List of SAT / ACT Optional 4-Year Universities

Fair Test keeps a list of schools that have dispensed with the standardized testing requirement. Currently, that list includes 734 schools, 28 of which are ranked in the top 100 liberal arts colleges in America by U.S. News and World Report.

Notable colleges on the list include: Bard College, Sarah Lawrence College, Mount Holyoke, University of Texas at Austin.

Inclusion on the Fair Test list requires that the college be an accredited, bachelor’s degree-granting institution at which a large chunk or all of the applicants aren’t required to submit standardized test scores.

To access the complete list here is the PDF: Fair Test

NPR does some great stories on education. I dug up this old series on college essays. Listen to some highschool read out their exceptional college essays.

More recently, they did an excellent series on the college admissions game. They cover everything from how to keep the process low stress to how to write that winning essay.

I hated writing my college essays. How do you explain to someone why you want to specifically attend their college when you are 17 or 18 years old and truly don’t know what you want to do with your life? Colleges usually end up getting cookie-cutter essays that don’t really help them distinguish Student A from Student B, C and D.

Perhaps it’s the colleges that have been approaching things all wrong said some deans from Tufts University.
So, Tufts has implemented a new idea: What if instead of writing an essay, students were asked to draw a picture? Or write a short story, about, say, “The Disappearing Professor” or “The End of MTV”?

Sternberg designed the new questions based on research he did as a psychology professor at Yale. He says his questions can predict academic success and measure different aspects of intelligence. Since Tufts’ mission is to train future leaders, Sternberg’s questions are meant to assess leadership potential, which he breaks into a mix of creativity, practicality, analytical skills and a certain kind of wisdom that’s different from book smarts.

I’m curious to see how this process works out for Tufts, and whether other universities will begin to adopt it.

NPR also has this seven part series on how to choose the college that is right for you.

One of the stories contained some of the best advice I could offer any young student today. What college you go to, in the end, does not matter that much - it is what you do there that will make all the difference in the world. Here’s the excerpt from the story:

Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, says it doesn’t matter where you go to college, only “what you do there.” Botstein says American colleges and universities are among the best in the world.

“College is a chance to really make something of yourself,” he says. “And you can do that anywhere, at a state university campus, or in a not well-known, small- or medium-size private institution.”

Posted by Sindya Bhanoo
College | University

How To Quell the Fear-of-Change Demon Inside You

I love the Seinfeld episode where Kramer traipses off to a baseball fantasy camp and George, in a moment of nostril-flaring frustration says, “Kramer goes to a fantasy camp. His whole life is a fantasy camp! People should plunk down two thousand dollars to live like him for a week. Do nothing, fall ass-backwards into money, mooch food off your neighbors and have sex without dating; that’s a fantasy camp.”

If your body came equipped with a soul, chances are you’ve got some rosy-hued ideal career stashed away in your noggin. You dream about it while watching the fleck of doughnut glaze caught at the corner of your boss’s mouth move up and down while he yammers on and interminably effing on about something you have long since ceased to give a rat’s ass about. And while he’s telling you and your coworkers exactly how badly your performance has been this quarter, he’s got part of his brain re-playing the reverie he has of himself in his own dream career.

Is it that humans feel compelled to be responsible? Is that why most people are miserable 40 hours a week? Do we think being happy while we’re earning a living is tantamount to being flaky and imprudent? Why? What in the hell’s wrong with being happy? Someone once said, “Humans have an immense capacity for misery.” Life is not as long as you think, and the jury is still out on there being an afterlife. So be happy, damn it.

Here’s how you can get a hands-on preview of your dream career (also known as traipsing off to fantasy camp) while continuing to be responsible. Keep your day job and take a Vocation Vacation. It’s not free (neither are volunteering or interning) but it can answer a lot of questions for you and you don’t have to jump ship and turn you whole life upside down to figure out if being a pit crew member is really what you want to do with your life. Sometimes I cannot decide between auctioneer, sword maker or forensic pathologist. I’m trying to narrow it down.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Career | Work

Many actors grow up on stage - spending their childhoods in a spotlight of some sort - why would they stop their careers to go to university? Very few actors actually attend college and if they do, a high percentage drop out. Famous college dropouts include: Jake Gyllenhaal - Columbia University, Woody Allen - New York University, Tom Hanks - Sacramento State University.

