Research Opportunities
Ralph Becker
The Importance of High School Research

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.

The Importance of High School Research

Researching Colleges

Social Media, its Tools, and the College Selection Process

Social Media, its Tools, and the College Selection Process

For the millennial generation, social media is virtually a birthright; over two thirds use social media to gain a sense of which colleges to apply to, and around a third, once accepted, use social media to narrow down their list to a solid match.

Many use social media to ‘demonstrate interest,’ one of the top seven factors affecting admissions according to NACAC’s Admission Decision Survey. Using social media they might like a campus on Facebook, or follow it on Twitter. As time passes and more information is garnered about favorite campuses students can build an ever more detailed and complete profile of the features and benefits favored institutions provide.

Finding the Best Professors

Finding the Best Professors

When boiling down the college experience to its essence, students usually best remember getting to know one or two professors who were pivotal in sparking their curiosity and jumpstarting their motivation.

Richard Light of Harvard School of Education in his Making the Most of College, Students Speak Their Minds, describes the factors that define faculty who ‘make a difference.’ Professor Light interviewed over 1400 students to isolate his list of important factors

Go Midwest Young Man

Go Midwest Young Man
Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune in 1871 told RL Sanderson, a correspondent, to go West, ‘where men are wanted, and where employment is not bestowed as alms.’ Had Mr. Greeley been around today, and the question was finding solid educational opportunities, he might well have altered his direction to the Midwest.

Working with Professors

Working with Professors

No matter how intelligent, clever, or driven students might be, the most important factor governing their success academically and professionally is how they interact with their fellow students and professors.

Andrew Roberts, an assistant professor of political science at Northwestern and author of The Thinking Student’s Guide to Colleges: 75 Tips for getting a Better Education, details how universities deliver an education. W

The Right Fit

The Right Fit

What is the right college fit and, how will you know it when you try it on?

A lot of factors compose a ‘right fit’: size, location, academics, housing, costs, social life, extracurricular, even the personality of the campus. While it would be nice to be scientific and run around each campus with a clipboard recording what is appealing and revolting, possibly it’s best to just trust your gut. If you’ve visited a number of campuses and met dozens of students during your odyssey, you’ll know. Let instinct rule.    

True Values in Public Education

True Values in Public Education

Consumers Digest in 2011 published its list of Top 100 college values; it included real values.

Number one on the list is Truman State University (TSU) (Kirksville, MO), followed by the University of Minnesota-Morris (UMM) (Morris, MN).  Both have out-of-state costs comparable to Cal State’s in-state costs, yet they offer substantially higher graduation rates, smaller class sizes, and a load of major selections that are not impacted. To this duo of public values add FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) which is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. FIT in Manhattan is one of the top five fashion design schools in the world (it includes Calvin Klein among its alumni), and has a COA under $30,000. This is a serious value.

Best Practices of a Student-Focused University

Best Practices of a Student-Focused University

Though heavy research and publishing demands might constrain faculty teaching efforts, many universities are becoming more effective at encouraging undergraduate learning by implementing ‘best practices.’

Research into best undergraduate educational practices by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) yielded a list of ten: 1st Year Seminars; Required Common Courses; Learning Communities; Writing Intensive Courses; Collaborative Projects; Undergraduate Research; Global Learning; Community-Based Learning; Internships; and, Capstone Projects. The full list, along with a quick synopsis of each practice, can be downloaded at the AACU website: http://www.aacu.org/leap/documents/hip_tables.pdf.

The Allure of Out of State College Opportunities

The Allure of Out of State College Opportunities

Less than 14% of high school students attend college out of state. Cost considerations, proximity to friends and family, and climate deter many from going too far afield, but having an adventurous spirit might pay dividends in the world of colleges. Outside the golden state an assortment of public schools, private research universities, and liberal arts colleges seek to enroll Californians. These schools behoove your investigation.  

Tuition Free Schools to Combat Escalating College Costs

Tuition Free Schools to Combat Escalating College Costs

While there is no such thing as a free lunch, there is such a thing as free tuition. A group of colleges offer students tuition free education with one exception: Olin School of Engineering has had to become only half tuition free as a result of its endowment faring poorly during the recent recession; it is, though, still a value at half the tuition price, and thereby warrants a spot on this list. The service academies (West Point, the Air Force Academy, Annapolis, the Coast Guard Academy…) are all free of tuition and all other expenses: they even give their cadets a monthly stipend; however, they do require post-graduate service commitments. The following ‘tuition free’ institutions, on the other hand, offer students the opportunity to study liberal arts, fine arts, and engineering, without a huge debt-load at the end of the experience or backend service requirements. Let’s explore the schools by their curriculum.

School Year Plan—Why the Type of School Year Plan might be important to you

School Year Plan—Why the Type of School Year Plan might be important to you

“The Sizing up Survey” in the Fiske Guide to Colleges asks a number of preference questions to help students figure out good college matches: location, setting, size, cost, athletics, extracurricular, public vs. private, campus culture, academics, and ‘other factors.’ Unfortunately, in certain areas, especially ‘academics’, many students not only don’t have any answers, they don’t even have a clue what they’re looking for, nor do they have much time to contemplate what an ideal learning experience might be. One area to get a grasp of ‘academics,’ beyond whether the school has general education courses, a core curriculum, or distribution requirements, is to know how colleges divvy up their school year, and how these various divisions might jive with learning styles.