While the idea of test prep is still somewhat disappointing (idealistic bob wishes it weren't so important and life-consuming; realistic bob recognizes that at the end of the day, the SAT matters) I love this story in the NY Times about a student-led test prep class.
I love the story because so much of what we encounter in the admission office is over-involved parents: parents who make all the phone calls to the admission office, arrange all the visits, ask all the questions at the college fair, in the information session or on the tour, parents who actually complete the application, and then intercept the decision letter, and then lobby the admission counselor to change the decision when it's not favorable, etc.
I try and remind myself that this is better than the other extreme. These parents care about their kids and want the best for them...and that's better than parents who couldn't care less. But sometimes it's tough to keep that perspective. And don't get me wrong, I'm not at all advocating for parents to butt out of the process. My parents were invaluable resources, and if it weren't for their gentle nudges (and sometimes less than gentle shoves,) I would not have landed at the terrific school I attended. But it would be nice for the student to be a little more involved than we typically see.
My colleagues would agree that it's refreshing to see the students themselves stepping up to the plate--asking questions on campus, calling or emailing the admission counselor directly. The college search is often a rite of passage--the first big life decision in which a student is directly involved. Bravo to William Scott and his classmates for taking some ownership.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Madness
Yes, yes, I'll be filling out a bracket for the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball tournament. And it is likely I'll fill out more than one bracket, with different winners, for each of the pools I enter. I won't, however, enter multiple brackets in one pool, thus subjecting myself to the ridicule of people like Lisa.
But that's not what I'm here to talk about.
Last night, the Ursinus Bears took the next step in an exhilarating season by beating the US Coast Guard Academy 82-76, in overtime, to claim a spot in the Final Four of the NCAA Division III Men's Basketball tournament. It was a thrilling game, as the victors paired a balanced offensive attack with intense defense and rebounding (not to mention superior height) to overcome the Coast Guard's sharpshooting three-point specialists. The Coasties showed a lot of heart, nearly giving me a heart attack.
The only low point (for me, anyway) was one of the hometown cheers. Two nights ago, the Gettysburg student section taunted Ursinus with chants of "Safety School." (I know. Creative. Why the Hellferich Hooligans didn't respond with "scoooore-board," I don't know.) And so last night, chants of "Navy Rejects" rained down on the Coast Guard's impressive contingent of fans. Not only did I find this to demonstrate poor sportsmanSHIP (har-har), but generally it's just not a good idea to insult people in uniform. Ursinus students should mind their Ps and Qs next time they find themselves in a boat, as the chants may not have been water off the back to the good men and women of the Coast Guard...
Anyway, raucous student cheering sections will be raucous student cheering sections, I guess. But class never goes out of style.
Congrats to the Bears, and good luck in Salem, VA!
But that's not what I'm here to talk about.
Last night, the Ursinus Bears took the next step in an exhilarating season by beating the US Coast Guard Academy 82-76, in overtime, to claim a spot in the Final Four of the NCAA Division III Men's Basketball tournament. It was a thrilling game, as the victors paired a balanced offensive attack with intense defense and rebounding (not to mention superior height) to overcome the Coast Guard's sharpshooting three-point specialists. The Coasties showed a lot of heart, nearly giving me a heart attack.
The only low point (for me, anyway) was one of the hometown cheers. Two nights ago, the Gettysburg student section taunted Ursinus with chants of "Safety School." (I know. Creative. Why the Hellferich Hooligans didn't respond with "scoooore-board," I don't know.) And so last night, chants of "Navy Rejects" rained down on the Coast Guard's impressive contingent of fans. Not only did I find this to demonstrate poor sportsmanSHIP (har-har), but generally it's just not a good idea to insult people in uniform. Ursinus students should mind their Ps and Qs next time they find themselves in a boat, as the chants may not have been water off the back to the good men and women of the Coast Guard...
Anyway, raucous student cheering sections will be raucous student cheering sections, I guess. But class never goes out of style.
Congrats to the Bears, and good luck in Salem, VA!
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
A Classic
This is one of those classics I'd yet to discover (I'm somewhat embarrassed to say.) It's like when you hear a song from someone like Nick Drake that's so freaking good, but you'd never heard it before, and you're feeling like you've made this incredible discovery, and then you find out it's been around for 30 years and you must have been living under a rock.
Right now I'm in the midst of the final push for getting admission decisions out the door. At this point, we've accepted 95% of the students we can accept, so the final few places are meeting very specific needs. Most of the decisions we're making now are generating waitlist or deny letters.
It's not really in my makeup to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm bearing an awful lot in the next week or so. Of course, I know a lot of these students really don't care about whether they're getting into my school. At the same time, rejection always stings. It seems like it's often the first time these kids--or these parents--have been told 'no,' and of course it won't be the last--disappointment is not an infrequent visitor in life. Disappointment, or dashed hopes--these are actually good signs, because it means you had hope and optimism in the first place, which is to say life is fairly good, or at least your outlook on it is.
