Tamara Keith from American Public Media reports that preparing for the SAT is a good idea, but you’d probably get the same benefit from a $30 at-home study guide as a multi-thousand dollar test-prep course.

David Hawkins from The National Association of College Admissions Counseling says “There needs to be a buyer-beware notice for students and families who are thinking about commercial test preparation.” The group pulled together a report that says the average score increase as a result of prep courses is only 30 points. Out of 2,400.

Hmm … while that might be enough to make or break an Ivy League acceptance for a few people, it’s probably not worth it to the rest of us.

Whether you took an SAT prep course or not, what if your score didn’t turn out quite as high as you’d like? Don’t worry! Standardized tests aren’t for everyone – we know that.

Not all schools require an ACT/SAT score for admission. Schools that don’t often offer a more targeted education, building practical skills rather than general knowledge. Career colleges and technical schools around the country realize that your priorities are different – that test scores don’t matter to you as much as starting a stable career.

A recent issue of Sociology of Education – an American Sociological Association journal – features a report that explores the socioeconomic differences among college transfer students. The sample of students followed in this report began their postsecondary education at a four-year institution. From this group, 33 percent transferred at least once within eight years of graduating from high school. Another 20 percent transferred “laterally,” from one four-year institution to another, and 15 percent transferred in “reverse” to a community college.

Among all these different transfer students, lateral transfers were much more likely than reverse transfers to complete their bachelor’s degree – 69 percent compared to 22 percent. However, both of these figures are lower than the graduation rate of students who don’t transfer at all. They completed their bachelor’s degrees at a rate of 79 percent.

So, if graduation rates are lower for reverse-transfer students, why do some students choose this route? Many education experts assumed that a student’s income, or the income of his or her family would be the deciding factor, but this was actually not the strongest indicator of a transfer decision. According to this study, the strongest indicator of a student’s transfer status is his or her parents’ education level.

Most often, students whose parents had more than a bachelor’s degree were some of the least likely to reverse-transfer. But on the other end of this spectrum, students whose parents had not completed high school were most likely to transfer to a community college.

What could be some reasons behind these trends? Sara Goldrick-Rob, a professor of education policy studies and sociology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, believes first-generation college students face unique challenges and struggle academically during their first year of college. But Professor Goldrick-Rob does have ideas for how to better support these students. In her opinion, four-year colleges have the responsibility to offer these students extra resources to help them succeed. Opportunities for extra advising and information could make the difference in these students’ lives and educations.

So, depending on your situation, leaving your four-year college for community colleges or online colleges might be a better choice. But if you’re thinking about it, explore some of the resources available at your current school. Sticking it out might be the better choice in the long run.

Recently, at least nine college institutions have received gifts totaling over $45 million from a mystery donor. What’s unusual is no one, not even the universities, knows where the money came from.

Typically when an educational institution receives an anonymous donation – they are allowed to know the identity of the donor.  In the recent donation sweep, however – lawyers and middlemen have cornered academic institutions into signed agreements not only disallowing them to know the identity of the donor, but promising not to try and find out.

Some of the schools that received the donations are the University of Iowa colleges receiving 7 million, the University of Southern Mississippi college receiving 6 million, and Purdue’s Indiana college receiving 8 million. It’s not clear whether the gifts come from an individual, organization or group of people with similar interests.

All donations were given on March 1st. Each came with the stipulation that most of the money must go to student scholarships.
Donations have dwindled at several colleges, and many schools have been trying to make ends meet during this economic downturn. These gifts show that someone recognizes the importance of higher education and truly wants to make a difference in the lives of students.  Historically speaking, and only exempting some of the Ivy League institutions – a larger endowment is a typical prelude to enrollment increase.

I would certainly be on the lookout at these specific universities enrollment metrics over the next academic year – as opportunity might arise for those looking to attend one of their programs.

The opportunities an education gives you will introduce you to new people and new experiences. Venturing into uncharted waters can be intimidating but, with a little bravery, you can create a better life for yourself. There is no easy answer to make it through the tough times. Each situation has its own complexities and needs to be addressed in a unique way. But there are some tips that can help you through tough times.

