Updates:
NEW DATE/TIME: WED. OCTOBER 10TH 6:30 PM (previous
date was 10/9).
Westford
Academy – PAC
College
Visits:
Open
Houses/Information Sessions:
Becker College
Fall Open House: Saturday, October 20, 2018 both from
9:00am-12:30pm
Worcester Campus: 61
Sever Street, Worcester, MA 01609
Leicester Campus: 964
Main Street, Leicester, MA 01524
Register at: www.becker.edu/openhouse
Blog thoughts:
YOU GET TO DO THIS!
October
2, 2018 by Rick Clark
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to spend time walking
around farms in South Georgia as part of a leadership program. It was
fascinating to hear farmers’ perspectives on everything from supply and demand
to organic growing practices; from their daily monitoring and speculation about
consumer behavior for their crops to the evolution of technology in farm
equipment.
What struck me in particular was a simple concept: as a farmer,
your job is to put a seed in the ground. Then you water it, fertilize it, pray
over it, watch it grow, lose sleep worrying about it, and ultimately harvest it
months later.
If you’ve read this blog for long, you know that (like the old
school Tootsie Roll
commercials) pretty much anything I see or hear reminds me of college
admission in some way. That day was no different. Standing out in those fields,
I could not help thinking about the months ahead and all the planning, time,
work, and care it will take to enroll our next class.
#AdmissionsLife
Fall is all about travel and recruitment—putting seeds
in the ground, if you will. In fact, I started writing this post right before
midnight on a Friday, and we’re still 30 minutes from landing at the Atlanta
airport. This trip began in a very similar fashion to most trips in the fall:
in the dark, as I crept out of my house Tuesday morning around 5 a.m. to catch
a flight. Over the course of the next month, I’ll take three similar
trips—early mornings, late nights, rental cars, and hotel breakfasts. That’s
what you do in the fall in college admission: travel, shake hands, give talks,
pass out business cards— rinse and repeat. (SIDE
NOTE: The next time you see a college admission representative at your school
or local college fair, ask them how they’re doing and give them a restaurant
recommendation, or a good place to go for a walk or run.)
Winter is all about
reading applications. Like a farmer caring for and regularly inspecting crops,
this season is long and protracted, with intensely critical monitoring and
attention required throughout. There are no short cuts: tracking down
transcripts, reading applications, ensuring test scores have been reported,
reading applications, answering emails, reading applications, eating copious
amounts of take-out food, reading applications. I mentioned reading
applications, right? At Georgia Tech, we likely will receive more applications
than we did last year— let’s conservatively say 38,000. To review these in our
holistic process will take about 40 of us reading from mid-October to
mid-March.
In the spring,
we release admission decisions and immediately turn our attention to hosting
admitted families trying to make a final college choice, as well as talking to
prospective juniors and sophomores on their spring break barnstorm of college
tours.
I relate to the farmer who is constantly gauging and adjusting
to supply and demand. Based on applications and class size, our expected admit
rate this year is around 20%, meaning we will deny admission to over 30,000
students (three times the number of applicants we had when I started at Tech).
It’s not fun, and not why I got into this business. So spring is also about
speaking with hundreds of incredibly talented students who are frustrated and
deeply disappointed they were not offered admission. Ultimately, if our
predictions are right, we will “yield” our crop… I mean class… of 2,900
students by the May 1 National Deposit Deadline.
I’m not that smart, and I’m no fortune teller. But college
admission is cyclical, so I know these things are coming. It would be easy to
look at the next eight months as time away from home and family in the fall; an
over-caffeinated, pizza-fueled hibernation of sorts in the winter; and an
oxymoronic persona of happy host/dream killer in this spring. (Anyone want a
job?)
I GET to Do This
Immediately after leaving those farms in South Georgia, we heard
from the Commissioner of Agriculture. One of the phrases he used was, “I get to
do this.” His point was every day, every week, every month, and even every
year, we make a choice about how we’ll approach life. Will our mentality be:
“I have to do this”
or “I need to do
this”? Or, instead, “I get to
do this.”?
That’s the phrase that went through my head early Saturday
morning when I dragged myself from bed, shot Visine into my jet-lagged eyes,
made a cup of coffee and headed out to coach a 7-year old girls’ soccer team.
I get to do this!
That mindset fundamentally changes my outlook. I get to travel around the country to
cities and states many people will never see. I get to read the applications of
truly remarkable students who tell stories about innovative ideas, inspiring
dreams, ambitious goals, tremendous impact, and amazing challenges they
overcame. I get to
spend months working closely with a caring, funny, smart, dedicated staff.
I get to constantly
meet new people and tell them about a college I love and believe in. I get to articulate the value of
higher education and try to bring some levity and solace to the often-anxious
college admission experience. While we cannot admit everyone, I get to offer admission to thousands
of students. I get to
do this. What a privilege! What an honor! What an opportunity!
You GET to Do This
What do you have to
do today? What must you
do this week or month? What do you need to
do this year?
How does your mentality, perspective, attitude, and motivation
change when you consider what you get to
do today?
If you are reading this, you are one of the incredibly fortunate
people who gets to
apply to college. You get to
go to school— probably one that offers a lot of really good classes, alongside
peers who want to excel, and taught by teachers who hope to see you learn,
grow, and succeed. You get to
work or practice or be with your family. Sadly, these are opportunities too few
around our country and world enjoy.
This should not make you feel guilty. However, I hope it’s
motivating. I hope it alters your perspective. Admittedly, I hope it results in
you giving someone in your house or school a hug, a note, a text, or a sincere,
“Thank you!” You get to
do this.