I couldn't put the sentiment better than David Nyhan did in 1987 in the Boston Globe, reprinted yesterday. Quoted below:
The college rejection letter
By David Nyhan
March 10, 2008
Former Globe columnist the late David Nyhan wrote the following column in 1987. Since then, it has been reprinted in the newspaper many times around this time of year. Nyhan died in January 2005.
THE REJECTIONS arrive this time of year in thin, cheap envelopes, some with a crummy window for name and address, as if it were a bill, and none with the thick packet you'd hoped for.
''Dear So-and-so:
''The admissions committee gave full consideration . . . but I regret to inform you we will be unable to offer you a place in the Class of 2012." Lots of applicants, limited number of spaces, blah blah blah, good luck with your undergraduate career. Very truly yours, Assistant Dean Blowhard, rejection writer, Old Overshoe U.
This is the season of college acceptance letters. So it's also the time of rejection. You're in or you're out. Today is the day you learn how life is not like high school. To the Ins, who got where they wanted to go: Congrats, great, good luck, have a nice life, see you later. The rest of this is for the Outs.
You sort of felt it was coming. Your SAT scores weren't the greatest. Your transcript had some holes in it. You wondered what your teachers' recommendations would really say, or imply. And you can't help thinking about that essay you finished at 2 o'clock in the morning of the day you absolutely had to mail in your application, that essay which was, well, a little weird.
Maybe you could have pulled that C in sociology up to a B-minus. Maybe you shouldn't have quit soccer to get a job to pay for your gas. Maybe it was that down period during sophomore year when you had mono and didn't talk to your teachers for three months while you vegged out. What difference does it make what it was? It still hurts.
It hurts where you feel pain most: inside. It's not like the usual heartache that kids have, the kind other people can't see. An alcoholic parent, a secret shame, a gaping wound in the family fabric, these are things one can carry to school and mask with a grin, a wisecrack, a scowl, a just-don't-mess-with-me-today attitude.
But everybody knows where you got in and where you didn't. Sure, the letter comes to the house. But eventually you've still got to face your friends. ''Any mail for me?" is like asking for a knuckle sandwich. Thanks a lot for the kick in the teeth. What a bummer.
How do you tell kids at school? That's the hard part. The squeals in the corridor from the kids who got in someplace desirable. The supercilious puss on the ones who got early acceptance or the girl whose old man has an in at Old Ivy.
There's the class doofus who suddenly becomes the first nerd accepted at Princeton, the 125-pound wrestling jock who, surprise, surprise, got into MIT. But what about you?
You've heard about special treatment for this category or that category, alumni kids on a legacy ticket or affirmative action luckouts or rebounders or oboe players. Maybe they were trying to fill certain slots. But you're not a slot. You're you. They can look at your grades and weigh your scores and see how many years you were in French Club. But they can't look into your head, or into your heart. They can't check out the guts department.
This is the important thing: They didn't reject you. They rejected your resume. They gave some other kid the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that kid deserved a break. Don't you deserve a break? Sure. You'll get one. Maybe this is the reality check you needed. Maybe the school that does take you will be good. Maybe this is the day you start to grow up.
Look at some people who've accomplished a lot and see where they started. Ronald Reagan? Eureka College. Jesse Jackson? They wouldn't let him play quarterback in the Big Ten, so he quit Illinois for North Carolina A & T. Do you know that the recently retired chairmen and CEOs of both General Motors and General Electric graduated from UMass? Bob Dole? He went to Washburn Municipal University.
The former minority leader of the United States Senate, Tom Daschle, went to South Dakota State. The speaker of the US House of Representatives, J. Dennis Hastert, went to Northern Illinois University. Dick Armey, the former House majority leader, took a bachelor's degree from Jamestown College. Winston Churchill? He was so slow a learner that they used to write to his mother to come take this boy off our hands.
I know what you think: Spare me the sympathy. It still hurts. But let's keep this in perspective. What did Magic Johnson say to the little boy who also tested HIV positive? ''You've got to have a positive attitude." What happens when you don't keep a positive attitude? Don't ask.
This college thing? What happened is that you rubbed up against the reality of big-time, maybe big-name, institutions. Some they pick, some they don't. You lost. It'll happen again, but let's hope it won't have the awful kick. You'll get tossed by a girlfriend or boyfriend. You won't get the job or the promotion you think you deserve. Some disease may pluck you from life's fast lane and pin you to a bed, a wheelchair, a coffin. That happens.
Bad habits you can change; bad luck is nothing you can do anything about.
Does it mean you're not a good person? People like you, if not your resume. There's no one else that can be you. Plenty of people think you're special now, or will think that, once they get to know you. Because you are.
And the admissions department that said no? Screw them. You've got a life to lead.
Right now I'm in the midst of the final push for getting admission decisions out the door. At this point, we've accepted 95% of the students we can accept, so the final few places are meeting very specific needs. Most of the decisions we're making now are generating waitlist or deny letters.