1. Be confident – People trust and react positively to those who are confident, but not cocky. Hold your head high and take pride in what you’ve accomplished. Not feeling very confident in your new role? Fake it. Soon enough, you’ll find that your confidence is sincere.
2. Think of your kids – If your parents did not go to college, it can feel like you are rejecting the life they worked hard to provide. Pretend that you decide that, out of respect for your parents, you decide to not go to school. Fifteen or twenty years from now, your children would be in the same position you are in now. What would you want them to do – have the same challenges you faced without an education, or would you like them to go to college and have a successful career? Most parents strive to provide a better life for their children than they had. It is honoring their sacrifices to take advantage of the opportunities you have.
3. Let go – In order to get what you want out of life, sometimes you need to cut ties with things that are holding you back. If a loved one is not encouraging you to be successful and talking to them about the situation doesn’t help, consider cutting back on the time you spend with them. That can be very tough to do, but if they truly have your best interest at heart, they’d want to help you succeed.

Change can be scary, but success shouldn’t be. Be brave, and don’t let temporary setbacks keep you from the life you want for you and your family.

This kind of fear and self-doubt can prohibit many people from going to a college which can vastly improve their lives.  A new website, www.college.gov identifies these common concerns and shows ways to overcome them. There are testimonials from students across the country that have triumphed over challenges such as peer pressure, lack of family support, and financial barriers. Against the odds, these students made college a reality.

More features of the website:

• Create your own roadmap.  No matter what year you are in high school, www.college.gov can create a personalized road map that will layout detailed steps necessary for getting to college.  You can keep the roadmap on your computer, or print it out and put it on your wall or in you locker.  Either way, this roadmap can put you on the path towards college!
• Find the school for you.  Universities, community colleges, or vocational schools, whatever you are looking for, this website can help you find a school to fit your lifestyle.
• Why go? What to do? How to pay?  www.college.gov  helps you realize reasons for going to school such as, increasing your income, finding your passion, proving your potential, growing with help and support, and lifting your family.  It also shows you the step for getting into college and payment options.
• Information for everyone. The website is geared towards high school students but also gives information to parents, families, teachers and counselors.

What sets this website apart from other education sites is that it was made by students for students.  The creators of this website have pinpointed real concerns that high school students have about going to college.  Through their college roadmap, they give us the tools to overcome those obstacles. 

Anyone can make their dream of attending college a reality.  www.college.gov is one tool that can help.

KEY Colleges writer Michael Mackie provides a “semi-comprehensive list of people to avoid when making life-changing college decisions” in his article “The Five Worst People to Listen to … About a College Education.”

In every student’s life there comes a time when they ask themselves, “Am I doing the right thing?!” High school is an exciting time, but it’s also a time to be mindful of the future. Figuring out the who/what/when/where of college can be daunting, especially when everyone and their brother has an opinion on what school is best for you.

Find out whose advice you SHOULD’NT take into consideration on KEY Colleges.

And so it has gone over the last few weeks, as colleges send their decisions and counselors console, cheer up and otherwise try to help this year’s seniors navigate the end of the admissions process.

“It’s a bittersweet time,” said Susan Buchman, a counselor at Byram Hills High School in Armonk. “You get some kids who are ecstatic because they got into their first choice school, and then there are disappointments. And you get parents who are very upset. They were hoping their kid was going to get into a certain school so that they could put the sticker on the car.”

Ms. Buchman tries to explain to families that the second- or third-choice college is also a wonderful place, that the child will make friends, get a good education and life will go on. In six months, that first choice will be a vague memory.

But given all the angst surrounding college admissions, it can be a difficult message to sell. Emotions run high this season, and the anxiety level is testament to a process that many educators believe has spiraled out of control.

The frenzy over college admissions is well known. Stories abound about overstressed students who race from Japanese calligraphy classes to hockey practice to SAT tutors. Anecdotes about out-of-control parents who write college essays, monopolize questions at college information sessions and hound their children to make every moment a resume-building one – are plentiful.

Those aren’t even the really crazy ones. One Westchester guidance counselor described a student who was applying to a college that required a graded high school paper. The child brought in an ‘A’ essay with many enthusiastic teacher comments. The counselor took a closer look and asked why the teacher had written comments in two different inks. It turned out that the student’s mother had added a few thoughts of her own.