You get to
spend another year at home. You get to
share a room or a car or a meal or clothes with a little sister. You get to listen to your dad’s stories
or your mom’s lessons or your neighbor’s jokes a few more times over the
upcoming months. What a privilege! What an honor! What an opportunity! EMBRACE
IT.
Again, I’m no fortune teller, but here is what I see coming for
you in the months ahead:
·
You will likely be denied or waitlisted by a school or three. I
did. Most of my friends did. I am guessing if you talk to many friends who are
in college now they did too. It’s not the end of the world. In fact, sometimes
those closed doors help point you to the right place.
·
You probably won’t get all the scholarships or financial aid you
hope to receive. I have a colleague who says, “The students who don’t get in
want in. The students who got in want money. The students who got money want
more money. And the students who got in and got all the money wanted it from
somewhere else.” (What can I say? Some of us admission farmers are a bit
cynical.)
·
You’ll see a few people you don’t think are as talented,
capable, or deserving as you get into schools you want to attend. College
admission is not fair—it’s driven by supply and demand and institutional
mission. If you are a carrot and that college needs more squash that year,
well…you cannot control those market conditions.
But just as I know the great essays, amazing stories, and
community changing ventures are coming, you need to trust
and know you will also get some great admission offers. You will to
find a college where you will make lifelong friendships and create a lifelong
network. How do those long-term results come about? You put a seed in the
ground. You change your mentality. And you can do that today!
http://pwp.gatech.edu/admission-blog/
An Open Letter to College Applicants
(and Their Parents)
The college application process can be stressful, but it doesn’t have
to be.
It’s easy to get lost in the deluge of college rankings reports telling
you that only certain schools are good enough. There’s tremendous pressure to
hire consultants and test prep tutors in order to gain or keep a competitive
edge. There’s a mercenary calculation as to which and how many extracurricular
activities to participate in, which classes to take (always the most advanced,
even in subjects you don’t care for), and how much and what kind of community
service to do. There’s an assumption that you need to ace every test, be the
lead in the play, be the captain of the baseball team, and win every academic
award. There are sensational stories of students applying to a dozen schools
and getting rejected by all of them.
All of this pressure stems from a simple narrative that students have
been told again and again: what college you attend determines how well you do
in life. In short, the assumption is that it’s worth it to sacrifice — your free time,
your health, your engagement in your learning, and your fun — if that means you
can get into a “better” college, because that way you’ll make more money and
live a happier, healthier, more fulfilling life. Or perhaps it’s the other side
of the story that drives your stress level: if you fail to get into a “top”
college, you’ll end up destitute and miserable.
As a former eighth grade English teacher, I observed that even my
middle school students would stress out about college. Were they wrong to do
so? Is all this stress warranted? Does where you go really determine your
long-term success? Now I’m an educational researcher with Challenge Success, a non-profit
organization affiliated with the Stanford University Graduate School of
Education. I’ve spent much of the last year reading and synthesizing research
on higher education and college admissions in an effort to understand whether
all the stress and hysteria around where you go is really worth it. I wanted to
understand the rankings, what they mean and where they come from, and what
relationship they have with long-term outcomes.
Here’s what I and my fellow researchers found:
· Traditional
college rankings are problematic. They don’t tell the whole story of a college’s
quality, and they imply a level of precision and objectivity that is
exaggerated.
· Going to a
selective school doesn’t equal future success. And vice versa, going to a
non-selective school doesn’t equal failure, poverty, or misery.
·
What you do in college matters way more than where you
go. Whichever college you attend, it’s your engagement, not the name of the
school, that matters.
What this means is that you don’t need to worry nearly so much about
the name brand, ranking, or selectivity of where you get in. Find a place
that’s a good fit. Yes, you’ve heard that before, but here’s what I think the
word fit means: opportunity for engagement. Find a place where you’ll have
opportunities to do things that are meaningful to you, where you feel like you can
connect with your professors and peers, and where you can engage in long-term
projects and extracurriculars that you enjoy (and choose to participate in for
that reason alone). There are more than 4,500 accredited colleges in the United
States. There are likely dozens you’ve never even heard of that would be a good
fit for you and will provide the right meaningful opportunities for your engagement.
It’s totally reasonable to have no idea what you want to do or who you
want to be at this stage, so don’t feel like you have to go to the ‘best’
school in a particular field of study. Instead, find a school that will support
you in discovering what it is you want to do and who it is you want to be. Just
like there are more colleges than you realize, there are more careers than you
think. Most people don’t know what their career is going to be when they are in
high school, nor do they follow a narrow, predictable path through life. They
swerve, they fail, and they change directions. College isn’t about setting you
up for an easy life, it’s about preparing you for the challenges that
inevitably follow.
And, to reiterate, it’s not the college that makes the difference. It’s
you. It’s what you do when you’re there, how much you study, the quality of
your engagement in your learning and in the community, and the friendships and
mentorships that you build. Wherever you attend, your education — and your
preparation for the “real world” — is in your hands, not hidden behind the
name of your college.
In short, my advice to students and families immersed in the college
admissions process is to relax. Consider not signing up for that AP class in a
subject you don’t care about. Don’t enroll in that Saturday SAT prep course,
and use that time to do something you love instead, or use it to sleep (in
fact, sleep more regardless; high schoolers need nine hours of sleep per night,
but Challenge Success research suggests that most get less than seven, which
can jeopardize mental and physical health). Practice engagement, well-being, and
balance now, because those are the skills you’ll need in college and beyond.
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