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Showing posts with label UT-Austin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UT-Austin. Show all posts

Thursday, January 20, 2011

174. 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. Book Review of Donna Y. Ford, Reversing Underachievement Among Gifted Black Students, 2nd Ed, by Dick Kantenberger - http://exm.nr/fhLds7

“Blacks represent some 20% of public school enrollment, [yet] they constitute only 4% of students who perform at the 95th percentile or above on standardized tests,” says Dr. Donna Y. Ford in her recently released 2nd edition of Reversing Underachievement Among Gifted Blacks, published by Prufrock Press, Inc."
2. For Many, College Isn't Worth It, by Richard Vedder - Inside Higher Ed http://t.co/gXu3iBA

"An even-handed interpretation of the data is that college is “worth it” for some significant number of young people, but is a far more problematic investment for others. The call by President Obama, the Lumina and Gates Foundations, and many higher education advocates to rapidly and radically increase the number of college graduates is fundamentally off-base."

3. 7 Ways to Improve SAT and ACT Scores, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - The College Solution (usnews.com): http://t.co/ZpG7ooI

‎"Here are seven ways for teenagers to improve their SAT and ACT scores or limit the damage of mediocre results:"

4. 'Apocalyptic' Budget Sends Waves of Fear Across Texas Higher Education, by Katherine Mangan - http://chronicle.com/article/Apocalyptic-Budget-Plan/125997/

"No new applicants would be accepted for the state's largest financial-aid program for low-income students, the Texas Grant program. It served 87,000 students this year with grants of up to $6,780 per year, but it would serve only 27,000 students in 2013 under the House plan. Joseph P. Pettibon, associate vice president for academic services at Texas A&M, said he worried that low-income students either would not be able to attend four-year colleges or would take on too much debt if lawmakers approved the proposed cuts."

5. Texas Inks $300-Million Deal With ESPN for New TV Network, by Libby Sander - http://chronicle.com/article/Texas-Inks-300-Million-Deal/126000/

"The timing of the announcement was sobering: Also on Wednesday, Texas lawmakers wrestled with proposed cutbacks of nearly $772-million in the state's two-year budget, including nearly $100-million for the Austin campus."

6. Harvard’s unofficial early admission process, by Valerie Strauss - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/harvards-unofficial-early-admi.html

"Sometimes students will approach Harvard and ask for some indication of whether they will be accepted. They are given one of three responses, he said: likely, possible or unlikely to be admitted. Likely responses essentially means a student will be admitted, assuming they don’t flunk out of senior year in high school. Last year, he said, Harvard issued about 300 “likely” notifications."

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Monday, January 17, 2011

171. MVCAP fyi: M L King Day

On this Martin Luther King Day, these pertinent articles from past blogs are cited:

1. A Lesson on Urban Identity, by Matthew Amaral - http://www.educationnews.org/blogs/105853.html

“Can you be Ghetto and successful?” I tell them they can’t talk about drug-dealers, rappers, athletes, or other entertainers--we’re talking about real careers. . . . This is something that will really come into focus on a college campus when a majority of the students are NOT like them."

2. Achievement gap slow to close, by Diana Lambert - http://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/10/3311645/achievement-gap-slow-to-close.html

"In 2009 there was a gap of 27% points between fourth-grade white students and African American students, and a gap of 22% points between white and Latino students in math. There also was a 28% gap between white and African American fourth-graders in reading."

3. Minorities are now the majority at UT-Austin, by Jon Marcus and Reeve Hamilton - Hechinger Report http://t.co/7JnZQJJ

"Whites are in the minority this year for the first time in the history of the flagship Texas school, which was segregated until the 1950s. Fifty-two percent of the Class of 2014 is nonwhite. Black and Hispanic students represent about 5 percent and 23 percent, respectively. Asians account for 17 percent of freshmen. The demographic shift at U.T. is a bellwether of what is about to happen—and, with little notice, already has, at other universities in Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and New York—in a country where new Census figures confirm that nonwhites are by far the fastest-growing proportion of traditional-age university students."

4. Proficiency of Black Students is Found to Be Far Lower Than Expected, by Trip Gabriel -http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/09/education/09gap.html?_r=2&hpw

“What this clearly shows is that black males who are not eligible for free and reduced-price lunch are doing no better than white males who are poor,” said Michael Casserly, executive director of the council. The report shows that black boys on average fall behind from their earliest years. Black mothers have a higher infant mortality rate and black children are twice as likely as whites to live in a home where no parent has a job. In high school, African-American boys drop out at nearly twice the rate of white boys, and their SAT scores are on average 104 points lower. In college, black men represented just 5 percent of students in 2008."

5. Black Male Achievement in a 'State of Crisis,' Study Says, by Dakarai Aarons - http://t.co/1wmZtp2 via @educationweek"

"As a study this summer by the Schott Foundation for Public Education pointed out, fewer than half of black males graduate from high school on time. "At almost every juncture, the odds are stacked against these young men in ways that result in too much unfulfilled potential and too many fractured lives," writes Michael Casserly, the council's executive director. The council's report suggests that the underperformance of black male youths is nothing short of a national emergency, and it calls for the convening of a White House conference."The previous efforts to ring the alarm bell have too often fallen on deaf ears, and we thought that a White House conference would help both raise the visibility of the issues and aide in attempting to martial the public will to tackle it," Casserly said in an interview."

