Meet the elite: Brown, MIT, Yale come to town

Brown, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale (you may have heard of those places...) are teaming up for an admissions tour, including three Bay Area presentations April 27, 28 and 29.

The notification we received marks, to my knowledge, the beginning of the season of college events aimed directly at the high school Class of 2009 — this year's juniors.

Here are the Bay Area events:

Sunday, April 27, 3 p.m.
San Jose: Scottish Rite Center, 2455 Masonic Drive, 408/978-7483

Monday, April 28, 7:30 p.m.
San Francisco: Holiday Inn Golden Gateway, 1500 Van Ness Ave., 415/447-3098

Tuesday, April 29, 7:30 p.m.
Berkeley: Claremont Hotel, 41 Tunnel Road, 510/549-8577

The tour has its own website: http://www.brownmityale.org/

The tour makes three more stops in the greater region:

Saturday, April 26, 1 p.m.
Fresno: Ramada University Hotel, 324 E. Shaw Ave., 559/224-4040

Wednesday, April 30, 7:30 p.m.
Sacramento: Doubletree Hotel, 2001 Point West Way, 916/924-4902

Thursday, May 1, 7:30 p.m.
Reno, Nev.: National Bowling Stadium, 300 N. Center St., 775/335-8839

Registration is suggested but not required, via the tour's website.

Not ready for college -- gap year looming?

For seniors who really aren't up for college and want to take a year off, the usual recommendation is: spend a year in the world of minimum-wage work as a powerful motivator to seek out a college degree.

But there's a widely recommended program in Worcester, Mass., that offers an option:

http://www.dynamy.org/

Dynamy, Inc. is a not-for-profit experiential educational organization founded in 1969. We are the oldest and only residential internship program in the country. Our mission is to offer young people, ages 17-22, a "gap year" opportunity like no other. Dynamy believes that the crucial prerequisites for work readiness and life-readiness are independence, self-reliance, courage, character, a habit of service, and an ability to build healthy relationships. We believe that these things can be learned, and learned best through experience. Dynamy programs integrate independent city apartment living with mentored internships, personal and college/career advising, urban and wilderness leadership opportunities, and the company of an incredible group of peers.

UC Berkeley has sent acceptances/denials

Thanks to a blog reader for this information, and good luck to all applicants!

Reed College plays the game too

My 11th-grader is getting a lot of mail from colleges, clearly based on his PSAT score (it's evident from the slightly unusual way he listed his name -- nickname and middle initial).

That's no surprise, but I was a bit surprised to see promotional material arrive from Reed College based on the PSAT mailing list. Reed is viewed as the shining example of a school that resists the hype of rankings, SATs and the marketing machine.

Why does a super student get rejected?

I was reading posts on the listserve of the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

One discussion was interesting enough that I'm summarizing it. I'm sure it would be un-kosher to do any copy/pasting even anonymously, but I'll just describe it.

A very high-achieving, highly qualified student (male, Chinese) was denied by a top university, though less-impressive students from the same school were admitted. The poster asked for comments from others with experience.

Some comments, summarized:

• One poster had a similar experience, contacted the college and learned it had been a mistake.
• You can try pursuing it, but it's a long shot.
• The fact that the student is Chinese could be a red flag, because sometimes Chinese names can be exactly the same as others'. He may have been mixed up with another applicant. (Note: this is a very large university with a high number of Chinese students and applicants.)
• It could be that the university perceives that the student is unlikely to accept.
• The student could try transferring later from a school that accepted him.
• One poster has seen such things frequently this year: lesser students accepted over more-impressive students, and students denied by less-prestigious colleges but accepted by more-prestigious ones.
• Appeal and keep trying (several responses say).
• The university may simply not feel he's a "good fit."

Application denied! Can you appeal?

Gordon Chalmers, college counselor at San Francisco School of the Arts, explains how to appeal a denial from a college/university. Great big caveat — this is a long shot! Success is unlikely, but it has been known to happen.

• Send a letter, not an email, to the Dean of Admissions
• Tell this person that their school is your first choice, and you would go there if accepted.
• Include with the letter a recent report card, and test scores (ACT/SAT) not previously listed on your application.
• Mention any honors/awards you might have received since you completed the application or any activities (i.e. lead in a play, mock trial, etc.)you did not mention before
• You might want to include a letter of recommendation from a teacher.

