The Democrats approach to taming the beast

I have no idea who EdLaborDemocrats are, but they have this humorous take on the recently passed "College Cost Reduction and Access Act":

And now for something completely different

Our car insurer, USAA, junk-mails us a magazine for teens that gets pitched in the recycling. (Our teen doesn't drive yet, something for which everyone on the road should shower us with thanks.) But I glanced at the cover this month on the way to the bin, and the feature "Quirky Colleges" caught my eye. So USAA, of all things, gets credit for this post, not to mention for replacing the window that a smash-n-grab thief broke on the Caravan just last month.

Most colleges made the list for some goofy tradition or other (and they left out the Juniata College scholarship for left-handers). But some are genuinely unusual.

Deep Springs College, Deep Springs, Calif.

Deep Springs is an all-male liberal arts college located on a cattle-ranch and alfalfa farm in California’s High Desert. Electrical pioneer L.L. Nunn founded the school in 1917 on the three pillars of academics, labor, and self-governance in order to help young men prepare themselves for lives of service to humanity. The school's 26 students, along with its staff and faculty, form a close community engaged in this intense project.

Deep Springs operates on the belief that manual labor and political deliberation are integral parts of a comprehensive liberal arts education.

Each student attends for two years and receives a full scholarship valued at over $50,000 per year. Afterwards, most complete their degrees at the world's most prestigious four year institutions.

(In other words, it's free. But undoubtedly weird.)

Bard College at Simon's Rock, Great Barrington, Mass.

No other college in the country does what we do.

We’re a small, selective, supportive, intensive college of the liberal arts and sciences in the middle of the Berkshires, one of the nation’s cultural and natural treasures. All of our 400 students come to us after 10th or 11th grade in high school. We give them a broad-minded, paradigm-shifting education; faculty trained in the country’s best universities; inspired and inspiring classes; first-class facilities for the sciences, the arts, and athletics; and an astonishing range of opportunities for conducting specialized research and gaining hands-on experience. We offer 43 concentrations, many of them interdisciplinary; our academic program leads to an A.A. or a B.A.

Simon’s Rock was founded by Elizabeth Blodgett Hall in 1966. In 1979 we became part of Bard College (established in 1860), one of the country’s outstanding (and most innovative) liberal arts colleges, located 50 miles away, in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

(I have a young relative who attended Simon's Rock, after what the family viewed as dropping out of high school. He's in med school at Columbia University now.)

College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, Maine

COA is a small school, but with a major difference — literally. All students major in Human Ecology, the study of our relationship with our environment. This major gives you the flexibility to design your own course of study. It's all about creativity, investigation, engagement, and community.

As a COA student, you work closely with faculty, take interdisciplinary classes, explore your own creative work, and immerse yourself in a diverse community of learners to discover and pursue your passions. You also complete independent study projects and internships, participate in campus life, and have unique opportunities to study abroad.

Before graduating, all seniors create an original project that represents the culmination of their work here. It might be a novel or a scientific research paper. An art show or a new non-profit. It's up to you, as you can see from these senior projects.

Ultimately, our mission is not only to understand our relationships with our environment, but also to do something to improve them. A degree in Human Ecology enables you to make a difference, in your own way, whether you love science or the arts, education, public policy, or any other field.

University of Redlands Johnston Center for Integrative Studies, Redlands, Calif.

In 1969, a group of faculty members created an alternative learning environment at the University—a true living-learning community where students would be responsible for their own education.

Today, some 200 talented and passionate Redlands students live and learn together in the Johnston complex, which includes two residence halls and a number of faculty offices. Students can design their own majors in consultation with faculty, and they write contracts for their courses and receive narrative evaluations in lieu of traditional grades. It’s innovative, challenging and inspiring.

St. John's College, Annapolis, Md.

St. John's College is a co-educational, four year liberal arts college known for its distinctive "great books" curriculum.

