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

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.

Treading the Pre-Law Path

Treading the Pre-Law Path

Just as there is no official ‘pre-med’ major, there is no ‘pre-law’ major. Some schools, such as Northwestern University (NU), however, have Legal Studies as an ‘adjunct major’. Yet, this means it cannot be a sole major; it must be taken in conjunction with another departmental major, which can be anything from history of art to physics.

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.

College Rankings Considered

College Rankings Considered

There might not be enough corn and oil to satisfy demand, but there sure seems to be more than enough college ranking lists available to satisfy just about any taste. The most famous, of course, is the US News and World Report ranking. US News has turned ranking colleges into a major profit center for its magazine, with 2,000,000 subscribers, 9,000 newsstand buyers, and over 20,000 of its college guide book users. If you don’t like US News and World Report’s perspective on admissions competitiveness, then you can always turn to: Barron’s, The College Prowler, Princeton Review, Kiplinger, Ordo Ludus College Ranking (which is Latin for “school ranking”) –you can find a fairly comprehensive listing of the college ranking services in Wikipedia, not only in the US, but worldwide,--by going to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_and_university_rankings.

Secrets of Successful Students

Secrets of Successful Students

Richard J. Light, a professor in the Graduate School of Education and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, conducted a ten-year study, interviewing over 1,600 successful Harvard students, and tracking their answers to a very important question, “Did I really get what I came here for?” His findings were published in his book, Making the Most of College, Students Speak their Minds.

Writing Well for College and Life

Writing Well for College and Life

Richard J. Light, a professor in Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, in his book on student engagement, Making the Most of College (Harvard University Press, 2001) tells us that of all the skills students desire to strengthen, writing is mentioned three times more often than any other (p. 54).  Despite that being the case, over half of the recent matriculating California State University students enrolled in a remedial writing class; further, all the entering freshmen at Harvard are required, without exception, to take an expository essay writing class. Obviously, writing is not an easy subject to learn, let alone attain mastery over.

Questions for a College Visit

Questions for a College Visit

US News and World Report recently published an article “36 Questions to ask on a College Visit,” by Lynn O’Shaughnessy, who is the USNWP college counseling maven. This list of questions is pretty good, but it stops short of the mark.  (The article from US News and World Report can be found at http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/the-college-solution/2010/10/19/36-questions-to-ask-on-a-college-visit)

Coming off the College Application in 3D

Coming off the College Application in 3D

Your college application essays must pull you off the page in three dimensions, and that is not an easy thing to do. Goethe, among the best writers in the world, said Shakespeare was the master of creating characters. After a handful of lines you know who Hamlet, Lear, and Falstaff are. They are flesh and blood characters, as real today as they were 400 years ago in the late 16th and 17th century English theater. You might not be another Shakespeare or even an F. Scott Fitzgerald, but you might as well use the same tool they used to pull Gatsby and Nick Caraway, or Lady Macbeth and Romeo off the page: action. Fitzgerald wrote in his notes, while working on his unfinished novel, “The Last Tycoon” that “ACTION IS CHARACTER.” Similarly, admissions officers are attempting to discover your character.

Undergraduate Business Programs

Undergraduate Business Programs

Economic realities, particularly high unemployment rates and skyrocketing college costs, are encouraging many students to consider studying business administration as undergraduates. Back in 1968, about 13% of Bachelor degrees awarded were in business. This made business the third most popular major at the time. By 2008, more than one out of every five Bachelor degrees awarded were in business, making it, by far, the most popular undergraduate major.

Growing Popularity of Becoming a Pharmacist

Growing Popularity of Becoming a Pharmacist

If you have a strong penchant for biology or chemistry, and are even contemplating majoring in one of them in college, yet aren’t stirred by the Siren song of medical, dental, or veterinary school, you might want to try pharmacy school. What does a pharmacist do? The best way is to actually job shadow one as she performs her daily duties of organizing and coordinating medications with doctors and patients. Or you could just take your next prescription into a CVS, or Rite Aid and look across the counter: you’ll see what about 2/3rds of those that become licensed pharmacists do.