You should do this as soon as possible

Another round of tips for applicants

I am personally un-thrilled with the notion of "packaging yourself" for college admissions and with the whole notion of a "college admissions game" that must be "won."

With that disclaimer, here's an article full of tips from Pam Proctor, the author of a book called "The College Hook: Packaging Yourself to Win the College Admissions Game."

Some of the ideas about the college essay struck me as especially useful.

All UCs but Berkeley have notified applicants

Acceptances and rejections, which go out at the same time, have arrived from all UC schools except Berkeley, according to San Francisco School of the Arts college counselor Gordon Chalmers.

For artists: how much do academics count?

Students aiming at an arts or conservatory higher-education program are a specialized bunch, I realize. I happen to be around a lot of them because my son and his classmates at San Francisco School of the Arts are among them.

Except, of course, for those truly impressive kids who excel in their art, their GPA AND their SAT/ACT scores, these future applicants wonder about the weight of audition vs. grades vs. test scores on admissions decisions. I'm trying to do some legwork on that issue, which definitely affects my own family.

I did find this language on Oberlin College's Conservatory Admissions page:

It is generally true that candidates who show great promise as musicians have also performed at a high level in academic courses in secondary school. On occasion, however, the demands on a talented musician are so great as to affect performance in the classroom. This should not be of great concern to applicants, since musical talent, as demonstrated in an audition, is more important than academic achievement in determining admission to the Conservatory.

Where did that celebrity go to college?

This list from the National Assn. for College Admission Counseling listserve starts with a name that's more notorious than celebrated:

The Unabomber, Harvard

Also, it doesn't mention Bill Gates, who dropped out of Harvard. I think he later got an honorary degree.

Then, in alphabetical order:

Joseph Aboud, U. Mass

Tim Allen, Western Michigan University

Kofi Annan, Macalester

George Bodenheimer, Denison

Wolf Blitzer, SUNY Buffalo

Jerry Brown, Santa Clara U

Tom Brokaw, University of South Dakota

Drew Carey, Kent State

Bill Cosby, U. Mass

Walter Cronkite, U of Texas

Carson Cressley (Queer Eye for the Straight Guy), Gettysburg College

Betty Crocker, Oregon State

Marc Cuban, Indiana University

Kirk Douglas, St. Lawrence

Barbara Ehrenreich (author of Nickel and Dimed), Reed

Michael Eisner, Denison

Jennifer Ferenstein (President of the Sierra Club), Reed

Will Ferrell, USC

Janet Fitch (author of White Oleander), Reed

James Gandofini, Rutgers

Jennifer Garner, Denison

Rudolph Giuliani, Manhattan College

John Glenn - Astronaut, Muskingum Colleg e

Matthew Goldman (Blue Man Group), Clark

Billy Graham, Wheaton

John Grisham, Mississippi State

Herbie Hancock, Grinnell

David Horowitz, Bradley

Chad Hurley (founder of YouTube), Indiana U of Pennsylvania

Steve Jobs (never received a college degree), Reed

Magic Johnson, Michigan State

Ashley Judd, U of Kentucky

Martin Luther King, Morehouse

Stephen King, U. of Maine

Phil Knight (founder of Nike), U. of Oregon

Don Knotts, West Virginia U

Ted Koppel, Syracuse

Ashton Kutcher, U Iowa

Padma Lakshmi (TV host and chef), Clark

Frank Langella, Syracuse

Gary Larsen (Far Side), U Washington

Matt Lauer, Ohio U

Ang Lee, University of Illinois Champaigne/Urbana

Spike Lee, Indiana U

Jay Leno, Emerson

Sandy Lerner – (co founder of Cisco Systems), Chico State

David Letterman, Ball State U

Rush Limbaugh, Southern Missouri State

Jeffery Lurie (owner of Philadelphia Eagles), Clark

Matthew McConaughey, U Texas

Tom Menino (mayor of Boston), Chamberlayne Junior College

Jenny Ming (president of Old Navy), San Jose State

Walter Mondale, Macalester

Meredith Monk, Sarah Lawrence

Roger Mudd, Washington and Lee

Anne Mulcahy (CEO Xerox), Marymount

Bill Murray, Regis

Edward R. Murrow, Washington State U

Greg Neumann (lead analyst for NASA’s Mars mapping project), Reed

Paul Newman, Kenyon

Richard Nixon, Whittier

Peter Norton (of Norton Disk Doctor), Reed

Barack Obama, Occidental

Larry Page (Co-Founder of Google), University of Michigan

Hugh Panero (CEO of XM Satellite Radio), Clark

Ron Paul (2008 Republican Candidate), Gettysburg College

Linus Pauling (two Nobels), Oregon State

Brad Pitt, University of Missouri

Colin Powell (65th US Secretary of State), bachelor's degree in geology, City

College of New York ("C" average).