* The all-required course of study is based on the reading, study, and discussion of the most important books of the Western tradition. There are no majors and no departments; all students follow the same program.
* Students study from the classics of literature, philosophy, theology, psychology, political science, economics, history, mathematics, laboratory sciences, and music. No textbooks are used. The books are read in roughly chronological order, beginning with ancient Greece and continuing to modern times.
* All classes are discussion-based. There are no class lectures; instead, the students meet together with faculty members (called tutors) to explore the books being read.

College for youth with disabilities

Here's an online alert from Reference Points, passed on by Carol Kocivar, SFUSD's ombudsperson for special education. Below the announcement of the University of Iowa's new program are more resources about opportunities for youths with cognitive disabilities, autism and other disabilities.

The University of Iowa College of Education introduces the R.E.A.C.H Program
(Realizing Educational and Career Hopes), a unique two-year certificate program for young adults with multiple learning and cognitive disabilities.

The R.E.A.C.H Program, one of the first of its kind at a major public university, combines academic instruction, career experiences, community involvement, and campus and residential life to create a dynamic collegiate experience. Through the R.E.A.C.H Program, students are empowered and provided with the skills necessary to become independent, engaged, and contributing members of their community. Enrollment will begin in fall 2008 and applications are now being accepted. The application deadline is March 1, 2008; however, campus interviews will be held beginning Fall 2007.

Websites with additional information on postsecondary educational opportunities for individuals with learning and cognitive disabilities


HEATH RESOURCE CENTER
The George Washington University HEATH Resource Center is an online clearinghouse on postsecondary education for individuals with disabilities. Visit their "Links" pages and scroll down to the specific category you seek (for example, autism, TBI, intellectual disability, transition from high school) to find many other websites that provide information on postsecondary options for a person with autisim or cognitive/intellectual disabilities.

INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITY INCLUSION
ICI offers training, clinical, and employment services, conducts research, and provides assistance to organizations to promote inclusion of people with disabilities in school, work, and community activities. Links to their online resources can be found here.


NATIONAL CENTER ON SECONDARY EDUCATION AND TRANSITION (NCSET)
NCSET Topics are written specifically for the Web and contain information and resources within key areas that affect the lives of youth with disabilities in secondary education and transition. Each topic contains an introduction, frequently asked questions, related research, emerging practices, Web sites, and additional resources. Links to these resources can be found here.

ON CAMPUS OUTREACH (OCO)
On this site, you will find articles, fact sheets, on-line training modules, contacts for programs in Maryland, and related websites on serving students with intellectual disabilities in postsecondary settings who still receive special education services in public schools.

STEPS FORWARD INCLUSIVE POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION SOCIETY
STEPS Forward Inclusive Post-secondary Education Society was incorporated in 2001 by a group of parents concerned that there was no place in society for their children with intellectual disabilities as they reached adulthood — no place for lifelong education, no place for employment, no place to participate as citizens. STEPS' mandate is to transform post-secondary education in the province of British Columbia by modelling inclusion for students with intellectual disabilities, starting at UBC (STEPS-Campus) and eventually expanding to other colleges and universities throughout the lower mainland and the rest of the province.

THINKCOLLEGE.NET
Youth with intellectual disabilities have not had many chances to go to college. This is changing as individuals across the country begin to create opportunities for these youth to reap the benefits of postsecondary education. This website will provide information and links to anyone interested in finding out more about the possibilities.

TRANSITION COALITION
The Transition Coalition provides online information, support, and professional development on topics focusing on the transition from school to adult life for youth for transition professionals.

REFERENCE POINTS is administered by PACER Center as a technical assistance activity of the TATRA Project. The TATRA Project is
funded by the Rehabilitation Services Administration.

Click here to SUBSCRIBE to REFERENCE POINTS.

Readers are invited to send information about new resources on secondary
education, transition and vocational rehabilitation topics to
tatra@pacer.org

Cool-sounding college search tool

Press release about a new college information resource. I'm posting it before I try it. (Thanks to Carol Kocivar for the alert.)

