Getting In Gets Harder

A good editorial http://www.socyberty.com/Education/College-Admissions-for-the-Middle-Class.108615

http://www.socyberty.com/Education/College-Admissions-for-the-Middle-Class.108615

I think it's sad that colleges are becoming picker with each passing year. It's hard enough for poor kids and lower middle class kids to afford college, much less high school. Scholarships and even Fasfa have intrest on them so you gotta pay back all that money you borrowed after you graduate college and get a job. Teaching for example now requires a master degree which means you can teach with a bachelor's but you gotta go to school for 4 more years to get the "required" degree. Even with a master degree teachers are paid virtually little money for all the work they have to do and putting up with smart aleck kids. I know me for example can't go to college since my religion forbids using intrests which means I can't take out a loan or fafsa to go to college. I do think kids need to realize that they can't get into all the colleges they choose and it's important for parents to make their kids see that it's virtually impossible unless your rich or upper middle class to afford the full tuition for 4 years without taking out loans.

I think it's sad that colleges are becoming picker with each passing year. It's hard enough for poor kids and lower middle class kids to afford college, much less high school. Scholarships and even Fasfa have intrest on them so you gotta pay back all that money you borrowed after you graduate college and get a job. Teaching for example now requires a master degree which means you can teach with a bachelor's but you gotta go to school for 4 more years to get the "required" degree. Even with a master degree teachers are paid virtually little money for all the work they have to do and putting up with smart aleck kids. I know me for example can't go to college since my religion forbids using intrests which means I can't take out a loan or fafsa to go to college. I do think kids need to realize that they can't get into all the colleges they choose and it's important for parents to make their kids see that it's virtually impossible unless your rich or upper middle class to afford the full tuition for 4 years without taking out loans.

Unfortunately, as a private tutor and a mom,I disagree that going to college is just an exercise in learning how to live with-in a budget and a place to learn from your mistakes. College life today is way different than when I attended. It's not suffiecient for any student to graduate with just a BA or a BS. Most students know that they have to go to a compettive graduate institution and getting into good graduate programs require more than life experience enhancement in college.

Attending college, like living life is extremely competitive and a laissez faire attitude won't help.

Getting into college is easy.
Getting into a "good" college is harder.

It is this notion of a "good" college that is the problem.

When my daughter and the rest of her friends were applying to colleges, I told them it doesn't matter where you go to college. I doesn't even really matter much what you major in - the majority of people I know ended up in careers that had little or nothing to do with what they majored in.

it doesn't matter where you get your degree, or what you get it in. What matters is that you recognize college for what it is - a 4-year learning lab for adulthood.

We think we are sending our kids to college for an academic education, and yes, they usually end up with one. But the real reason we send them is to learn to become a grown-up - to learn to live within a budget, to learn to get along with others who don't look or think like them, to learn about cause and effect, and most important, to become responsible for one's self and one's actions.

In other words, we send them to college to make mistakes, and learn from them.

If we can help our kids understand what the real goal of going to college is - to learn to live lfe on life's terms - we'll go a long way towards relieving a lot of anxiety that shouldn't be there in the first place.

Don't worry so much about getting into a "good" college. Concentrate on finding the college that is "good" for you.

This article joins the slew of others that are intended to hype up the anxiety of wealthy applicants in order to support the cottage industry associated with reducing the distress--tutors/coaches, books and articles on how to get into college. Newsweek itslef is highly motivated to increase the angst because the angst propells the wealthy to buy their college guides and the magazine tiself, that has multiple rankings associaed with colleges. The more hype the more Newsweeks fly off the shelves. In fact, there are plenty of terrific schools that are not part of the hype and that are accessible to students. Also, studies have shown that it is the students that the hyped schools attract,, rather than the education that they provide, that accounts for subsequent success of the Ivy graduates. Studies comparing students who got offers but turned down Harvard in favor of other less expensive less hyped schools, did just as well post graduate as those that went. Yes, these schools produce students who are successful but those students would be successful if you kept them in a box for 4 years and taught them nothing.

This article may have left readers with an inaccurate impression about Washington and Lee University. The institution is, in fact, one of the most selective liberal arts colleges in the U.S.



Since 1994, the average high school percentile rank of Washington and Lee's first-year students has been 90 percent or higher, meaning that the average first-year student then was in the top 10 percent or higher of his or her high school class. Recent years have seen that number climb to the 92nd and 93rd percentiles.



Over the same period, Washington and Lee admitted only 36 percent maximum of applicants. The last two years were the most competitive in our 259-year history, when we admitted only 27 percent both years.



Further facts can be found at the Washington and Lee Web site, with all the statistics on first-year admission trends: http://ir.wlu.edu/factbook/admissions/trends.htm.

Don't we just need more elite colleges?

The focus of this article represents what???s wrong with America. For the rich white kids or the kids in the upper middle class, the results are ginger peachy. What about the non-rich and the non-white? Colleges are getting more expensive. We???re cutting back on financial aid to needy students. Inner city schools are over-crowded and crumbling. But a solution is in sight. Just send military recruiters to inner city high schools and promise college scholarships. Military recruiters even promise automatic citizenship for children of the undocumented. Of course the military does not tell its inner city recruits that they will not get full college tuition. Many Iraq war veterans are finding this out the hard way when they return. Furthermore, if poor kids do manage to get into college, they frequently find themselves saddled with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt - something children from well-heeled families don???t face Something is wrong here. First of all the rich in this country should send their kids over to Iraq to fight - this would reduce the college crunch. Secondly we need to tax the rich so more of the poor can go to college instead going to Iraq. We need to equalize the playing field.