Programs for Education

That cryptic phrase was the actual message sent by Astronaut, Jack Swigert on April 13, 1970 to NASA Mission Control in Houston, Texas. As you will see here, it was a definitely a problem. The rocket was over 200,000 miles from earth and heading toward the moon when an huge explosion occurred on board. The process by which the rocket was turned around using brilliant engineering tactical skills resulting in a successful return back to planet Earth was miraculous.

The question is: Does America have the brainpower today to meet such challenges?

Now that I have your attention, let’s consider the problem. The immediate problem we have has to do with the lowering of academic standards in our schools (and colleges) over the last 40 years. What kind of preparation do high school students get for college or for life in general, for that matter?

More and more American colleges have incoming freshman that are flat out not prepared for college level work. Even professor’s at the most competitive Ivy League schools see the diminishing writing, reading and critical thinking skills their students have. Why is that?

For an in-depth answer to that question, you can read the insightful, exhaustive and extensive research by Charlotte Iserbyt. Her tome, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America is where to start.

There are a myriad of good solutions to the problem. But like most things, it will need a consensus that there is a problem and an interest in the solutions. A teacher’s ability to teach is obviously important. But teaching a classroom of diverse personalities is not easy.  It takes a special person who has the passion and ability to teach and inspire effectively. As I talk with high school students I learn that their interest in various subjects often depends upon the teacher’s ability to engage and motivate them.  It may not even be a subject they had an interest in before taking the class. Are you a student? Is that true?    

Another challenge that principals and superintendents have is that school systems are required to meet the state and federal rules and regulations of the Departments of Education. Ms Iserbyt does an excellent job of pointing out the problems there.  Do you think that government may have overreached and put both the teachers and students at an extreme disadvantage?

Parents should learn if the curriculum being taught is what the student needs to learn. It is time to abolish the Federal Department of Education and return education planning to the states, and more importantly the school districts. Bring accountability home where it belongs.

Nevertheless, in the final analysis, isn’t learning a life long activity? As Saint Augustine once wrote, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only one page.” Think about how you can leave the world better than you found it when you arrived.

     For 20 years I have been encouraging college students to take full advantage of their college’s advising services. This includes teacher mentoring, internships and the Career Planning Services office. One does not have to look very far to learn that many college graduates are leaving college with student loans and little job prospects much less any related to their chosen major. 

     Yes, on the surface it does not bode well for the current undergrad. However, there are steps that both the student and the college can take to brighten that outcome. I was very encouraged recently when I saw the attention given to sophomores at some colleges during the annual ritual of newly minted college freshman saying “good bye” to parents.     

     It is encouraging to see more and more colleges taking their role as advisors more proactively. For instance look at Lafayette College’s website.They are not hesitating to open their books to prospective students with information as to what past graduates have been able to accomplish.

     If you are a college student, how much research into the advising and internship options have you done? If little, start to familiarize yourself with the career services office, even if you are a freshman. By the way, one student who took the matter of interning VERY seriously has turned her experience into a business. Meet Lauren Berger, the InternQueen.

     Once the freshman year has been successfully navigated and you know what is expected academically, it is now time to really get serious and think about why you are in college.                                                                                      

     The passing of Steve Jobs reminded me of his 2005 graduation talk to Stanford graduates. It is without a doubt, one of the finest commencement speeches ever delivered in history! Here is the transcript and video of his life changing message. Think about what he said. For me, it was one of the most insightful and spiritually aware statements of purpose I have ever heard. Let me know what you think? 

     Speaking of “insightful” if you have done the self-assessment called “Do What You Are” with us, do not forget that is a rich resource of career descriptions and academic concentrations that are matched up to your individual natural strengths and innate characteristics that will comprise your personality for your lifetime on this planet we call Earth!