Since its creation in 2001, the Department of Education College Opportunities Online (COOL) website has helped hundreds of thousands of students and families learn about colleges and universities. Now, COOL's successor, called College Navigator and located at http://collegenavigator.ed.gov offers consumers even more information in an easy-to-use format.

Launched today, College Navigator is a free consumer information tool designed to help students, parents, high school counselors, and others get information about nearly 7,000 postsecondary institutions in the United States. It offers a wide range of information previously found on COOL — such as programs offered, retention and graduation rates, prices, aid available, degrees awarded, campus safety, and accreditation. However, College Navigator offers users valuable new information about colleges and universities, and it does so in a way that is vastly more user-friendly. Users can now:

Search

• Search by programs offered, degrees offered, institution type, price, selectivity, distance from home, school size, institutional mission (historically black colleges and universities, single-sex), extended learning opportunities for adults (weekend and evening degree programs), and intercollegiate athletics programs offered.
• Modify or change their search from anywhere within the website.
• Use a simple and intuitive way of selecting keywords to search among programs at a general level (communications, journalism, and related programs), drill down through a menu to a moderate level of detail, and identify highly specific courses of study (health communication).
  

Compare

• Make comparisons of up to four institutions in one view, and maintain a list of favorite institutions from different searches

Save

• Save their sessions and receive an email with a link taking them back to where they left off.

Export

• Export search results to easily-used formats, such as Excel.

The College Navigator was developed by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the Institute of Education Sciences. NCES plans continuing improvements in the content and function of the site, and there are plans for a Spanish version in the coming months.

Visit College Navigator:
http://collegenavigator.ed.gov

Chronicle college columns worth reading

Check out college admissions advisor Joanne Levy-Prewitt's College Bound column in every Sunday's Chronicle (non-newspaper junkies may be missing it —: it's on sfgate). It's especially appealing to newbies to the admissions process, since it's reassuring and avoids alarming us with esoteric concepts like debates about early action vs. early decision.

Are women getting dissed in college admissions?

Because of equal protection and Title IX laws, public colleges cannot manipulate their gender balance. However, private colleges are exempt from some admission restrictions and, in the quest to achieve gender balance, some private colleges have admitted lesser-qualified men instead of more qualified women.

After years of working toward educational equality, it is disheartening to think that the college admissions' bar has been raised even higher for young women. My guess is that at some private colleges with balanced gender enrollment, women are getting the short end of the admissions stick.

Does the SAT writing test have any value at all? (I'll post more info on the many critiques of this later)

There's nothing wrong with requiring that all college-bound students take a writing exam. However, some say, this writing exam has been, and continues to be, a poor indication of a student's writing ability.

Paul Marthers, the dean of admission at Reed College in Portland, Ore., says his school does not look closely at the SAT writing score, instead choosing to look at the graded writing sample required from students applying for admission.

I'm posting this one even though my own purist high school junior thinks paying for test prep corrupts the process.

Spending the college fund to prepare for admissions

Parents can obtain free education for their children at public schools, yet the reality is that those of college-bound students open their wallets long before the first tuition bill must be paid.

When evaluating applicants, colleges are most interested in students' GPAs, so providing academic assistance is a wise choice. Some high school courses are too tough for the student to tackle alone, and families may turn to tutors. ... Colleges are also interested in their applicants' SAT or ACT scores, so getting extra help in preparing for the exams can be wise, too.

And I have previously posted Levy-Prewitt's column on whether public or private high school is a better choice for the college-bound, a topic dear to my heart as a public-school advocate.

Upcoming college events in (or rather near) town

Lewis & Clark College information sessions: Sunday, Sept. 30, 3-4:30 p.m, in Albany: St. Mary's College High School, 1294 Albina Ave.
Sunday, Oct. 14, 3-4:30 p.m., in Atherton: Menlo School, 50 Valparaiso Ave.

