June 22, 2007

Avoid College Selection Hysteria

Posted in Saving for College, Student Loan News, The Financial Aid Process at 8:21 AM by Joe From Boston

I’d never heard a name put to this before, but I do remember vividly what he’s talking about!  Parents and Teens should read this very interesting article from the Capitol Online – HometownAnnapolis.com website.

Teens, parents should avoid College Selection Hysteria

by Dr. Scott Smith

There is probably no concern that is more potent or palpable for many teenagers and their families than the experience of College Selection Hysteria, or CSH. While it is not yet an “official” psychological diagnosis, CSH is an often-observed phenomenon that starts to grip many adolescents and their parents around the beginning of their junior year of high school. This amplified form of anxiety is based in concern or worry about finding, being admitted to and paying for the “right” college.

Symptoms of CSH can include mental confusion, sleepless nights, worry, difficulty concentrating and irritability. If left untreated, it can lead to conflict between parents and children, feelings of helplessness, hopelessness and despair. Fortunately, CSH is treatable and even preventable.Like so many other mass phenomena, CSH is partly driven by the media attention that has been paid to the issue of college selection in recent years. It is further amplified by the rising number of college applications that are occurring nationwide. This surge in applications and the resulting increase in competition for the “top” schools are expected to remain high until 2014. As a result, CSH may be at an all-time high due to increasing fear that a college-bound student won’t be able to get into the “right” school and that this will place him at a significant life disadvantage.

Stoking the fires of this hysteria are the numerous publications which purport to be experts at rating or gauging the country’s “best” colleges. This American penchant for rating and categorizing things only serves to amplify another predisposition – competitiveness – which contributes greatly to the development of CSH. In truth, there are many great schools out there to attend and there is likely to be a good school to match just about anyone.

To help with CSH, my alma mater, Washington and Lee University, runs a program for alumni titled, “Finding Your Way Through the College Admissions Maze.” One of the benefits of thiskind of program is that it helps students and parents realize they are not alone in their bewilderment and that many others feel much the same way they do: confused about the college admissions process.

The program, which features notable college admissions specialists, points out that there is a great deal of misinformation and misunderstanding about the admissions process. Trying to glean what I could from the wealth of information provided, it seems there are certain prevalent myths about getting into college which are in need of debunking. Some of the most harmful myths that exist with regard to the college selection process include the following:

If it’s not ranked highly by U.S. News and World Report, it isn’t a good college. This belief is simply wrong, wrong and wrong. It is important to remember your grandfather’s old adage not to believe everything you read. Unbeknownst to most people, the college rankings done by a variety of publications, including U.S. News and World Report, are blatantly speculative, unscientific and inherently flawed.

Often using years-old data and random bits and pieces of information, a significant percentage of these ratings are simply based upon how well known a college has become. There is little or no actual information or insight into the college itself or how well it may fit an individual student.

Searching for a college based upon this type of information is like choosing shoes because of their glitzy brand-name advertising, regardless of how they feel on your feet.

If I don’t attend a “name” college, I will be at a disadvantage my whole life. Again, this myth is wrong on many fronts. Research has consistently shown that the most important educational factor is whether or not you attend college and how you do when you are there – not the name of the college that you attend.

There are thousands of colleges and universities all over the United States, yet people tend to look at the same ones over and over again because their names – or more likely, their football teams – are familiar. This is not unlike the sad truth that many people choose elected officials on name recognition rather than their philosophies or proposed policies. It is important to know that there is a multitude of great colleges out there that fit almost any person, budget or educational goal.

I should get a scholarship, or at least get a discount on my college tuition. This is another myth that is fed by the media, which seems to imply that discounting is routine. Although prices vary widely and depend on a variety of factors, most people actually have to pay for college, and the availability of scholarships or even financial aid is much lower than people seem to realize. Colleges run like businesses, and if their customers aren’t paying for the product, they are unlikely to stay in business very long.

While there are some funds available, particularly for disadvantaged individuals, many people who fill out the required Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) find that they are not eligible for much of anything. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to reduce costs, but be realistic about how the system really works.

If my SAT scores or GPA aren’t high, I shouldn’t bother applying. If you like the school and you feel that it fits you well, go ahead and apply. Most of the “good” schools use a “whole person” concept and look for students who are motivated to attend college and who are active in their worlds.