It's not really in my makeup to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm bearing an awful lot in the next week or so. Of course, I know a lot of these students really don't care about whether they're getting into my school. At the same time, rejection always stings. It seems like it's often the first time these kids--or these parents--have been told 'no,' and of course it won't be the last--disappointment is not an infrequent visitor in life. Disappointment, or dashed hopes--these are actually good signs, because it means you had hope and optimism in the first place, which is to say life is fairly good, or at least your outlook on it is.
I couldn't put the sentiment better than David Nyhan did in 1987 in the Boston Globe, reprinted yesterday. Quoted below:
The college rejection letter
By David Nyhan
March 10, 2008
Former Globe columnist the late David Nyhan wrote the following column in 1987. Since then, it has been reprinted in the newspaper many times around this time of year. Nyhan died in January 2005.
THE REJECTIONS arrive this time of year in thin, cheap envelopes, some with a crummy window for name and address, as if it were a bill, and none with the thick packet you'd hoped for.
''Dear So-and-so:
''The admissions committee gave full consideration . . . but I regret to inform you we will be unable to offer you a place in the Class of 2012." Lots of applicants, limited number of spaces, blah blah blah, good luck with your undergraduate career. Very truly yours, Assistant Dean Blowhard, rejection writer, Old Overshoe U.
This is the season of college acceptance letters. So it's also the time of rejection. You're in or you're out. Today is the day you learn how life is not like high school. To the Ins, who got where they wanted to go: Congrats, great, good luck, have a nice life, see you later. The rest of this is for the Outs.
You sort of felt it was coming. Your SAT scores weren't the greatest. Your transcript had some holes in it. You wondered what your teachers' recommendations would really say, or imply. And you can't help thinking about that essay you finished at 2 o'clock in the morning of the day you absolutely had to mail in your application, that essay which was, well, a little weird.
Maybe you could have pulled that C in sociology up to a B-minus. Maybe you shouldn't have quit soccer to get a job to pay for your gas. Maybe it was that down period during sophomore year when you had mono and didn't talk to your teachers for three months while you vegged out. What difference does it make what it was? It still hurts.
It hurts where you feel pain most: inside. It's not like the usual heartache that kids have, the kind other people can't see. An alcoholic parent, a secret shame, a gaping wound in the family fabric, these are things one can carry to school and mask with a grin, a wisecrack, a scowl, a just-don't-mess-with-me-today attitude.
But everybody knows where you got in and where you didn't. Sure, the letter comes to the house. But eventually you've still got to face your friends. ''Any mail for me?" is like asking for a knuckle sandwich. Thanks a lot for the kick in the teeth. What a bummer.
How do you tell kids at school? That's the hard part. The squeals in the corridor from the kids who got in someplace desirable. The supercilious puss on the ones who got early acceptance or the girl whose old man has an in at Old Ivy.
There's the class doofus who suddenly becomes the first nerd accepted at Princeton, the 125-pound wrestling jock who, surprise, surprise, got into MIT. But what about you?
You've heard about special treatment for this category or that category, alumni kids on a legacy ticket or affirmative action luckouts or rebounders or oboe players. Maybe they were trying to fill certain slots. But you're not a slot. You're you. They can look at your grades and weigh your scores and see how many years you were in French Club. But they can't look into your head, or into your heart. They can't check out the guts department.
This is the important thing: They didn't reject you. They rejected your resume. They gave some other kid the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that kid deserved a break. Don't you deserve a break? Sure. You'll get one. Maybe this is the reality check you needed. Maybe the school that does take you will be good. Maybe this is the day you start to grow up.
Look at some people who've accomplished a lot and see where they started. Ronald Reagan? Eureka College. Jesse Jackson? They wouldn't let him play quarterback in the Big Ten, so he quit Illinois for North Carolina A & T. Do you know that the recently retired chairmen and CEOs of both General Motors and General Electric graduated from UMass? Bob Dole? He went to Washburn Municipal University.
The former minority leader of the United States Senate, Tom Daschle, went to South Dakota State. The speaker of the US House of Representatives, J. Dennis Hastert, went to Northern Illinois University. Dick Armey, the former House majority leader, took a bachelor's degree from Jamestown College. Winston Churchill? He was so slow a learner that they used to write to his mother to come take this boy off our hands.
I know what you think: Spare me the sympathy. It still hurts. But let's keep this in perspective. What did Magic Johnson say to the little boy who also tested HIV positive? ''You've got to have a positive attitude." What happens when you don't keep a positive attitude? Don't ask.
This college thing? What happened is that you rubbed up against the reality of big-time, maybe big-name, institutions. Some they pick, some they don't. You lost. It'll happen again, but let's hope it won't have the awful kick. You'll get tossed by a girlfriend or boyfriend. You won't get the job or the promotion you think you deserve. Some disease may pluck you from life's fast lane and pin you to a bed, a wheelchair, a coffin. That happens.
Bad habits you can change; bad luck is nothing you can do anything about.
Does it mean you're not a good person? People like you, if not your resume. There's no one else that can be you. Plenty of people think you're special now, or will think that, once they get to know you. Because you are.
And the admissions department that said no? Screw them. You've got a life to lead.
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