Dartmouth College information sessions: Wednesday, Oct. 3, 7 p.m., in Atherton: Menlo School, 50 Valparaiso Ave.
Sunday, Oct. 7, 2 p.m., in Oakland: College Preparatory School, 6100 Broadway.
For more info and to RSVP, go here.

Emory University, University of North Carolina and the University of Virginia all at one event: Monday, Oct. 15, 7:30 p.m., in San Mateo at the San Mateo Marriott/San Francisco Airport, 1770 S. Amphlett Blvd.

Do college admissions give the poor a break?

The answer is a resounding no, according to this New York Times op-ed. WARNING! The op-ed is really alarmist about getting into college (in keeping with the parody 12-part series about how your child will never get into college, mentioned a few posts ago).

I'm not thrilled about posting alarmist stuff on this blog. But I hear comments all the time about how poor kids and minorities have such a better chance of getting into top colleges nowadays.

The author proposes a lottery for some seats in top colleges. This is about as likely to happen as is the notion, espoused by a dear friend, of ending inheritance rights. Interesting idea, though!

And here's the author:

Jerome Karabel, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of “The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale and Princeton.”

The New College Try

AMERICANS are committed to the belief that everyone, no matter how humble his origins, has a chance to rise to the top. Our leading colleges and universities play a pivotal role in this national narrative, for they are considered major pathways to power and privilege.

Today, the competition to get into these institutions is at an all-time high, and this has led to serious problems across the socioeconomic spectrum — gnawing and pervasive anxiety among the affluent, underrepresentation among the middle classes and an almost total lack of access among the poor.

... at least since the 1970s, selective colleges have repeatedly claimed — most recently in amicus briefs submitted to the Supreme Court in the landmark affirmative case concerning the University of Michigan — to give an edge in admissions to disadvantaged students, regardless of race. So it came as a rude shock a few years ago when William Bowen, the former president of Princeton, and his associates discovered, in a rigorous study of 19 selective colleges, that applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds, whether defined by family income or parental education, “get essentially no break in the admissions process.”

Princeton information session tomorrow, Sept. 23

A last-minute addition to the list of college info sessions:

Princeton, Sunday, Sept. 23, 7 p.m., St. Francis Hotel, 335 Powell St. on Union Square, San Francisco.

Controversial social scientist wants to end SAT

I'm really trying to keep this blog to items that are practical to applicants, but I'm sorry; I just can't resist interesting information sometimes. I think New York Times articles are only available free for a day or two anyway, but you get the idea:

Debate on Ending SAT Gains Ground

By PATRICIA COHEN
Published: September 19, 2007
New York Times
The social scientist Charles Murray has a knack for noisily tapping into cultural preoccupations. In his 1984 book, “Losing Ground,” he argued that welfare perpetuated dependency and should be eliminated. In “The Bell Curve” (1994), which he wrote with Richard J. Herrnstein, he argued that those who get ahead in America (mostly whites) are genetically endowed with more intelligence than those who do not (disproportionately African-Americans).

Now Mr. Murray is at it again, proposing in a recent article to abolish the SAT. This position cannot help but provoke a double-take. After all, while making his arguments about genes, race and intelligence, Mr. Murray promoted the I.Q. test as a reliable measure of aptitude. Yet he is suggesting that one of the most widely used assessment tests be eliminated.

With so many college officials and parents dissatisfied with the SAT, even those who think Mr. Murray’s other theories are misguided or offensive could find themselves agreeing with him on this issue.

Unlike other critics of the SAT, Mr. Murray does not see the test as flawed, nor does he think that the wealthy have an unfair advantage because they can buy expensive coaching. But he recognizes that most people do not agree with him and believe the test is rigged to favor the rich. “It is a corrosive symbol of privilege,” he said.

And so, he concludes that college admissions offices should reject the SAT and substitute other standardized tests: subject or so-called achievement tests that gauge knowledge in specific disciplines like history or chemistry.