This year, Ivy League educated Meryl Streep is once again on the illustrious Academy Award short list. We were curious to know how many of the leading role actors made it to college and if so, where did they go?

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Forest Whitaker – USC and UC Berkeley

Leonardo DiCaprio - No college

Ryan Gosling - No college

Peter O’Toole - Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts

Will Smith - Julia Reynolds Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School, turned down a scholarship for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Penelope Cruz - No college

Judi Dench - Mount School in York, and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama

Helen Mirren - No college

Meryl Streep – Vassar College and Yale School of Drama

Kate Winslet - No college

Film | College | Academy Awards | Oscars

All Art Schools has an interesting article on their site - Which Fashion Schools Did Fashion Week Designers Attend?

Calvin Klein - Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)

A native of the Bronx, Calvin Klein is no stranger to New York Fashion Week. He attended the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) and launched his first line in 1968. Since then, he has built a fashion empire that grosses $3-5 billion annually. Klein’s underwear and denim lines have anchored his soaring success in the fashion business, placing him as an American fashion icon on par with designers such as Ralph Lauren.

Donna Karan - Parson’s The New School for Design

After two years at Parsons in New York’s trendy Greenwich Village, Donna Karan left school to intern for Anne Klein, who fired her within a few days. Karan’s perseverance won her back the job, and her unique take on modern fashion eventually earned her a role as the label’s co-designer, before she eventually broke off to start her own design house.

Proenza Schouler - Parson’s The New School for Design

One of this year’s hottest Fashion Week collections is the result of a chance meeting at Parsons. In 1999, Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough teamed up at Parsons on a project that they named Proenza Schouler after their mothers’ maiden names. The design duo has become a hot name in the industry with their youthful approach to upscale couture.

David Rodriguez - Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM)

David Rodriguez attended the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles. His fashion week collections run the gamut from office wear to red carpet attire. A multitude of celebrities such as Mariah Carey, Jessica Alba, Kirsten Dunst and the casts of Friends and Sex in the City often appear wearing in his latest fashions.

Fashion | College

I posted previously about CareerJournal.com’s Best Careers List, for which they used their powers for good and not evil, to obtain. They surveyed career-focused people to find a list of common attributes people who are most satisfied with their jobs:

-Good intellectual stimulation
-Strong job security
-High level of control and freedom in what to do
-Extensive direct contact with customers / clients

I already wrote about management consultants / analysts and what made that particular job so dang cool. Physical therapists are on the list as well. Why are those guys so satisfied?

First of all, they don’t have to sit at a desk all day. Yes, they have paperwork, but a major portion of their job is dealing with patients one-on-one. In a nutshell, physical therapists:

Evaluate the patient: physically, how far from “normal” is the patient due to illness or injuries sustained, and how close to “normal” can the patient hopefully return to?

Map out a plan of attack: create an individual therapy plan for that particular patient consisting of strength-building and mobility-increasing exercises.

Work one-on-one with the patient: usually several weeks or months on the therapy exercises, recording progress and modifying the plan accordingly.

Physical therapists work with patients and any number of medical professionals who may be involved with the treatment of a given patient. So, clearly, being a people person is necessary. But a PT also gets to be pretty autonomous, which is a plus if you dislike taking orders.

If you loathe repetition, then you may enjoy being a PT. No two humans are exactly alike, and neither are their illnesses / injuries. Which means every patient is new and different.

Physical therapists get pretty up close and personal with patients, often needing to lift or support them during an exercise. If you prefer to maintain your personal space, then no PT career for you. Also, PT’s need to be in decent physical shape themselves, as the job requires the aforementioned lifting and supporting.