     It is literally at your finger tips for years to come. Take advantage of that. If you have not “book marked” the link, I will send you the link. In addition, if you have any questions regarding your choice of major, send me an email ~ help@SmartCollegePlanning.org

     Finally, all undergrads (or grads) that complete this survey by October 20, (in celebration of our 20^th Anniversary) my gift to you will be the book Getting From College to Career. Now is the time to think beyond the “now”.

 An important part of most college applications is often not taken seriously enough. Colleges will typically ask for two types of teacher recommendations and perhaps one from your high school counselor. The teachers you ask will be those you had for core academic courses in your junior year. They may not be the ones who gave you the best grades, but those that like you and classes in which you may have made the most contribution in class or the most dramatic improvement of the year.  

Because college admissions counselors want to see the side of you in class that does not always come out in your application elsewhere, it is important to help the teacher focus on something that you did in class. Writing a “thank you” letter like this immediately following the teacher’s positive response to your request is a sure-fire way to get a stellar recommendation.  

Of course, not all recommendations will be as powerful as this one sent in for William Smith, but send that thank you letter and you will come close. By the way, if you are a full service client, read the expanded recommendation tips in your handbook and pay attention to paragraph four of the model thank you letter.      

Finally, here are five steps toward getting that stellar teacher recommendation. They support the points made above. Keep them in mind if you are a current undergrad looking for professor recommendations for a job and/or graduate school. Learn now to be professional in your approach, it will serve you well.

By Thomas H. Benton

Chronicle of Higher Education 

Lack of student preparation. Increasingly, undergraduates are not prepared adequately in any academic area but often arrive with strong convictions about their abilities. So college professors routinely encounter students who have never written anything more than short answers on exams, who do not read much at all, who lack foundational skills in math and science, yet are completely convinced of their abilities and resist any criticism of their work, to the point of tears and tantrums: “But I earned nothing but A’s in high school,” and “Your demands are unreasonable.” Such a combination makes some students nearly unteachable.

Grade inflation. It has become difficult to give students honest feedback. The slightest criticisms have to be cushioned by a warm blanket of praise and encouragement to avoid provoking oppositional defiance or complete breakdowns. As a result, student progress is slowed, sharply. Rubric-driven approaches give the appearance of objectivity but make grading seem like a matter of checklists, which, if completed, must ensure an A. Increasingly, time-pressured college teachers ask themselves, “What grade will ensure no complaint from the student, or worse, a quasi-legal battle over whether the instructions for an assignment were clear enough?” So, the number of A-range grades keeps going up, and the motivation for students to excel keeps going down.

Student retention. As the college-age population declines, many tuition-driven institutions struggle to find enough paying customers to balance their budgets. That makes it necessary to recruit even more unprepared students, who then must be retained, shifting the burden for academic success away from the student and on to the teacher. Faculty members can work with an individual student, if they have time, but the capabilities of the student population as a whole define the average level of rigor that is sustainable in the classroom. At some institutions, graduation rates are so high because the academic expectations are so low. Failing a lot of students is a serious risk, financially, for the college and the professor.

Student evaluations of teachers. Although a lot of emphasis is placed on research on the tenure track, most faculty members are not on that track and are retained on the basis of what students think of them. The common wisdom, for the untenured, at least—whether it is true or not—is to find ways to keep the students happy: Expect little, smile a lot, gesture freely, show movies, praise them constantly, give high marks, bring cookies on evaluation day. Wise administrators may read confidential evaluations in context, but students can now use the Internet to retaliate against professors in ways that can damage their ability to sustain minimal enrollments in their classes.

Enrollment minimums. Students gravitate to lenient professors and to courses that are reputedly easy, particularly in general education. Some students may rise to a challenge; many won’t. They’ll drop, withdraw, or even leave a college that they find too difficult. If you are untenured and your courses do not attract enough students, then you can become low-hanging fruit for nonrenewal. If you are tenured, then it means being “demoted” to teach service courses. In such contexts, the curriculum—populated by electives and required courses competing for the lowest expectations—is driven increasingly by student demand rather than by what a community of scholars believes undergraduates should know.