6. This Raging Fire, by Bob Herbert, The New York Times, November 15, 2010 - http://nyti.ms/9Jjsc2

"The first and most important step would be a major effort to begin knitting the black family back together. There is no way to overstate the myriad risks faced by children whose parents have effectively abandoned them. It’s the family that protects the child against ignorance and physical harm, that offers emotional security and the foundation for a strong sense of self, that enables a child to believe — truly — that wonderful things are possible. All of that is missing in the lives of too many black children."

7. Financial Aid: A Broken Bridge to College Access? by Bridget Terry Long and Erin Riley - http://www.hepg.org/document/19/

"Although there are many barriers to college access and success for low-income and minority students, most can be grouped into three major categories. The first set of major barriers relates to cost. . . . A second major set of barriers to college enrollment and persistence is academic preparation. . . . The third major impediment to higher education for many students, particularly those from low-income families, is the complexity of the college admissions process and financial aid systems, as well as a lack of accurate information about higher education costs. College attendance is the culmination of a series of steps and benchmarks, and this current landscape is too complex and difficult for many families to decipher and navigate."

8. Failure to educate, by Junia Yearwood - http://b.globe.com/dz8Hmo

"I knew that most of my students who walked across the stage, amidst the cheers, whistles, camera flashes, and shout-outs from parents, family, and friends, were not functionally literate. They were unable to perform the minimum skills necessary to negotiate society: reading the local newspapers, filling out a job application, or following basic written instructions; even fewer had achieved empowering literacy enabling them to closely read, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate text. However, they were all college bound — the ultimate goal of our school’s vision statement — clutching knapsacks stuffed with our symbols of academic success: multiple college acceptances, a high school diploma; an official transcript indicating they had passed the MCAS test and had met all graduation requirements; several glowing letters of recommendation from teachers and guidance counselors; and one compelling personal statement, their college essay."

9. Unready and Unsuccessful, by Joanne Jacobs - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joanne-jacobs/unready-and-unsuccessful_b_775668.html

"Seventy percent of California's degree-seeking community college students failed to earn a credential or degree -- or to transfer to four-year universities -- within six years, concludes a new study. Most students drop out quickly, reports the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy and the Campaign for College Opportunity. Between 2003 and 2009, only 40 percent of students earned at least 30 college credits, which is considered "the minimum needed to provide an economic boost in jobs that require some college experience," reports the LA Times. Blacks and Latinos did worse: Only 26% of black students and 22% of Latino students had completed a degree or certificate or transferred after six years, compared to 37% of whites and 35% of Asian Pacific Islanders. Students fail because they're not prepared for college-level reading, writing and math. Many are juggling jobs and family responsibilities too, of course, but college readiness is the make-or-break issue."

10. A Call for Change - http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/opinion/A-Call-For-Change.pdf

"The Social and Educational Factors Contributing to the Outcomes of Black Males in Urban Schools”
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Wednesday, January 5, 2011

163. 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


"Below, check out which majors are most wanted by employers in 2011, and what percent of respondents said they would be hiring candidates with these qualifications. Are you surprised? Let us know in the comments section."

2. Where CEOs at America's Largest Companies Went to College, by Brian Burnsed - US News and World Report: http://t.co/OM3TzHV

"While usual suspects like Harvard (15 total degrees), Columbia University, and the University of Pennsylvania (seven degrees each) boast the most Fortune 100 CEO graduates, there were a few outliers that yielded multiple CEOs."


"Barbara Duffield, policy director of the Washington, DC-based National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, told the Star Tribune: "In 2009, 47,204 college students applying for financial aid checked a box that identified themselves as homeless."

4. Schools Examine Content, Delivery of Online AP Courses, by Michelle R. Davis - http://t.co/L7SaWKY via @educationweek

‎"The College Board, which audits all AP courses and authorizes them with its stamp of approval, does not track how many students are taking those offerings online. However, nearly 18 percent of the 17,000 high schools that offer AP courses offer at least one of them as an online option."

5. Math That Moves: Schools Embrace the iPad, by Winnie Hu - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/education/05tablets.html?_r=1&hpw

“There is very little evidence that kids learn more, faster or better by using these machines,” said Larry Cuban, a professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, who believes that the money would be better spent to recruit, train and retain teachers."

6. Historians Continue to Face Tough Job Market, by Peter Schmidt - http://chronicle.com/article/Historians-Continue-to-Face/125794/

‎"The report, published in the group's Perspectives on History, a newsletter, in advance of its annual conference this week, said the number of jobs posted with the association fell by more than 29 percent—from 806 to 569—during the 2009-10 academic year. Since two years ago, when the association posted an all-time high of 1,059 job openings, the number of jobs advertised with it has dropped by more than 46 percent, to the lowest level in 25 years."

7. Minorities are now the majority at UT-Austin, by Jon Marcus and Reeve Hamilton - Hechinger Report http://t.co/7JnZQJJ

"Whites are in the minority this year for the first time in the history of the flagship Texas school, which was segregated until the 1950s. Fifty-two percent of the Class of 2014 is nonwhite. Black and Hispanic students represent about 5 percent and 23 percent, respectively. Asians account for 17 percent of freshmen. The demographic shift at U.T. is a bellwether of what is about to happen—and, with little notice, already has, at other universities in Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and New York—in a country where new Census figures confirm that nonwhites are by far the fastest-growing proportion of traditional-age university students."

8. Video essays are a hot topic in college admissions as more schools allow them, by Jenna Johnson - http://t.co/ZpYxGip via @washingtonpost

"A few colleges are hoping to harness that love for video and have created channels for students to submit video essays, although most schools do not accept them in place of a written one."
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