All in all, a career in physical therapy looks to be pretty rewarding. You get to take a broken person and use your knowledge of the human body (structure, function and mechanics) to get them as close to an independent and “normal” state as possible.

There’s a lot of problem solving, inventing, and thinking on your feet involved. And it’s not all “Regarding Henry” and Harrison Ford all the time either. Nor is it one hottie with a sports-related injury after another. I did some volunteering at a hospital while I was in college, and the majority of in-patient folks receiving physical therapy were stroke patients. No less rewarding, but just so you’re warned; real life isn’t as pretty or romantic as Hollywood makes it look. And that demographic would certainly have been different had I volunteered at, say, an outpatient sports injury clinic.

How do you become a physical therapist?
To become a physical therapist you’ll need to go to PT graduate school and earn either a master’s in physical therapy or a doctorate, which will take 2-to-4 years to complete. According to AllAlliedHealthSchools.com’s Physical Therapy Training Resource Center: “While physical therapists are only required to have a master’s degree, most people entering the field today choose to earn a doctorate in physical therapy.”

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Management Consultants made CareerJournal’s Best Careers List. Their ranking criteria were based on which careers make for happy and satisfied working folks. Since the list wasn’t compiled based on salary alone, and instead was based on not being miserable in your career, I applaud the list and the editors of CareerJournal.com for initiating the research.

I was interested to know exactly what is a management consultant and what makes it such a great job? Management consultants / management analysts help companies improve their performance. They’re hired by businesses to analyze lots of data, get a look at the big picture, crunch some numbers and from that information, propose recommendations (I’m guessing pie charts are involved) as to how the client might go about being more efficient, thereby increasing profits.

Why is management consulting ranked so highly? People pay you for your opinions and actually do what you tell them to do. You have a lot of independence, there’s quite a bit of variety. Who would be good at this? Someone with a good head for business (duh) since your whole job will be to make companies better than they were before they hired you. Having a number-crunching, analytical brain which is connected to a people-person would probably be necessary. Being a management consultant/analyst will require a lot of thinking and a lot of telling the client results and recommendations they may not want to hear; i.e.: “That whole department is redundant and if you want to streamline this company, you’ll have to let them go.” Although, as with everything in life, I’m sure it’s not all bad all the time.

The pay is pretty middle of the road — $48,070 to $72,480. But if you’re a senior partner at a management consulting firm, the Association of Management Consulting Firms says your typical earnings in 2004 could very well have been upwards of $317,339.

How do you get to be a management consultant? There aren’t many degrees offered in management consulting. Most people start out in an entry-level position as a research analyst or associate with a bachelor’s degree in business or economics. Advancing to a consulting position would probably require a master’s degree in a pertinent field of study, as well as some years of experience actually working in the field in which the individual wants to consult. Which makes sense—who would want to hire a consultant with no real-world business experience?

Posted by Alexa Harrington
MBA | Business School | Management Education

Are the days of cozy liberal arts schools squarely placed in idyllic settings slowly disappearing? According to a recent New York Times article, young students today want to be in the city, in the center of some action.

Hendrix College in Arkansas is responding by endorsing the construction of a “small city” in the vicinity of the school. It’s a way to create a community, and encourage “settlers” to come in and populate, perhaps energize, the place.

“For decades, colleges like Hendrix in rural areas of the country embraced a pastoral ideal, presenting themselves as oases of scholarship surrounded by nothing more distracting than lush farmland and rolling hills. But many officials at such institutions have decided that students today want something completely different: urban buzz. “You can’t market yourself as bucolic,” J. Timothy Cloyd, the Hendrix president, said.”

It seems to be an issue all small, rural schools are facing:

“Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., which has created several programs to revive adjacent neighborhoods and to encourage faculty to live nearby, is building an apartment complex for undergraduates across from the main entrance to campus. There will be retail stores on the first floor.”

Posted by Sindya Bhanoo Rural Colleges|College