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

Cost/Benefit Analysis of a Harvard Diploma

Cost/Benefit Analysis of a Harvard Diploma

Possibly you were among the lucky 2,000 applicants, the elite 6.2% of the 35,000 pool, who received an admissions offer from Harvard this year. Yet, just how lucky were you? Recently, numerous articles have appeared questioning the value of any 4-year bachelor’s degree, whether from Harvard or not. One of the skeptical parties, ironically, is Harvard’s School of Education, which recently published a study that claims a four-year college degree isn’t for everyone. Even more ironic, just as the best basketball players usually leave college, after a year, to jump into the NBA, some of the most successful Harvard undergraduates don’t graduate (Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg come to mind).

What are Liberal Arts Colleges and Why You Might Want to Know?

What are Liberal Arts Colleges and Why You Might Want to Know?

When US News and World Report ranks ‘liberal arts’ colleges, it lists such schools as Amherst, Williams, Wellesley, or Haverford. Nowhere, however, does it mention what the ‘liberal arts’ are. We’re also left in the dark about why a college might provide such a program, or why a student might seek entry into an institution, usually with a stiff price tag, that offers a liberal arts curriculum. A lot of confusion surrounds the liberal arts.

Retention Rates: A Critical Measure of a College Program

Retention Rates: A Critical Measure of a College Program

If there were but one factor I could review to determine the effectiveness of a college or university’s program it would certainly not be the US News and World Report Rankings, or the 25 and 75 percentile SAT scores of the incoming class, or even the number of Rhode scholars, or Fulbright scholars it has graduated over the last 10 years. Instead, I’d rather see the school’s retention rate: the number of freshmen students who return for their sophomore year at the same school. Experience tells us that freshman year in college is a massive adjustment. Those schools who can guide their students successfully through freshman year are gems, because a lot of students fail to successfully make the transition in college.

The Common Data Set, a Useful Tool

The Common Data Set, a Useful Tool

Do you want to find out how many students transferred to Cornell University last year? Or, how many students received financial aid (institutional and government grants) at Pomona College, and how much each actually got? Or, do you want to find out the real student to faculty ratio at Dartmouth? If you do there are two places to go to answer many of these questions accurately and efficiently: College Navigator is one (and it has been profiled by me often. If you haven’t had a chance, you really need to go to its website and take a look at some of the schools you have under consideration. (http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/). This is one example of our tax dollars well-spent; it’s truly a veritable goldmine of valuable college information.

The other tool of equal utility is the Common Data Set (CDS), and it is in today’s spotlight.

How Effective is a College You’re Planning to Attend at Educating its Students?

How Effective is a College You’re Planning to Attend at Educating its Students?

Trying to figure out where you might get the best postsecondary value for your educational dollar just became easier. On October 7th, 2010, the website CollegeMeasure.org went live. It’s a free, publicly available, not-for-profit site that has no advertising clutter or strange distractions: just cold hard numbers to compare which colleges do a good job at delivering value for the educational dollar, and which don’t. The organizations behind the site are the Matrix Knowledge Group (an international consulting company) and the American Institute of Research (which specializes in educational research) who both share grave concerns about the American college system which, currently, graduates less than 60% of its students in 6-years, who are attempting to gain degrees from 4-year colleges.

Bellwethers of Ivy Quality

Bellwethers of Ivy Quality

How much would you be willing to pay to attend a school that had no official general education requirement (or, possibly had one or two areas spottily covered) across the following subject areas: composition; literature; foreign language; US government and history; economics; mathematics and; science? Posed a little differently, assume you were selecting a high school and it didn’t require English (writing), history, math, science, foreign language, or literature. How much would you be willing to pay to go to such a school? A better question is how much money would you pay to avoid going to the school?

How Colleges and Salaries Match Up

How Colleges and Salaries Match Up

There will always be endless debates about whether an Ivy League school or other highly selective school is worth the price of admission. Now, however, there is hard evidence about the actual payback for attending a certain school. Not that this information is the last word in these debates, but it certainly supplies the numbers one might want to see  when sharpening the pencil and figuring out what are the probable returns associated with attending an UC San Diego instead of a Princeton.

College Research on the Web

College Research on the Web

Among the many college information websites, several, such as the College Navigator, from the National Center of Educational Statistics, http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/ with its extensive enrollment and financial aid information, and the College Board site http://www.collegeboard.com/student/csearch/index.html with its college selection tools and college major research information, are stalwarts.

The Advantages of the Small College with the Resources of a Giant University

The Advantages of the Small College with the Resources of a Giant University

Sometimes when I recommend a small, liberal arts school to students, say a school like Pomona College, they're puzzled. Why in the world would they want to pay $45-50,000 a year for a school with 1,500 students (smaller than most high schools) and, in all likelihood, with limited resources? On the surface, such an objection makes sense. However, it doesn't account for the consortium of colleges to which Pomona belongs. This consortium opens a huge network of educational opportunities for all Pomona students, while maintaining Pomona's personal and intimate touch.

Researching Colleges

Researching Colleges

One part of the admissions process that is often a bit neglected, is doing the research on potential college fits. Many students, and their parents, pull together a preliminary list of colleges based mainly upon college ratings, rankings, reputations, and opinions; that's human nature. But there is more to the research process than graduating near the top of your class and immediately applying to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and then UCLA and UC Berkeley as your "safety schools". Today every applicant to a selective US college is facing stiff competition; most knowledgeable students and their families recognize this reality. Whether you believe it or not, even if you're the next Albert Einstein or Marie Curie, it's not a bad idea to research colleges of interest.