Lack of uniform expectations. It is impossible to maintain high expectations for long unless everyone holds the line in all comparable courses—and we face strong incentives not to do that. A course in which the professor assigns a 20-page paper and 200 pages of reading every week cannot compete with one that fills the same requirement with half of those assignments. Faculty members cannot raise expectations by themselves, nor can departments, since they, too, are competing with one another for enrollments.

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“I wish I heard about you sooner.” is not an uncommon response after I explain what we do. “I expected that at least two of the colleges my daughter had her heart set on would give her more financial aid.”  Every year, several families come to us because they heard from someone that we can help them “get more money” from the top choice colleges to which their child has been accepted.

Quite often we can, but once the horse has jumped the fence and headed for the hills it is much harder to do. (One of our offices is on a equestrian farm.) You do not want to be a parent who realizes too late that the cost of four years of college is not possible without borrowing an amount that resembles the cost of a used Rolls Royce with body damage.  

No matter how often I talk about the importance of our money saving “heart attack prevention” exercise called the “Dry Run” (step # 3 in the college planning timeline) there are still families that do not take advantage of it. Of course, it is not the end of the world if the student attends a community college for a couple of years. In fact it could be a good strategy in some instances. But more satisfactory outcomes result with planning that includes an early look at the financial options all families have.   

Many families go through the college selection process content not to question the colleges’ “we have financial aid” pitch or “our average grant package is $23,000.” Wide eyed impressionable teenagers are told to “just put your application in and then apply for financial aid.” Once you are accepted “we will send you a financial aid package.” 

All that students hear (and some parents) is what they want to hear. Reality comes knocking at the door too late for many of them. Though the most frugal and financially savvy parents have saved enough to cover the first year or two, it often does not cover all four…or dare I say, five or six. To do that is very difficult without a steady source of extra income coming into the household. (By the way, we do have a solution for that too. Read the last paragraph here; then give us a call.)

In the meantime, if you have a student still in high school with college aspirations, NOW, not later, is the time to call to complete a “Dry Run”. It does not matter if the college list hasn’t been started yet either. We can suggest appropriate colleges.

This past  June we saw many graduation celebrations in the towns surrounding our main office here in the heart of New England. It began about eighteen years ago for the high school seniors and who knows how many years for the college grads. (See Undergraduate Catagory below.) It seems like yesterday that I was in their shoes. Well, maybe the day before yesterday.         

The valedictorians and an assortment of college commencement speakers will have shared their words of hope and encouragement to millions of graduates by the end of June across the country. You may have heard one or two of them.

There is one speaker you will not hear at any of these celebratory events this week. But you can here. In fact, I believe anyone can benefit from his enriching words of wisdom. His name is Michael Himes. He was a Professor of Theology at Boston College.

His last lecture prior to retirement at BC was one of the most meaningful, inspirational and compassionate talks I have ever had the pleasure of hearing. I almost think that most traditional commencement speakers could be cancelled and a DVD of his last lecture simply be handed out to all the college graduates. Here is yours. Let me know what you think.    

As each spring comes and transitions into summer, I am energized with new life as I see our students conclude one phase of their education and start another. For many teenagers, it may not include college but nonetheless it is a journey toward personal growth and maturity. Hopefully, it will be more than biological maturity but emotional, spiritual and intellectual maturity as well. All of which can come about without the benefit of the college experience.

But if college is the next step, then take full advantage of it. We show students how to evaluate colleges in two important ways. First, how does the freshman class statistical profile fit their profile?  By the time the junior year is concluded, a good number of statistical measures can be seen to determine that.

Our students will do their due diligence using the AAA method. That includes seeking out the Common Data Set for each college on their list. 

Second, is the college qualified to provide the educational and social experience they are seeking? Do not measure a college by the number of professors with a PhD degree it may have. That does not mean they can teach. For example, look here at a Yale professor introducing his course in finance, Economics 252. I suggest this is one reason why our country is such poor shape financially.  Graduates are either clueless or have cleverly figured out how to “game” the system.