Students who sit around and resume-build or stoke their GPAs and SATs without being truly involved or committed to meaningful activities are not as desirable as one might think. Colleges look for people with a unified theme of interests, activities and service in addition to working hard to get good grades.

For students, you might compare the process of selecting the right college to that of choosing which of many different parties you want to attend. No two parties are alike, and while they may have certain similarities, they are ultimately defined by their differences. It is impossible to compare them directly because they all have their own unique feel. Your party choice would most likely depend on who is there, what activities are offered, what food will be served and what music will be played. If you go to a party, simply because you think all the “in” people will be there, you are likely to end up totally bored and miserable.

To prevent the development of CSH, it is important to realize that there are many great schools out there and that the real challenge in college selection is finding the school that best matches you. This approach makes looking for a school an exciting adventure rather than a stressful competition. Instead of focusing on getting into a “top” school, try researching and visiting a variety of colleges to find out which ones you connect with.

After coming up with a general list, consider applying to two “reach” schools (difficult to get into), two “comfort” schools (schools that you have a good shot at) and two “safety” schools (schools you would expect to get into). After all the results are in, simply select your favorite available college and go have fun! And remember that it is more important to attend a school that matches you and facilitates your intellectual and personal growth than going to a school that looks good on paper.

Dr. Scott E. Smith is a licensed clinical psychologist with Spectrum Behavioral Health in Annapolis and Arnold. For services or ideas regarding this column, call 410-757-2077 or write to 1509 Ritchie Highway, Suite F, Arnold, MD 21012.

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May 29, 2007

Elite Colleges Open New Door to Low-Income Youths

Posted in Saving for College, Student Loan News, The Financial Aid Process at 9:59 AM by Joe From Boston

Here’s a great article from the New York Times.

Elite Colleges Open New Door to Low-Income Youths

AMHERST, Mass. — The discussion in the States of Poverty seminar here at Amherst College was getting a little theoretical. Then Anthony Abraham Jack, a junior from Miami, asked pointedly, “Has anyone here ever actually seen a food stamp?”

To Mr. Jack, unlike many of his classmates, food stamps are not an abstraction. His family has had to use them in emergencies. His mother raised three children as a single parent and earns $26,000 a year as a school security guard. That is just a little more than half the cost of a year’s tuition, room and board, fees and other expenses at Amherst, which for Mr. Jack’s class was close to $48,000.

So when Mr. Jack, now 22 and a senior, graduated with honors here on Sunday, he was not just the first in his family to earn a college degree, but a success story in the effort by Amherst and a growing number of elite colleges to open their doors to talented low-income students.

Concerned that the barriers to elite institutions are being increasingly drawn along class lines, and wanting to maintain some role as engines of social mobility, about two dozen schools — Amherst, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, the University of Virginia, Williams and the University of North Carolina, among them — have pushed in the past few years to diversify economically.

They are trying tactics like replacing loans with grants and curtailing early admission, which favors the well-to-do and savvy. But most important, Amherst, for instance, is doing more than giving money to low-income students; it is recruiting them and taking their socioeconomic background — defined by family income, parents’ education and occupation level — into account when making admissions decisions.

Amherst’s president, Anthony Marx, turns to stark numbers in a 2004 study by the Century Foundation, a policy institute in New York, to explain the effort: Three-quarters of students at top colleges come from the top socioeconomic quartile, with only one-tenth from the poorer half and 3 percent from the bottom quartile.

“We want talent from across all divides, wherever we can find it,” President Marx said. Amherst covered the full cost of Mr. Jack’s education beyond what he earned in work-study. The only debt he says he owes is the $41 it cost to make copies of his 107-page honors thesis.

Amherst also provides its low-income students important support, from $400 “start-up grants” for winter coats and sheets and blankets for their dorm rooms, to summer science and math tutoring. At the same time, low-income students are expected to put in at least seven hours a week at $8-an-hour work-study jobs.

But they get to use $200 a month in their work-study earnings as spending money to get a haircut, for instance, or go out for pizza with classmates so they don’t feel excluded.

Mr. Jack, who is black and had never been on a plane until he flew to Amherst for his first visit, arrived as an A student, and with a steely focus.

His mother, Marilyn, 53, had guided her son from Head Start to a gifted program in elementary school to a magnet middle school and, in his final year of high school, to the private Gulliver Preparatory School on a full scholarship. But she never had to push Tony, she said. “He was on a mission from Day 1,” she said.