It’s easy to criticize parents for the current state of affairs, but you can also point to other culprits the infamous college rankings, ambitious high schools, colleges that brag about all the students with perfect SAT scores whom they reject, colleges that market themselves aggressively and then proudly declare low admission rates, and a culture that values performance over character.

However you allocate the culpability, though, there is a growing sense that it’s time to return some sanity to the process. Merilee Jones, dean of admissions at M.I.T., has made this her mission. Recently, she addressed 160 school counselors at a meeting of the Westchester Putnam Rockland Counseling Association in White Plains. When Bob Sweeney, a counselor at Mamaroneck High School, introduced her, he said, “You just flew into the Bermuda Triangle of stressed-out guidance counselors, overstressed kids and unrealistic parents with high expectations.”

Ms. Jones laughed, but she was serious about her message to the counselors (and, at a later meeting, to parents at Byram Hills High School): she is worried about the toll the application madness takes on today’s children, whom she describes as “the most anxious, sleep-deprived, steeped-in-stress, judged, tested, poorly nourished generation.”

These teenagers, she said, are being raised to please adults and held to impossible standards. They are loaded down with A.P. classes and expected to participate in multiple extracurricular activities, demonstrate leadership, garner high SAT scores and, on top of that, have a “passion,” a buzzword in college admissions. “It’s ridiculous to expect that of them,” Ms. Jones said. “Most teenagers have no passions at all, except sex.”

The pressure is literally making children sick, Ms. Jones said, citing increases in everything from eating disorders to depression. Her call to arms: reel in the pressure and start changing the culture. Parents need to back off. Children need downtime. High schools need to lower the pressure. Colleges need to be straight with teenagers.

Most counselors embraced the message. Mr. Sweeney described Ms. Jones as “the voice of reason and sanity in the middle of all this craziness.”

But the culture isn’t going to be easy to crack. Barbara Leifer-Sarullo, director of counseling at Scarsdale High School, said that in the college competition, parents were victims as much as children.

“A few years ago, I had a parent who was outraged because I didn’t tell him his kid needed a math tutor,” she said. “He told me, ‘Here my kid is climbing Mount Everest himself, and everyone else has a Sherpa.’ He felt like he was a bad parent.”

Article by Kate Stone Lombardi

Click here to view this article in its original context on The New York Times website (login required).

Monique Yin is months from starting her freshman year at New York University, but she has already chatted online with hundreds of classmates and met many of them, too.

As soon as Miss Yin, a 17-year-old high school senior from North Haven, Conn., received her acceptance letter in November through early decision, she logged onto Facebook, the social networking site, and created the group NYU 2011. She gave it this simple description: Join this group if you are attending NYU next fall.

So far, the group has more than 650 members incoming freshman from as far away as Belgium, Singapore and China, and ones from Long Island and Texas. By December, when Miss Yin attended a university orientation, classmates recognized her as the creator of the group. By February, 60 people from the group met in Washington Square Park. Later, some went ice-skating together; others shopped in Greenwich Village. This month, smaller groups have met in California and Philadelphia.

Facebook and other social networks like MySpace have transformed the social lives of teenagers in many ways, and that includes how they make the transition from high school to college. Hundreds of colleges have their own Class of 2011 groups on Facebook. They are generally not formally affiliated with the universities and are begun by students who want to connect with classmates months before they set foot on campus.

Facebook was originally available only to college students, and expanded to include high school students in September 2005. As soon as the first college acceptances began rolling in that fall, the first future college class groups appeared on Facebook. Click to read the rest of this article in its original context.

By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY

Good grades and high test scores still matter a lot to many colleges as they award financial aid.

But with low-income students projected to make up an ever-larger share of the college-bound population in coming years, some schools are re-examining whether that aid, typically known as merit aid, is the most effective use of precious institutional dollars.

George Washington University in Washington, D.C., for example, said last week that it would cut the value of its average merit scholarships by about one-third and pare the number of recipients, pouring the savings, about $2.5 million, into need-based aid. Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., made a similar decision three years ago.

Now, Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., says it will phase out merit scholarships altogether. No current merit-aid recipients will lose their scholarships, but need-based aid alone will be awarded beginning with students entering in fall 2008.

Not all colleges offer merit aid; generally, the more selective a school, the less likely it is to do so. Harvard and Princeton, for example, offer generous need-based packages, but plenty of families who don’t meet need eligibility have been willing to pay whatever they must for a big-name school.