If you can, watch his perplexing presentation. What this professor says in the introduction to his course could be said in fifteen minutes. Someone somewhere decided that college, like high school, should be a four-year experience, as a result much of what takes up valuable class time is just inflated fluff. What is taught in four years can be covered more than adequately in three. What do you think?   

In any case, is the college faculty qualified to teach your child? And, what is it they need to learn? Those are the questions which we can help you answer. Call for a FREE “get acquainted” conversation. (978) 582-0273 or SKYPE@ (978) 582-3246

Four short years ago the college bound Class of 2006 completed their high school experience. That was a record year for student applications and competition was keen at the more competitive colleges. The American Enterprise Institute that tracks six-year graduation rates tells us that only 38% of those that went on to college are taking part in commencement ceremonies after four years as an undergraduate.

And you thought that college was going to be a four-year experience. Yes, it can be that (or less) if you do your due diligence ahead of time.   

But here are some reasons why that percentage is so shockingly low. 

1. ALL four-year colleges are considered. Both public and private from the non-competitive to the most competitive. Often large state universities and less competitive private institutions have weaker or overwhelmed advising staffs.
2. Students may fall behind on credits earned in their major.
3. They change majors more than twice; credits are not transferable.  
4. Students drop out for academic or affordability reasons.
5. Some classes are over enrolled, limited or cutback and students are not able to take the prerequisite courses in their majors in a timely fashion.

When researching each college using the AAA method a student will be better prepared to avoid most of the above scenarios. This includes understanding the data the colleges are required to report on the Common Data Set. If you do not find the CDS on the college website, ask admissions for it.

In any case, as the title of this entry states, if the Class of 2010 thought it was competitive getting into college, they are in for a bigger challenge now. Job prospects for new college graduates are at historic lows, partly caused by financial misfeasance and malfeasance on a global scale. If a recent graduate has some internship or cooperative work experience to show on his or her resume, that will help. But with the economy what it is, the challenges still remain.

The average student loan debt for graduating seniors in 2008 was $23,186. This year, I dare say the average will be at least $26,000 because the government made additional Stafford loans available to students since 2008. But that does not take into account co-signer or Plus loans that parents may have been taken out during college.

If loans are a burden, parents and students should not hesitate to call us now. We have a sure-fire plan to show you how to become debt free sooner than you think. It makes no sense in starting off with a job that does not afford you the ability to pay basic necessities, provide the comforts and lifestyle you want to have and still meet monthly debt obligations.  

       In the meantime, graduates, get ready for the toughest job you will have.

Start by reading this timely New York Times article ~ How to market yourself.

According to the Department of Education, there are 2364 four-year colleges in the United States. Of those, 612 are public colleges. I dare say that about 300 of them would be at least somewhat familiar to about 80% of the public.

What about the 2064 “unknown” colleges. Which of these colleges are worth exploring?  When all is said and done, does it matter that much where one goes to college?  If you are not looking for a specific program only offered at a particular college, it matters less than you think. What really matters is what you do when you get there.

Some students realize that it might not be a bad idea to look at two-year colleges as well. And some of them are looking at two year colleges outside of the region in which they live. If there is a community college that is beyond commuting distance but has a specific program you are interested in taking, you can rent an apartment near the campus. Many colleges such as Greenfield Community College in Massachusetts or the Ivy Tech Community College system in Indiana, can recommend student housing for such students.

Occasionally I like to step back and look at the colleges whose offerings make them stand out. It does not mean they are right for you. But one or more of them could be.

Let me take you on a brief tour of just five of them now.

They are not in any particular order, but # 1 on the list is a two-year college. In fact, this two-year college is tougher to gain admission than is Harvard. Though they are shocked at first, I get a kick out of telling some extremely bright students that they will not have a prayer in being accepted to this college.  Here is why.   