Mr. Jack’s high grades and test scores — a respectable 1200 on the SAT — won him a full scholarship to the University of Florida. But the median score for his Amherst class was 1422, and he would have been excluded had the admissions office not considered his socioeconomic class, and the obstacles he had overcome.

“Tony Jack with his pure intelligence — had he been raised in Greenwich, he would have been a 1500 kid,” said Tom Parker, the dean of admission. “He would have been tutored by Kaplan or Princeton Review. He would have had The New Yorker magazine on the coffee table.”

“Tony Jack is not an anomaly,” he added.

Mr. Jack, Amherst officials say, would likely not have benefited under traditional affirmative action programs. In their groundbreaking 1998 study of 28 selective universities, William Bowen, the former president of Princeton, and Derek Bok, now the interim president of Harvard, found that 86 percent of blacks who enrolled were middle or upper middle class. (Amherst was not included in that study.) The white students were even wealthier.

“Universities have prided themselves on making strides in racial diversity, but for the most part they have avoided the larger issue of class inequality,” said Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation.

For Mr. Jack, there were adjustments at this college, where half the students are affluent enough that their parents pay tuition without any aid from Amherst. He did not let it bother him, he said, when wealthier classmates blithely inquired about the best clubs in Miami — as if he would know, Mr. Jack said dryly — before flying off to his hometown for spring break. Mr. Jack could afford to go home only at Christmas, and the end of the year, when Amherst paid his plane fare.

Mr. Jack is 6 foot 7 and built like the football player he used to be. In his freshman year, he said, he was walking to his dorm one night when a police car seemed to be following him. He recalled showing the officer his Amherst ID and explaining, “I’m a student here.”

In Mr. Jack’s class of 413, 15 percent, or 61, students, are from families with incomes of less than $45,000 a year; about two-thirds of those are from families earning less than $30,000. He was amazed to discover how much preparation wealthier students had.

“People are groomed for the SAT,” Mr. Jack said. “They take Latin to help them with their vocabulary.”

He seized every opportunity Amherst offered — the pre-freshman summer program in science and math, help from the writing center and faculty office hours. “They didn’t just invite me in,” he said. “They prepared the way.”

For his freshman year, he chose the most challenging classes, including Chemical Principles, even though he had no chemistry in high school. “I didn’t feel like I was in over my head,” he said. “I just felt like I was being pushed to the boundaries of my ability.”

He got all A’s and B’s his first year, except for a C-plus in chemistry. Sophomore year he plunged in even deeper, taking Organic Chemistry I and II. He got a B the first semester, and an A-minus the second.

“Organic chemistry was the happiest time of my life,” said Mr. Jack, who tends to gush about Amherst. “Everything started clicking.”

David Hansen, who taught Organic Chemistry II, called Mr. Jack’s improvement remarkable: “He had the motivation and the desire and the discipline to take advantage of the support that was here.”

Mr. Jack, who is as gregarious as he is studious, found time to mentor other students, serve on committees — and earn an A-plus in calculus last year, one of only 10 A-pluses the professor, David Cox, said he has given out in calculus in 30 years of teaching. This year Mr. Jack was Amherst’s nominee to be a Rhodes scholar at Oxford.

Squeamish about blood, Mr. Jack switched his major from pre-med to religion and gender studies. He said he intended to go to graduate school. For now, he loves Amherst so much, he is staying around as an “alumni fellow,” organizing events on campus. He says he thinks about teaching, or becoming a lawyer so that he can help his community. As for money, he says he just wants to be able to take care of his family.

At Amherst’s commencement on Sunday, Mr. Jack wept — and his classmates gave him a standing ovation — when President Marx awarded him the annual prize for the senior who has “shown by his or her own determination and accomplishment the greatest appreciation of and desire for a college education.”

Thanks to Amherst, Mr. Jack said, he has rewritten the narrative of his life. It isn’t about “a poor black student” going “from the bottom to the top,” as he once believed, he wrote in an essay about his family and all they have done for him. His mother, his older brother, his younger sister and his two nieces were here at graduation, having driven up in a rented van from Miami.

“Being a senior at Amherst is only one step along my journey through life,” he wrote. “You want to know Anthony Abraham Jack, then look behind the man you see walking around campus today. And you, in doing so, surely will never say that he came from the bottom and is now at the top.”

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