For small regional colleges that struggle just to fill seats, merit aid can be an important revenue-builder because many recipients still pay enough tuition dollars over and above the scholarship amount to keep the institution running.

But for rankings-conscious schools in between, merit aid has served primarily as a tool to recruit top students and to improve their academic profiles. “They’re trying to buy students,” says Skidmore College economist Sandy Baum.

Re-evaluating aid

Studies show merit aid also tends to benefit disproportionately students who could afford to enroll without it. That’s where demographics enter the picture.

“As we look to the future, we see a more pressing need to invest in need-based aid,” says Monica Inzer, dean of admission and financial aid at Hamilton, which has offered merit scholarships for 10 years. During that time, it rose in US News & World Report’s ranking of the best liberal arts colleges, from 25 to 17.

Merit aid, which benefited about 75 students a year, or about 4% of its student body, at a cost of about $1 million a year, “served us well,” Inzer says, but “to be discounting the price for families that don’t need financial aid doesn’t feel right anymore.”

Need-based aid remains by far the largest share of all student aid, which includes state, federal and institutional grants. But merit aid, offered primarily by schools and states, is growing faster, both overall and at the institutional level.

Between 1995-96 and 2003-04, institutional merit aid alone increased 212%, compared with 47% for need-based grants, a study by Pennsylvania State University professor Donald Heller says. At least 15 states also offer merit aid, typically in a bid to enroll top students in the state’s public institutions.

But in recent years, a growing chorus of critics has begun pressuring schools to drop the practice. Recent decisions by Hamilton and others may be “a sign that people are starting to realize that there’s this destructive competition going on,” says Baum, co-author of a recent College Report that raises concerns about the role of institutional aid not based on need.

A fast ‘merry-go-round’

David Laird, president of the 17-member Minnesota Private College Council, says many of his schools would like to reduce their merit aid but fear that in doing so, they would lose top students to their competitors.

“No one can take unilateral action,” says Laird, who is exploring whether to seek an exemption from federal antitrust laws so member colleges can discuss how they could jointly reduce merit aid. “This is a merry-go-round that’s going very fast, and none of the institutions believe they can sustain the risks of trying to break away by themselves.”

A complicating factor, he and others note, is that merit aid has become so popular with middle-income families, who don’t qualify for need-based aid, that many have come to depend on it. And, as tuitions continue to increase, the line between merit and need blurs.

That’s one reason Allegheny College doesn’t plan to drop merit aid entirely.

“We still believe in rewarding superior achievements and know that these top-notch students truly value the scholarship,” says Scott Friedhoff, Allegheny’s vice president for enrollment.

Emory University in Atlanta, which boasts a $4.7 billion endowment, meanwhile, is taking another tack. This year, it announced it would eliminate loans for needy students and cap them for middle-income families. At the same time, it said it would expand its 28-year-old merit program.

“Yeah, we’re playing the merit game,” acknowledges Tom Lancaster, senior associate dean for undergraduate education. But it has its strong points, too, he says.

“The fact of the matter is, it’s not just about the lowest-income people. It is the average American middle-class family who is being priced out of the market.”

According to the fall preview of NACE’s “Job Outlook 2007″ survey, employers cite company growth, retiring employees and high job turnover as key reasons for the rise in hiring.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ “2004-2014 Job Outlook for College Graduates” identifies seven prominent career fields that will have significant openings in the years ahead two of which tie in closely to school guidance counseling.

Field: Counseling and Social Science
Job: Child, Family and School Social Workers
What they do: Provide services and assistance to improve the social and psychological functioning of children, both in and out of school, as well as their families.
Median salary in 2005: $35,250
Projected job openings from 2004-2014: 98,000
Why there will be openings: As schools and parents continue to see the benefits of counseling, demand for social workers is expected to grow.

Field: Education
Job: Elementary School Teachers (except special education)
What they do: Teach public or private elementary school students academic and social skills.
Median salary in 2005: $44,040
Projected job openings from 2004-2014: 587,000
Why there will be openings: In addition to the large number of educators that are expected to retire, there is also a trend toward smaller class sizes that will result in employment opportunities for teachers.

To see the other five rapidly growing fields, view the Job Outlook for Class of 2007 article in its original context.

*Statistics provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics