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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

142. MVCAP fyi

See free MVCAP e-books on college admissions and financial aid for sharing, printing, and downloading at our online resource library: http://issuu.com/mvcap

1. College students on break fix others' lives, by Betty Klinck - http://usat.ly/h1QOQ5 - RT @USATODAY

"About 72,000 students went on "alternative" break trips in 2009, most of them spring break. But of 1,430 winter, spring, summer and weekend alternative breaks, about 140 were during winter break, says Samantha Giacobozzi, programs director for Break Away, an alternative-break resource that represents more than 140 participating colleges."

2. To-Do (and To-Don't) Lists for Parents, by Sue Biemeret - http://nyti.ms/fWkQmK

"But you need to let your child be responsible for this process. Sure, he may need some prodding along the way — OK, “prodding” could be euphemistic for “begging and pleading” — but, in the end, this is your child’s college search, not yours. The more you do, the less your child will."

3. Spokesperson Confirms Apollo Layoffs, by Teresa Rivas - http://on.wsj.com/heZvCB

“In recent months, we have accelerated the shift in our approach to student admissions, and have refined our business model. These staffing reductions are intended to better align our operations with these business decisions,” Clark wrote in an email."

4. College Application Essay Increasing in Importance, by Caralee Adams - http://t.co/BM9LXKN via @educationweek

"The essay was rated of "considerable importance" in the admission decision by 27 percent of admissions officers in 2009, compared to 14 percent in 1993, according to the 2010 College Admissions Report by the National Association for College Admission Counseling. With so many more students applying to college now and increased competition for spots at selective schools, the essay is a quick way to get a thumbnail sketch of an applicant, says David Hawkins, director of public policy and research for the NACAC. It's a way to get a sense of the applicant's writing ability and personality, he says."

5. Education Week: Study Points to Fewer 'Dropout Factory' Schools, by Sarah D. Sparks - http://t.co/FS6p2gH via @educationweek

‎"The study suggests that a combination of state economic concerns and federal accountability pressure has helped drive up the national graduation rate from 72 percent in 2001 to 75 percent in 2008, the most recent federal graduation estimate. Black, Hispanic, and Native American students made some of the greatest gains, but more than 40 percent of those students still did not graduate on time as of 2008."

6. Workers seek new skills at community colleges, but classes are full, by Peter Whoriskey - http://t.co/z0dlgUi via @washingtonpost

"All over the United States, community college enrollments have surged with unemployed and underemployed people seeking new skills. But just as workers have turned to community colleges, states have cut their budgets, forcing the institutions to turn away legions of students and stymieing the efforts to retrain the workforce."

7. Does It Matter Where You Go to College? - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/dSSsLX

8. What You Do vs. Where You Go, by Marth (Marty) O'Connell - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/fN7ly5

"The key to success in college and beyond has more to do with what students do with their time during college than where they choose to attend. A long-term study of 6,335 college graduates published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that graduating from a college where entering students have higher SAT scores -- one marker of elite colleges -- didn't pay off in higher post-graduation income. Researchers found that students who applied to several elite schools but didn't attend them -- either because of rejection or by their own choice -- are more likely to earn high incomes later than students who actually attended elite schools."

9. Yes, College Choice Makes a Difference, by Richard D. Kahlenberg - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/iag5Ki

"While people might assume that it is harder to get through an academically rigorous college, in fact a student is more likely to graduate from a selective institution than a less selective one, controlling for initial ability. For example, Anthony Carnevale and Jeff Strohl’s Century Foundation study found that among students scoring between 1200 and 1300 on the SAT, 96 percent graduate from the most selective colleges, compared with 78 percent at the least selective."

10. Lifelong Benefit: Access to Money and Power, by Anthony P. Carnevale- Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/eHazJl

"Our dilemma is that, although selective institutions produce excellence, they are also reproducing inequality. The elite colleges are increasingly white and affluent. The least selective four-year colleges and community colleges are increasingly home to disproportionate concentrations of low-income students as well as African-American and Hispanic youth. And less than 5 percent of students at elite colleges come from the bottom quartile of family income."

11. Merit and Race, by Luis Fuentes-Rohwer - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/hoL7WR

"This point raises the question of who is a racial minority worthy of special consideration. For example, fewer and fewer historically disadvantaged African-American students are being admitted to elite colleges. Increasingly, elite colleges are admitting biracial students and first- or second-generation black students from the Caribbean and from Africa. Historically disadvantaged African-American students are being left behind in the elite college lottery. This is a tragedy. This also underscores the remaining importance of our historically black colleges and universities.
The question is similarly complicated with respect to Latino applicants. For example, should Cuban Americans with on average higher socioeconomic status be treated the same as Mexican Americans or Puerto Ricans? How about recent migrants from Central and South America?"

12. Skip the Admissions Game, by Kevin Carey - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/fztWiP

"The only way we know how to rate college quality in this country is by wealth, fame, and exclusivity. But most students -- about four out of five --attend colleges that have modest resources, are easy to get into, and are relatively obscure. Lacking any other way to distinguish among these choices, these students usually attend whichever college is cheapest and closest to home."

13. Graduate School Matters More, by David W. Breneman - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/eFu1DZ

"Performing at a high level in a good quality but not highly prestigious college may give a student a better chance of getting into graduate or professional school than being lost in the middle of the pack in a highly selective institution. The quality of graduate or professional school will matter more in the long run to a student’s success in life than the ranking of the undergraduate college."

14. The Specialization Trade-off, by James Shulman - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/fDx8l3

"Upon graduation, students at these highly selective institutions will find that firms that recruit talented people would rather search in 20 places, which have already sorted people on the basis of talent, than in 200. Being at one of those 20 places puts a person in the field of vision of those who are looking for talent. Because of these opportunities in college and beyond, the scarcest resource an elite college manages is a place in the entering class."

15. U.S. School Graduation Rate Is Found to Be Rising, by Sam Dillon - http://nyti.ms/hFU3kq

"The report cites two statistics. The national graduation rate increased to 75 percent in 2008, from 72 percent in 2001. And the number of high schools that researchers call dropout factories — based on a formula that compares a school’s 12th-grade enrollment with its 9th-grade enrollment three years earlier — declined to about 1,750 in 2008, from about 2,000 such schools in 2002."

16. Diversity Remains Fleeting on College Governing Boards, Surveys Find, by Paul Fain - http://chronicle.com/article/Diversity-Remains-Fleeting-on/125566/

"The older age of board members and their lack of diversity may be related, said Merrill P. Schwartz, the association's director of research and author of the reports. Minorities and women were much less likely to attend college during most trustees' prime college-going years, when many institutions were just beginning to admit them."Our boards look more like folks who graduated college 30 years ago," Ms. Schwartz said."

17. The New Conservative Critique of Higher Education, by Frank Donoghue http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/the-new-conservative-critique-of-higher-ed/27902

"But to do so we would eventually have to find an alternative to our current byzantine and often life-crushing financial-aid system, so largely dependent on borrowed money. The easy availability of students loans is, I believe, setting the stage for a meltdown similar to the subprime mortgage crisis, as waves of students will graduate unable to pay their debt."




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