Bobby Rahal, Denison

Dan Rather, U Texas/Austin

Ronald Reagan, Eureka College

Condoleezza Rice, U of Denver

Larry Rinder (Chief Curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art NY), Reed

Meg Ryan, NYU

Harrison Ford, Ripon

Tim Russert, John Carroll U

John Schnatter (founder of Papa John’s Pizza), Ball State U.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, University of Wisconsin/Superior

David Schwimmer, Northwestern

Jerry Seinfeld, Queens College

Donna Shalala, Western College for Women (now part of Miami University)

Dwight Smith (outfielder for Cubs), Spartanburg Methodist College

Carly Simon, Sarah Lawrence

Howard Stern, Boston U

Donald Trump, Fordham

Ted Turner (kicked out of college twice)

Alice Walker, Sarah Lawrence

Robert James Waller (Bridges of Madison County), U Northern Iowa

Barbara Walters, Sarah Lawrence

Denzel Washington, Fordham

George Washington, College of William and Mary

Gene Wilder, U Iowa

Oprah Winfrey, Tennessee State

Henry Winkler, Emerson

Luther Vandross, Western Michigan University

Jack Welch (former CEO of GE), U. Mass

Graduates of Canadian Universities:

Margaret Atwood, U of Toronto

Donald Sutherland, U of Toronto

Eric McCormack (Will & Grace), Ryerson U

William Shatner, McGill

Martin Short, McMasters

Alex Trebeck, U of Ottowa

Paul Beeson (President, Major League Baseball Association), U Western Ontario

Be yourself, get accepted ... it can be done!

A nice profile from the New York Times of a college applicant who didn't polish his image or hide his quirks.

New York Times June 6, 2007
Getting Into College, Strumming His Own Tune
By Samuel G. Freedman

DOYLESTOWN, Pa.

Attention, all helicopter parents and pressure-cooker children. I mean the ones who’ve been sucked into the vortex of college admissions anxiety. I mean the ones who fear that without paying thousands of dollars for tutors, consultants, test-prep classes and maybe a moonlighting graduate student to ghostwrite the essays, the future will surely be hopeless.

Let’s head out together to eastern Pennsylvania, to Central Bucks High School West, off the main drag in Doylestown. And while we make our visit, keep a particular phrase in mind. It will be our mantra. Repeat after me: Reality check.

Meet Kevin Robinson. He’s the senior with wispy blond hair and sunburned cheeks, in his international relations class, discussing the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war with a classmate wearing a Notorious B.I.G. T-shirt. There’s Kevin a couple of periods later, playing guitar with the school’s jazz ensemble, getting ready for a gig tonight in the cafeteria.

Notice how Kevin looks kind of relaxed, at peace with himself? That equanimity isn’t a case of senioritis. Back in April he got accepted to a very good college, George Washington University. And he did it — I kid you not — on his own merits through his own efforts.

Check this out. Other than some free test-prep classes the high school provided, Kevin didn’t do anything to game the system. He decided to live or die with who he was. Statistically speaking, that meant a 3.6 grade-point average, a class rank in the top 20 percent, a score of 1950 out of a possible 2400 on the SAT.

AND here’s the beauty part. He wrote his admissions essay about “Parliament Funkadelic,” comparing George Clinton to Shakespeare and “Atomic Dog” to a fugue. Not even his mother read the essay before he sent it in, though she is a pretty big P-Funk fan.

Read the rest of the article.

