Southern Cal Signs 13-Year-Old Quarterback

 The University of Southern California's football team has committed one of its football scholarships for the 2015 entering class to David Sills, a 13-year-old quarterback at a middle school in Delaware, The News-Journal of Wilmington reported. Lane Kiffin, the new coach at Southern Cal, made a similar signing of a 13-year-old last year when he was at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and that player is presumably out of luck now that Kiffin has moved on to USC. Sills told ESPN that Southern Cal has always been his "dream school." Reports that USC's admissions office is offering slots in its 2015 undergraduate class to several very talented middle school mathematicians are false, reports the Chronicle for Higher Education.

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Juniors: This is the Score You Need this Year to Be A National Merit Scholar

As I live in Connecticut, the score for those in the Nutmeg state is 218.

To see if you qualified go to Fair Test's site at www.fairstest.org. 

Or click on the link below: College Confidential.

Fair Test, the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, writes today online "that The National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), which runs the country’s most prestigious tuition aid competition, is trying to block internet posting of state-by-state test score requirements for its awards. Nancy Griesemer, an independent college counselor in Northern Virginia who included the information on her website, was advised by NMSC’s legal firm to remove the scores from her site. That's why we are posting state-by-state cut-offr scores for high school class of 2010."

On her blog today, Griesemer recounted how the National Merit Scholarship Coproation allegedly reached out to her: The conversation began, according to her blog: “My name is Eileen Artemakis, from the National Merit® Scholarship Corporation, and I have been asked to get the name of your attorney.”

"There were no preliminaries or explanations. Ms. Artemakis, NMSC public information director, was employing a not-so-subtle tactic to frighten me out of crossing her bosses at the Corporation who were not pleased by my columns on the scholarship competition. A letter from legal counsel followed a week later," she recounted on her blog.

"What did I do to merit not-so-subtle threats of legal action? I posted qualifying scores for each of the states and the District of Columbia. According to NMSC lawyers, the Corporation considers this information proprietary. But nothing on their website warns of confidentiality and the data is freely shared on the internet. Even the kids on College Confidential have the cutoffs about right every year.

"Evidently, the public is not supposed to know or see the numbers laid out in their totality. Why? Possibly because the cutoff scores really don’t look too fair when compared across states, and the Corporation is determined to tamp down uprisings before they become revolutions," Griesemer wrote.


 

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The 2009 College Freshman
Sick Over the Cost of College

Results of the 2009 Freshman Survey, administered by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI), demonstrate that more first-year college students are concerned about financing college that at any other time since 1971. Nearly 67 percent of four-year college freshmen expressed at least some concern about paying tuition. In addition, more students are using loans to finance college—53 percent in 2009, which is up 4 percentage points from 2008 and the highest level reported in nearly a decade.

Due to these financial concerns, cost played a significant role in students’ college choices. About 42 percent of freshmen at four-year colleges reported that cost was a "very important" factor in choosing which college to attend, the highest level since the question was introduced in 2005. In addition, those reporting that an offer of financial aid was important in their college choice increased to 45 percent, up from 43 percent in 2008 and 39 percent in 2007. About 9 percent reported that not being offered financial aid at their first-choice college was important in their college selection, the highest mark since the question was first asked in 1984.A more detailed summary of the findings is available on HERI’s Web site.

This is why I encourage students to identify schools that will pay them Meritorious Money based on their SAT scores and GPA. Schools offer Merit Money to students whose SAT scores will bring up their scores. Since the cost of four year schools are through the roof, why not create a college list that has these three categores: Reach Schools, Match Schools, and Money Schools. Another thought is to offer your student 20 percnet of the take. It's not unusal for our students to get $50,000 (over four years) and if the student recevied 20 percent  that would still leave you, the parents, $40,000 of found money. This could put an entirely different look on studying - there's money behind those pages.

Your thoughts,

Sam

 

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Hi Everybody,

I think Gary L. Ross, vice president and dean of admissions at Colgate University, succinctly sums up the trappings to the news this week about how a growing number of colleges are enticing students to apply by using marketing tactics similar to what credit card companies are doing.

Marquette, Rensselaer Polytechnic, the University of Minnesota and the College of Saint Rose in Albany were among the colleges noted in The New York Times (Jan. 26, 2010) for simplifying the application process: Some schools are waiving the dreaded essay, filling out a good portion of the application, and assuring a decision in three weeks.

It's been great for the colleges. Take Saint Rose in Albany: Its applications have increased 25 percent annually and its standing in U.S. News and world Report rankings climbed more than 20 steps up the magazine's ladder. (Rankings are based in part on the number of applicants)

Eduardo Garnica, 19, of Scaramento, CA, was quoted in the article saying that he had no interest in applying to the University of Pacific until he received a "Disticintive Candidate" application that waived the application fee and essay. Flattered and happy not to write the essay, Eduardo now attends the University of Pacific.

It's not hard to figure how many studnets will respond to the offer of no fee, no essay, and the promise of scholarship money, but it does come at a cost as Ross pointed out in his letter to The New York Times.

"Prospective college students and their parents should be very wary of shortcuts in the college admission process, regardless of how tempting or personalized the enticements seem to be.

"Patronizing offers that boast of a “fast” and “easy” application process could sidetrack students who might otherwise engage in an exercise that rightfully involves introspection, exploration and thoughtful evaluation of serious options.

There is no way — nor is there any reason — to rush this important opportunity to learn. Four years of college will go fast enough," Ross wrote.

There are many reasons why 25 percent of all of the freshmen who started college in the fall of 2009 will not return to their first choices next fall, this is but one of them. It pays to do the research.

Your thoughts,

Sam
Feb. 2, 2010

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For those of you brave souls who are taking the SAT as I write and read this after you have finished the test, remember to buy this test back from the College Board. It servers as a great tool to study from if you don't  get the scores you were after. You'll see specifically where you got beat and based on your mistakes you'll be able to identify the skills sets that need attention. 

Want to add that it's not always skill sets. I worked with a young lady this summer. We reviewed the May test that she had taken and she realized that whenever she missed, she didn't miss once, she always missed three in a row. The obvious: when the young lady drifted, she really drifted. What she gained was self-awareness. 

Last word on buying the test back for today: For most students taking the SAT is a little bit like having to shovel the driveway to get
the car out so they can go where they want to go. They rip through the test so they can move on; they have little memory of the specific questions, not to mention how the questions were crafted so as to draw them to the wrong answers. That's why you want to buy this test back. Taking the SAT does not prepare a student for the next SAT unless a student can learn from the test, and the only way to do that is to buy it back and carefully review it. That is one of the bright things to note about the January exam; it's one of three exams that student can buy back. 

Now for those of you who are not  taking the test today and are preparing for the March exam. Take a look a the question of the day issued by the College Board earlier this morning. I found it to be trickier than most, perhaps because it's a bit different  from the usual SAT grammar question. When I took it at 10 a.m. this morning, only 45 percent of the people who had taken it had answered it correctly - this is most unusual; it's rare that fewer than 50 percent get a question wrong. Only the most motivated students are doing this on a Saturday morning before 10 a.m., and they tend to be the students with the highest GPAs. The point: if you get this wrong, learn from the mistake. Tomorrow, I'll give you a tip on how to spot this type of problem in the future. 

http://sat.collegeboard.com/practice/sat-question-of-the-day


Have a good one, back to you tomorrow. 

Sam 

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