Jane Kulow, aka Dr. StrangeCollege, has a great roundup on her blog covering the upcoming changes to the SAT, including reactions and analysis from the likes of Chronicle of Higher Education's Eric Hoover (the best higher education reporter out there) and DePaul University's Vice President of Enrollment Jon Boeckenstedt (a straight shooter and data master). Head over here to find out more about the change that's gonna come.
Did you know? You should never attend the best college you're admitted to? Some fascinating statistics and counter-intuitive insights from the master of such Malcolm Gladwell. Thank you to DePaul University's Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management Jon Boeckenstedt for forwarding this amazing short talk by Gladwell at Google's Zeitgeist Americas 2013. As Boeckenstedt points out on his Admissions Weblog, Gladwell covers a number of issues parents and admission officers always want to hear more about including whether it's better to be a small fish in a big pond and why firms that only hire from the "best schools" are probably making a mistake. It's worth the time to watch here!
Enjoy...
Awesome People Reading, a Tumblr, featuring Marilyn Monroe, Martin Luther King, Loki, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Woody Woodpecker... among others.
From DePaul University's Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management via the Facebook page of College Admissions Counselors: Time for the annual reminder of why we do what we do. John Ciardi's 1950–ish address to freshmen at Rutgers: Another School Year: Why? So many wonderful thoughts in this piece we couldn't pick one to excerpt. Read it in its entirety.
We've been thinking a lot lately about parenting through the college application process. Decision time is when your anxieties roll in and you need to marshal all your critical thinking and parenting skills. So here are some words of wisdom culled recently from better wordsmiths than we.
Don't miss Joan Didion's reality check on her denial from Stanford:
Jon Boeckenstedt, associate vice president for Enrollment Management at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, joins us this month to answer five questions about the largest Roman Catholic university in the country.
Founded in 1898, with just 70 students, today DePaul has almost 16,500 undergraduates, and is also the largest private university in the state of Illinois. The school has five campuses throughout the Chicago area, with the two main campuses located on 36 acres on Chicago's north side in the Lincoln Park neighborhood and in the downtown Loop.
For the last couple of weeks, we've been following a lively discussion in the wake of a blog post from Lynn O'Shaughnessy -- Elite Schools Dissing College Consultants. In her words, the blog post shares her take "on why I believe the Ivies and other elite schools routinely dump on independent college counselors. The use of high-priced consultants reminds these schools that the system is rigged and most students need to be rich to get into these institutions." Independent counselors, high school counselors and admission deans have weighed in via a discussion on LinkedIn and in the Comments section of her blog.
Like many issues in the application process, the decision to hire an independent counselor is complex. Students and their families must carefully consider the costs and benefits and the decision should be driven by the student. In our book -- coauthored by a former dean of Stanford, Swarthmore, and Sarah Lawrence -- we take a very balanced approach, outlining the situations where an independent counselor can be a beneficial addition, with the main focus on how to find and properly evaluate a counselor for those who will go that route.
For families evaluating their financial aid at this time, here's a roundup of advice from some experts on the role of loans in funding a college education.
Jonathan Burdick, dean of admission and financial aid at the University of Rochester, has an excellent guest post at the College Inc. blog for the Washington Post -- Five steps to a prudent student loan.
For more insight from an expert, check out our own guest post from Jon Boeckenstedt, vice president for Enrollment Policy & Planning at DePaul University for his thoughtful look here at when and where borrowing is worth it.
Today's guest post is from Jon Boeckenstedt, vice president for Enrollment Policy & Planning at DePaul University, who has a gift for cutting to the chase whether he's writing about testing, college tours, or tuition. Here is his take on the value of a college degree and how a student may want to think about borrowing to obtain that education:
It has long been believed that attending college paid back financially and with a better quality of life in general.
Then we had a little economic calamity in this country, and people aren’t so sure any more.
Some people think we’re in the middle of “A Perfect Storm,” where several important (negative) things are happening at the same time, thus creating a crisis: College tuition keeps increasing, and often increasing faster than inflation; federal aid keeps shrinking, causing student debt to grow dramatically; and the jobs recent graduates need to pay back student debt are growing scarcer. On top of that, problems like unemployment are even greater for people who don’t have a college degree.
Jon Boeckenstedt, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management at DePaul University, brought to our attention the latest report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) -- "What Do Students Pay for College?" A summary of average net prices at colleges and universities across the country, it can be a useful tool for parents, students and counselors.
Boeckenstedt notes that while it's not institution-specific, it may provide helpful information especially at the start of a student's admission process as it rolls up averages by characteristics such as control (public or private) and region. The report is available at: http://1.usa.gov/vZXWXY .
And for more from Boeckenstedt, visit his blog, Admitting Things, or see what he's thinking about on Twitter @TenSecondCynic.
