I’ve explained my utter disdain for the current state of the college admissions process here and here and here and also here. It’s completely warped and fubar and several other descriptive expletives that I probably shouldn’t write on a site devoted to all things educational.

Mr. Sam Jackson over at The Sam Jackson College Experience, in his powers-for-good brilliance, has come up with a way to aggregate many students’ experiences with the admissions process so as to bring said experiences to the attention of postsecondary institutions and (hopefully) have some changes made for the better. He, along with myUsearch, is offering a $1000 College Admissions Frustration Scholarship to the student who writes the essay best answering these questions:

What has been the most frustrating part of your college admissions process? Why is it important for colleges and universities to change this? What suggestions do you have for colleges and universities to try to relieve your frustration and the frustration of your fellow students?

Sam started his blog as a high school student when he was in the throes of his own personal college admissions process hell, and is continuing to try to point out to the powers that be which bits of the process are warped and what might be done to change the warpiness for the better. See? Using his powers for good.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Title IX gets a boost.

For her master’s thesis at Brigham Young, Kelly P. Troutman looked at 5,000 high school girls in the National Education Longitudinal Study and found that girls who play interscholastic high school sports are 41 percent more likely to graduate from college than their counterparts. The athletes had the advantage of “social capital,” a network invested in their success, mentor coaches and parents in the stands sharing college information.

I’m interested to know how many of those women had sports and athletic scholarships, which would increase their allegiance to staying in college. I imagine that male athletes might have lower graduation rates due to the call of pro sports.

From the June issue of the journal Youth & Society .

college | sports

College, and graduate school, are great opportunties to learn a language. Languages require at least a little bit of dedicated study time every day, and since you’re already in study mode this isn’t as hard to do. And in an increasingly globalized society, language skills are some of the best skills you can acquire.

There is quite a bit of funding for students who are interested in learning languages. Here are a few scholarships and grants that are out there:

1) Foreign Language And Area Studies (FLAS) - This scholarship covers tuition and provides a generous stipend. Contact your university’s scholarship office to find out more. They also offer $4000 scholarships for summer study.

2) NSEP Boren Programs - These scholarships fund students to study foreign languages in the United States and Abroad. There is, however, a service component that you must satisfy aftwards - this may involve working for the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, State, or the Intelligence Community.

3) Corinne Jeannine Schillings Foundation scholarship - Scholarships for Girl Scouts who are pursuing a college major or minor in a foreign language.

4) Foreign Language Enhancement Program - The Committee of Institutional Cooperation is a consortium of 12 universities that sponsor students to study languages at other universities over the summer.

5) Rotary Cultural Ambassadorial Scholarship - The Rotary Club offers scholarships in the amounts of $10,000-$15,000 to study a foreign language for three or six months abroad.

Posted By Sindya Bhanoo

College | Foreign Languages

Getting into medical school, any medical school, is tough. The top medical schools in the country only accept about 5% of applicants.

Now, if you want to be a doctor, you can study in Cuba, and you can do it for free.

The New York Times recently did a story on the Latin American School of Medical Sciences.

The Latin American School of Medical Sciences, on a sprawling former naval base on the outskirts of this capital, teaches its students medicine Cuban style. That means poking at cadavers, peering into aging microscopes and discussing the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power 48 years ago.

The curriculum includes studying medicine, and a bit of communist theory.

The Cuban government offers full scholarships to poor students from abroad, and many, including 90 or so Americans, have jumped at the chance of a free medical education, even with a bit of Communist theory thrown in.

Tahirah Benyard is one such student.

Tahirah Benyard, 27, a first-year student from Newark, said it was Cuba’s offer to send doctors to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, which was rejected by the Bush administration, that prompted her to take a look at medical education in Cuba.

Those from the United States in particular insist that they want to become doctors, not politicians. They recoil at the notion that they are propaganda tools for Cuba, as critics suggest.

Most students who are lucky enough to get into American medical schools end up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

It’s an interesting proposition - study medicine on an island for free. Of course, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Posted by Sindya Bhanoo
Medical School|Tuition