Full story

Important stuff: college information events, dates

Note: Today (Sept. 21) was the deadline to sign up for the Oct. 27 ACT, but the deadline has been extended to next Wednesday, Sept. 26.

Here's an upcoming series of college enrollment events. I lifted these from Gordon Chalmers' College Bulletin (San Francisco School of the Arts) — thanks, Gordon.

I don't know what happens if you show up to these without RSVP'ing. If I hear about bad repercussions, I'll post a warning. It would be wrong to use someone else's name in the hope that they'd get blacklisted and not you. (Anyway, a big part of the benefit of showing up at these events is to demonstrate your interest to the college.)

TOMORROW: Fordham University reception: Saturday, Sept. 22, 1 p.m., Marriott S.F. Airport (1800 Old Bayshore Highway, Burlingame). You're supposed to preregister: www.fordham.edu/admissionevents (Heads up students dreaming of going to college in Manhattan!)

Georgetown University meeting: Sunday, Sept. 23, 6 p.m., Preservation Park, Nile Hall, Oakland (668 13th St.). RSVP: chaussee@georgetown.edu

Carnegie Mellon University information session: Sunday, Sept. 30, 2 p.m., Marriott Fisherman's Wharf, 1250 Columbus Ave.

UCLA Arts Bay Area information nights: Thursday, Oct. 18, 7-8:30 p.m., Embassy Suites Hotel, Santa Clara (2885 Lakeside Drive).
Friday, Oct. 19, 7-8:30 p.m., Hilton Garden Inn, Emeryville (1800 Powell St.).
RSVP: rcrtasst@arts.ucla.edu or 310/825-8991.

These sessions cover UCLA's School of the Arts and Architecture (Architecture and Urban Design, Art, Design/Media Arts, Ethnomusicology, Music, World Arts & Cultures) and School of Theater, Film, and Television (Film, Television and Digital Media; Theater)

University of Puget Sound representatives will be in Northern California through Oct. 27. To schedule an interview: 800/396-7191.

CSU East Bay Open House Saturday, Oct. 13, 8:30 a.m.-2 p.m. Register by calling 510/ 885-2556 or go to www.csueastbay.edu/openhouse

FALL 2007 VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS COLLEGE FAIR
Saturday, Oct. 27, 4-6 p.m.
Nob Hill Masonic Center Exhibit Hall, 1111 California St., San Francisco

(This touring event is presented by the National Association for College Admission Counseling — NACAC, pronounced Naackaack. This mysterious organization is a big force in the lives of high-schoolers and their families, even if we don't know it.)


Test Dates

Sept. 26 – new deadline for the Oct. 27 ACT
Oct. 2 – deadline for the Nov. 3 SAT
Oct. 5 – late registration deadline for the Oct. 27 ACT
Oct. 11 – late registration deadline for the Nov. 3 SAT

A college admissions presentation worth sharing

Also from the sfschools blog, I'm reposting a report I wrote on a presentation by college admissions speaker Peter Van Buskirk at San Francisco School of the Arts last April.

April 14, 2007

An overflow crowd of parents, students and guests jammed the San Francisco School of the Arts library Thursday evening to hear college admissions expert and author Peter Van Buskirk explode myths about getting into college.

Van Buskirk’s presentation, and his new book, are titled "Winning the College Admission Game," a name that’s not terribly appealing to "keep it real" types — but the engaging presentation made up for that.

A former admissions officer at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., Van Buskirk portrays the array of college choices as a pyramid. The Lofty Status Names cluster at the pinnacle, gazing down upon descending levels of cachet. At the bottom are colleges that accept most students and don’t provide a sticker for Mom’s car window that awes the envious populace. Yet there are excellent colleges all over the pyramid, from peak to base, Van Buskirk announces. He suggests that finding your realistic level on the pyramid and then seeking out excellence in that realm is the most effective way to find the ideal college. "Put yourself on the right playing field," he advises — "a place that values you for what you do well."

