college essay does not tell the admissions office how wonderful you are; it shows them. Tell a story about yourself: your triumphs and failures and how you learned from them. Simply listing off that you are an honor student, a great athlete, or an accomplished musician does not tell who you are. Tell a story about someone who influenced you to work hard and do well. Write your essay about how being an athlete taught you to strive for excellence.

Even if a school does not accept the common app, very few school-exclusive applications are much different from the common app. Application questions are usually very straightforward – grades, extra-curricular activities and SAT scores are all standard information. With a few exceptions, all schools ask for the same information.

On your College Search, use some of these helpful tools to find a college that fits you:

• Search for an Art School
• Search for an Education School
• Search for a Business School
• Search for an Online College

Education | college application

Can you blame students for sweating a little when they’re taking this thing?

The College Board (SAT test administrators) hired a consulting company to look into the matter, but didn’t release the report until a New York state senator threatened to subpoena executives from the non-profit group.

An article on Salon says that “The problems were blamed on excessive moisture on answer sheets,” and also “the report contains a number of technical recommendations for improving the scoring of so-called ‘marginal marks’. It also recommends that answer sheets continue to be double-scanned until new safeguards are in place.”

While these are interesting conclusions, I didn’t think they were severe enough to be kept a secret from the public. But it makes you wonder if there is anything they left out.

Admit it; we were all secretly hoping that this would spell the demise of the SATs. However, it just looks like they’re going to keep chugging along. Rats.

You can go download the report here.

School |
Education

Here is a follow up post to Undeclared: Major Decisions

High Salaries for Grads with College Degrees

CNN.com just reported that salaries are on the rise for college graduates with the following degrees:

Hospitality Services Management

Business Administration / Management

Accounting

Economics / Finance

Information Services and Systems

Civil Engineering

Chemical Engineering

CNN is also reporting that the starting salaries for these majors have increased at a rate higher than inflation.
Lucrative College Degrees

Bad News for Writers

However the future isn’t looking good for graduates with the following degrees:

Communications: Down 0.4 percent to $31,876

Political Science and Government: Down 2.6 percent to $32,665

Sociology: Down 2.7 percent to $30,944

English: Down 4.1 percent to $30,906

Education | University | News

July 12th 2006

The University of Iowa announced that students in its MBA program should take precautions after a laptop computer containing personal information was stolen.

Officials sent letters to 280 students in the program after the laptop was stolen on June 30th from a faculty member’s business office in Davenport.

It contained names, Social Security numbers and some contact information for 280 current an former students since 2002.

Officials say they know how many students to notify because it was a new laptop and the owner had made a back-up of the data.

But UI officials said they believe it is unlikely the thief sought the computer for its data.

“[Law-enforcement officials] have no reason, at this point, to believe the computer’s theft was motivated by the information it contains,” said Gary Gaeth, associate dean of the business school. “And there is no evidence of data misuse.