Many applicants to the most selective university programs share high grades, high test scores, solid recommendations and generous doses of community service and volunteer activities. Yet, if they want to set themselves apart from the pool of exceptional students, a significant research experience in STEM or the social sciences helps.
What type of education best develops a person’s capabilities, allowing him to become self-reliant, curious, and capable of handling an assortment of challenges? Better still, what qualities are best nurtured to create independent and critical thinkers? These are the types of questions that Laura and Jeff Sandfer wanted to tackle.
Imagine going to college without sitting in a 500-seat lecture hall , or working on problem sets alone in the library until the wee hours, or writing mind-numbing papers after a couple of meetings with a marginally engaged professor.
Instead, consider being part of a team experimenting on methods of capturing carbon dioxide and storing it deep beneath the earth in carbonate minerals. Students want challenges: projects that introduce them to problems that have no clear answers, and that require experimentation and exploration. This is why colleges are offering extensive experiential learning.
High-quality education in the form of Honors Colleges in Public Universities is becoming ever more common. Within the University of California system most have, including UCLA, UCI, and five of the six colleges of UCSD, special honors programs. The reason behind the growth of these honors programs is public universities want to keep their best students at home, in state, and challenged by a curriculum many believe can only be obtained from the most selective universities.
The problems facing higher education today are legion: escalating tuition costs; spiraling student debt; political correctness; underachieving students; professorial emphasis on research to the detriment of undergraduate teaching; adjunct professors earning starvation wages, and we’ve barely scratched the surface.
One company, however, within the MOOC (massive open online courses) ranks, Udacity, appears to have latched onto a solution that addresses many of the abovementioned ills: its nanodegree programs.
If you have contemplated applying to a service academy such as West Point or Annapolis, or if you are applying to one of them, you might want to also consider applying for an ROTC scholarship at one of the more than 1100 colleges that are part of the ROTC program.
The Reserved Officer Training Corp (ROTC) originated with the National Defense Act of 1916. Each branch has its own unique requirements, service obligations, and availability. If you wish to get a better sense of the workings of the various programs, take a look at the ‘Guide to Understanding ROTC Programs here.
Last year 26,700 students from fifteen western states (including California) saved $210 million by enrolling in universities and colleges outside their home states through the Western University Exchange (WUE)—pronounced “woo-wee”-- program. That ‘saved’ sum almost equals 4,200 students’ paying full, out-of-state costs for one year at UC Berkeley.
If you want a solid alternative to the elite private college experience, without the $230,000 price tag, then public college honors programs warrant consideration.
Though honors programs within many public colleges have been around for years, including University of Michigan’s LSA Honors Program, and University of Virginia’s Echols Scholars Program, many students and their families are unaware of the opportunities honors programs provide.
In Germany, the economic powerhouse of the European Union, its century old Apprenticeship program, also called the Dual System, is a critical component in its current economic prosperity. The program integrates apprenticeship with ‘vocational schooling,’ and involves the cooperation among businesses, government, and ‘chambers’ (employers’ organizations). This apprenticeship program transitions students, year after year, into world-class workers with real responsibilities. Wouldn’t it be interesting if the US had something similar?
A stellar undergraduate performance shows a solid work ethic and a propensity to learn. Add to the mix, a Fulbright or Rhodes scholarship and you are among the most elite undergraduates in the country. Only 865 Fulbright Scholarships (to graduating seniors from US campuses—all told there are 8,000 Fulbright awards granted each year) and a mere 32 Rhodes Scholarships were awarded this past year. Aiming to be a recipient of either one is an excellent way to bolster your undergraduate experience. Even falling short will end in excellence—and that, after all, is the intention of your college years.
Many students attend college to study with exceptional professors in fields, such as biostatistics, with the hope of getting mentored, performing research, connecting with others in parallel fields of interest, and gaining a grasp of how they might carve career paths. On paper all this sounds neat, clean, and almost easy. Yet, in reality, none of it is easy. The hardest part of most endeavors is the people part. Learning how to deal with people and setting goals are, for most students, difficult tasks. It’s too easy to screw up, to not do at all, or to get knocked off course. This is why Rick Cherwitz, an associate dean of graduate studies, and professor of communications at the University of Texas, Austin, set up the Intellectual Entrepreneurship (IE) Program.