Van Buskirk made some points so eye-opening that even though I didn’t intend to take notes, I wound up with a scribbled list of nuggets worth sharing.

* The rich get richer. (Well, maybe that’s not such eye-opening news.) Van Buskirk says the buzzword "need-blind admissions" is a myth. "Resource-aware" is the operative concept. That is, colleges may pretend that they don’t take into account whether an applicant will need financial aid, but that’s hooey. Applicants who don’t need financial aid always have a better shot. Applicants who do simply have to work harder and come in with more impressive records to be considered.

* An insider term that’s a useful concept to know is "on the bubble." That’s when you’re "good enough to get in the action but not good enough to dominate the action" — worthy of consideration but not an obvious shoo-in. An applicant who’s on the bubble at one level of the pyramid may be highly sought-after at the next level down.

* Even my teen — a self-proclaimed paragon of purity who spurns anything he views as phony or insincere to tart himself up for college admissions officers — was OK with following this next suggestion. The first time a student makes any kind of contact with a college, the college opens a file on that kid — whether it’s filling out a card at the college fair, visiting the campus or contacting the school for information. Colleges’ "yield" is crucial to them — they don’t want to offer spots to applicants who aren’t likely to accept. "They don’t want to give away spots in the class just because you’re smart and talented," he explains. They look at your level of interest.

If that file is already open when your application arrives, this is a very good thing. If they’ve never heard of you, they’re dubious. The more items in your file, the better — if you see the college’s table at several college fairs, fill out the card every time. "When you visit the campus, where’s the first place you go? The place they’ve got a card to fill out. This is not deceitful or manipulative," Van Buskirk emphasized, staring pointedly at my son sprawled with a cluster of classmates (OK, maybe he was giving that look to the whole group). So go to the college fairs, take the tours, send for the materials, fill out the cards.

* Van Buskirk is not a big fan of the SAT as a predictor of college success. "The SAT is irrelevant," he said. Many colleges say they don’t require applicants to submit SAT scores, and some actually mean it, he says. But with the others, not submitting SAT scores is suicide. He recommends www.fairtest.org as a trustworthy source of names of colleges that will not toss your application onto the "deny" stack if you choose not to submit SAT scores. Those colleges, of course, are also displaying a level of honesty and concern for substance over a gauge that’s of dubious value, which tells us something about their philosophy.

* Colleges want students who are not only bright, but also "motivated and high-achieving." Bright, unmotivated and unevenly achieving is not necessarily what they’re looking for. The bad news for those smart, wiseass kids with erratic grades whom some of us know and love is that this is all about transcripts.

Van Buskirk finishes his presentations with a game in which the audience plays admissions officer. He hands out applications filled in by four fictional applicants to a fictional college, so that everyone in the audience has one of the four. In a lively exercise, he leads the "admissions committee" through a rapid-fire evaluation of the hypothetical supplicants. Some notable points:

If there’s anything even slightly negative or suspect about your transcript that can be explained, make a point of explaining it on your application. Took three years of Spanish but not a fourth? Took the minimum required math even though you claim to be interested in a math major? A strong but not tippy-top student because you have to work to help support your low-income family? Explain these things clearly. Each of these examples was a flaw in one of the fictional candidates’ applications.

One (fictional) girl whose passions were creative writing, the classics and Latin had good but not top grades in tough classes. Her application indicated that she lived with her mother, a self-employed artist, that her father’s address was unknown and that she waitressed 18 hours a week. The admissions committee could divine the situation, but such a candidate would be smartest to spell it out. The "candidate" also attended a huge, largely disadvantaged urban high school, implying that she wouldn’t have access to the intensive college counseling at a high-income suburban or private school.

Play the race card, Van Buskirk advised — though cultural identity other than race can be beneficial too. One hypothetical candidate, a top flutist with impressive musical credentials, checked "Korean" but made no further mention of his ethnicity. An indication that he would bring cultural input to the college would have given him a boost, Van Burkirk said. A Caucasian with strong ethnic or cultural identity (Kazakh? Scots? Cajun from the bayou?) would score points too.