Colleges where you study only what you want

When there are no specific courses required for graduation, it's called "open curriculum" — the design of some colleges. Here's a list and a link with a definition:

Amherst

Austin College

Bard

Bennington

Brown University

Eugene Lang (New School University)

Evergreen State College , WA

Gallatin School of Individualized Study at NYU

Grinnell , IA*

Hamilton College

Hampshire College

Johnston Center at the University of Redlands

Marlboro College

Moravian College – Add-Venture program

New College of Florida

New England Institute of Technology

Oberlin

Pitzer , CA

Reed, OR

Sarah Lawrence

Smith College

St. John’s College (both campuses)

U of Redlands

University of Rochester

Vassar College

Wesleyan

Western Washington University (Fairhaven College)

Wheaton

Whitman

Several of the honors colleges at large publics also allow students to waive distribution requirements. Two to check out would be the

College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara and the

Honors Tutorial Program at Ohio University,

but there are probably others as well. There are also a number of schools that have very minimal requirements. One example would be

Beloit in Wisconsin

where students merely have to take two courses in three different areas: arts and humanities, science and math, and social sciences. It basically is pretty open ended with no requirements in terms of specific classes. So, I usually suggest that students look beyond just the "no requirements" to "colleges with minimal requirements" because otherwise they'll be limiting themselves.

The cold reality about sports scholarships

Two words: ice hockey! That's the sport that attracts the most scholarship money, both men's and women's, according to a March 10 New York Times article, "The Scholarship Divide: Expectations Lose to the Reality of Sports Scholarships." But reality falls far below parents' and student athlete's hopes, overall.

At youth sporting events, the sidelines have become the ritual community meeting place, where families sit in rows of folding chairs aligned like church pews. These congregations are diverse in spirit but unified by one gospel: heaven is your child receiving a college athletic scholarship.

Parents sacrifice weekends and vacations to tournaments and specialty camps, spending thousands each year in this quest for the holy grail.

But the expectations of parents and athletes can differ sharply from the financial and cultural realities of college athletics, according to an analysis by The New York Times of previously undisclosed data from the National Collegiate Athletic Association and interviews with dozens of college officials.

Read the rest of the story.

A guide to GLBT-friendly campuses

This looks kind of cool — a comprehensive website on gay-Lesbian-bisexual-transgender campuses:

http://www.campusclimateindex.org/

It looks like this site charges campuses to promote themselves. In this case it's likely that perception is reality, so that's not a bad thing.

8th-grade algebra: UC/CSU counts it!

A Q&A from Gordon Chalmers in the San Francisco School of the Arts College Bulletin:

Does eighth grade Algebra count towards meeting the first year of the UC/CSU math requirement? Yes, and the same holds true for a student who has successfully completed the first year of a foreign language in the eighth grade.

Beware of smooth talkers peddling scholarships

Be wary of a scholarship pitch from USAA Scholarship Foundation's National Honor Roll, according to San Francisco School of the Arts college counselor Gordon Chalmers. It's a hook to sell parents a "yearbook" with your name in it and collect your address.

The intriguingly named Blog that Ate Manhattan has lots of detail (unconfirmed but interesting).

Future applicants may breathe easier

Good news for 8th-graders and their parents (like me, as well as co-blogger KC)! The super-competitive college frenzy is expected to mellow by the time it rolls around for those kids, according to the New York Times. Too bad for our high school juniors. Although if someone emerged from living in a cave and asked my advice, I'd say, "Those CSUs are really great colleges!"

New York Times

March 9, 2008

Math Suggests College Frenzy Will Soon Ease
By Alan Finder

High school seniors nationwide are anxiously awaiting the verdicts from the colleges of their choice later this month. But though it may not be of much solace to them, in just a few years the admissions frenzy is likely to ease. It’s simply a matter of demographics.

Projections show that by next year or the year after, the annual number of high school graduates in the United States will peak at about 2.9 million after a 15-year climb. The number is then expected to decline until about 2015. Most universities expect this to translate into fewer applications and less selectivity, with most students probably finding it easier to get into college.

“For the high school graduate, this becomes a buyers’ market,” said Daniel M. Fogel, president of the University of Vermont.

That won’t help Charlie Cotton, a senior at Madison High School in New Jersey. He has the grades and scores to aim for the nation’s elite universities, yet in the hyper-competitive world of college admissions, his chances of winning a spot at his top picks — like Middlebury, Dartmouth and Oberlin — are highly uncertain. When his sister, Emma, who is in eighth grade, applies to college, she is expected to face a less frantic landscape with fewer rivals.

Read the rest of the story.

Even younger kids can go for this scholarship

For the kind of kid who shines in creative competition, here's $100,000 in scholarships for motivation:
It's open to all California students in grades 6-12.

The “Save Me a Spot in College” scholarship contest gives you the opportunity to express yourself through a poster, TV ad or written word entry to highlight the importance of going to college.