1.)  Deep Springs College since 1917 accepted only thirteen men into its two-year program each year. That is, until the Class of 2013 applies at which time it will accept female applications. It is a rigorous admissions process including several interviews and multiple essays. (The average applicant’s SAT score is 2200.) It is a working cattle and alfalfa ranch but one with a rigorous liberal arts curriculum in the High Desert region of Southern California.

It was founded by an early California pioneer, LL Nunn in 1917 on his idea that the three pillars… academics, labor, and self-governance help young men prepare themselves for lives of service to humanity. The school’s 26 students, along with its staff and faculty, form a close community. The college operates on the belief that manual labor and political deliberation are integral parts of a comprehensive liberal arts education.

Plus, it is FREE. Each student attends for two years and receives a full scholarship valued at over $50,000 per year. Afterwards, most earn their undergraduate and graduate degrees at the world’s most prestigious four-year institutions. It is practically a “slam dunk” admission transition. Getting a first class education, and saving up to $110,000 in the process is not a bad way to invest two years. 

Now you know why I can no longer say to some students that they will “not have a prayer” to being admitted. Ladies…that used to be you. One intellectually curious young woman I shared this fact with, was undeterred. Because her goal is to become a college English professor, she saw that as way to be part of the Deep Springs community. (Professors from schools like Stanford, Harvard and Yale go there to teach periodically for a semester or two.)

Therefore, if you are a male or female and intrigued by the concept, why not take a college road trip like none other right now.   

2.) Another college that is respected for its’ philosophy of combining work with learning is The College of the Ozarks. COFO is committed to a five-fold mission of encouraging academic, Christian, cultural, vocational, and patriotic growth in its students.

All full-time students work rather than pay for their tuition. The college discourages debt and, like Hillsdale College, does not participate in any government loan programs. On the other hand COFO does participate in federal grant programs so the FAFSA will need to be filed, to determine eligibility. (Hillsdale does not use the FAFSA.)

Academic offerings are surprisingly broad as you can see here. This combined with the strong work program makes it a valuable experience and excellent preparation for a fulfilling life.

By the way, College of the Ozarks has been named a “Stone-Cold Sober School” by the Princeton Review for ten consecutive years.  Alcohol and drugs are strictly prohibited on and off campus. Therefore, a student who applies to the school with the nickname “Hard Work U.” and looks forward to spring breaks in Cancun, is unlikely to be a good fit for this college.

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Another “Age Old Question” 

If you are a current college student, are you always being asked, “What is your major?” 

If you have one, why did you pick that one?  Does the question annoy you because you feel that you are going to have to explain your decision? Perhaps you are not even sure why, thus making you feel more uncomfortable. 

I completelly understand if you are. But if you have already completed our insightful self-assessment and still are not comfortable with your academic direction, return to that online link now. It is resource to access all during your college years. (Call me if it has been misplaced.) One of things that we help students with while they are still in high school is to identify their innate characteristics. That is, what are their natural strengths and weaknesses that make up their core personality?  

Personalities, (barring some chemical changes in the body) pretty much remain the same throughout our lifetime. Interests, aptitudes and attitudes change. So, why not understand and appreciate who you are and explore the possibilities that stem from there? 

Our educational system is set up to take us from secondary school, where we are supposed to get a solid grounding in the basic academic subjects, and then on to college where we get to pick the courses we want.  Assuming college is necessary, however, are you in college to learn what you want, or are you there to learn what someone else wants? Whether it is a well-intentioned parent or prospective employer in a field that you are told, “pays well”? 

Recent Stanford University graduate, Scott Keys, has shared what I believe to be a very helpful insight relating his observations and recommendations. Hopefully, you are getting the kind of advice from your college advisors as to choosing a major that is personal to you and not “cookie cutter”. 

As he says, choosing a major is an important decision and “students are right to seek outside counsel when figuring out what they want to study”. Give us a call or contact us at the right, if you want to explore the possibilities. It all starts with a FREE “get acquainted” conversation.