Admissions officers love contests and competitions — a piece of information that does not win favor with the purist 16-year-old in my household. Van Buskirk guided our "admissions committee" to take note of the record of science fair, creative writing, music and athletic awards on our prospects’ applications.

The "admissions committee" made up of SOTA parents and students voted in the waitressing, award-winning creative writer — who happened to be the only "applicant" who needed financial aid. "You just cost our school $35,000 a year!" Van Buskirk mock-chided. A close second, and the overwhelming favorite of the kids in the crowd (all of them artists), was the Korean flute virtuoso.

A kid with a strong interest in the environment, science and math and a top statewide science fair award, but an unexplained light math courseload throughout high school, was third. Last, with a tiny sprinkling of votes, was a regional tennis superstar from a country day school who had lackluster SATs — even though, Van Buskirk told us, the college’s tennis coach has been camping out at our office door begging us to let her in. (A SOTA crowd may be self-selected for lack of interest in sports, as all our kids have sacrificed school sports and P.E. to pursue their art.)

This presentation was so engaging that there was no criticism at all — but instead a stampede — over the fact that Van Buskirk was selling advance copies of his book afterward. Thumbing through the copy I bought but haven’t read yet, I'm not sure the book looks as engaging as the presentation, but if its advice is as seemingly valuable, it’s worth seeking out.

In the spirit of other reports like this, I took note of the makeup of the crowd, which was whiter than SOTA’s overall population. I also observed that Van Buskirk seems to assume that the adults in his audience are college-educated, that he’s not talking to parents whose child hopes to be the first in the family to attend college. Many kids like that — from families that lack "college knowledge" — are likely to be doing this process on their own. So presentations like his aimed at kids — with sensitivity to their socioeconomic diversity — and offered during the school day could be valuable. The SOTA PTSA paid for Van Buskirk’s appearance, including some travel expenses. It would be a worthwhile project for private funders (some of whom I’m convinced are way too susceptible to pouring their money into hype-ridden education fads) to underwrite enhanced college counseling and sessions like this directed at low-income public-school kids.

— Caroline

He speaks for all of us

A chain of other blogs led me to this letter to the editor, or apocryphal letter to the editor (I haven't done the legwork to find out which).

To the Editor:

I have noticed several articles in The Times on how difficult it is to get into college. I assume that your goal in publishing them is to drive my daughter, a high school sophomore already worried about college admissions, over the edge.

You have succeeded. Now you can stop. John B. Gilmour

This was on the New York Times' Freakonomics blog, under the headline:
“Why Your Kid Won’t Get Into College: A Twelve-Part Series.”

— Caroline

Mayor Newsom's *pathway to college* proposal

Here's the press release from Mayor Gavin Newsom's office announcing his proposal to create a college readiness program:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Monday, September 17, 2007
Contact: Mayor’s Office of Communications,
415-554-6131

*** PRESS RELEASE ***

MAYOR NEWSOM, SFUSD, AND SFSU TO GUARANTEE COLLEGE FOR ALL 6TH GRADE PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS

San Francisco, CA — Today, as part of the Partnership for Achievement between the City and the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), Mayor Gavin Newsom was joined by Superintendent Carlos Garcia, San Francisco State University (SFSU) President Robert Corrigan, and California State University Board of Directors Chair Roberta Achtenberg to announce SF Promise, a new program that would guarantee a spot at San Francisco State University for all 6th grade students in our public schools. SF Promise will formalize a pathway to college through college readiness activities for all students.

"All students in San Francisco deserve the opportunity to attend college if they choose to," said Newsom. "SF Promise guarantees that students and families who commit to the program will receive the tools and supports to make higher education a reality."

Superintendent Carlos Garcia said, "We need to create a college-going culture early. Working with 6th graders will allow us to plan student pathways and take action in middle school and beyond."

The Mayor announced his proposal to fund the program using unspent monies from the Mayoral Election Campaign Fund. Two pieces of legislation will be submitted this week — one, creating a special fund for SF Promise, and the second to amend the Mayoral Election Campaign Fund ordinance, allocating the unspent public funding for the current Mayoral election (approximately $6 million) to the program.

The goals of S.F. Promise are to increase state university admission eligibility and graduation rates, increase the number of students who receive post-secondary education, and increase the number of students who attend California universities from traditionally underrepresented groups.

"SF Promise reinstates the concept of college access for all students," said Achtenberg. President Corrigan added, "A college education means a more competitive workforce. Students who attend college are higher-earning and more productive, furthering their own economic health and that of the City’s."

This level of support will require between $800 — $2,300 per eligible student, per year. The estimate is that in the first year, 350 6th graders (20% of the approximately 1,735 eligible 6th graders) will commit to S.F. Promise, at a cost of $525,000. The goal is to expand the program to include all eligible 6th graders in the subsequent years.

###

The belly of the beast

Any college admissions resource has to start with the annual August ritual, the eagerly awaited, hotly controversial U.S. News & World Report college rankings guide.

The Washington Monthly fights back with its annual counter-version. According to the Monthly, the U.S. News rankings are all about what your college can do for you, while its rankings are about what your college can do for its country (and society, and the Global Village).

Parents and students who are making an all-out college search should check out both. The dead-trees versions are full of related articles. My sympathies are with the Washington Monthly version, though my 11th-grade son disapproves of any ranking system at all.

The scrappy Education Conservancy has dedicated itself to fighting the U.S. News rankings and the culture they encourage. Here's the Associated Press, via Forbes.com, on Education Conservancy founder Lloyd Thacker:

Activist Boycotts School Rankings
By JULIA SILVERMAN

PORTLAND, Ore. - From his haphazard hideyhole of an office in this laid-back West Coast outpost, higher education activist Lloyd Thacker is raising a ruckus about college admissions that's got some of the country's most elite universities paying close attention.

His goal is no less than a wholesale change at admissions offices, the first collegiate stop for the thousands of overachieving students who pour out their hearts, SAT scores and GPAs each year, in hopes of being accepted to their first choice school.

He's taken direct aim at the annual U.S. News & World Report guide to the nation's "best" colleges and universities, the latest version of which hits newstands Monday - though the list was released last week and put Princeton University at No. 1 for the eighth-straight year.

More higher-education coverage:

Associated Press via Louisville Courier-Journal
Aug. 26, 2007
Colleges seek 'authenticity'

By Justin Pope
Associated Press

If there's a sign of the times in college admissions, it may be this: Steven Roy Goodman, an independent college counselor, tells clients to make a small mistake somewhere in their application -- on purpose.

"Sometimes it's a typo," he says. "I don't want my students to sound like robots. It's pretty easy to fall into that trap of trying to do everything perfectly and there's no spark left."

And the San Francisco Chronicle's weekly Higher Education column addresses an issue after my own heart (as a public-school advocate):

COLLEGE BOUND
A weekly guide to higher education

Joanne Levy-Prewitt
Question: My daughter is starting ninth grade at a diverse public high school with a strong academic program. She was accepted into a very good private college prep school, too, but decided to go to the public school for the diversity and size. She is a strong and serious student. How do you think her chances of getting into various universities will be affected by her decision to go a public high school instead of a private school?

In addition, is it true that the United States' graduating class of 2011 will be the largest pool applying for college in recent history?

(The latter question is of interest too, since I've previously read definitively that the classes of 2008 and 2009 — the latter my son's class — will be the largest high-school graduating classes in history. This confuses some people, since we all know about high birthrates of the baby boom, 1946-'62. But in that generation (mine), lots more kids dropped out of high school without prompting much concern, and the notion was still that only the academic and socioeconomic elite went to college. It was still a new idea that college wasn't just for white kids from the right side of the tracks.


— Caroline