No School for the Fall? No Need to Panic

Most students know where they will be in school this fall. They may be continuing in the same school they have attended, only one grade higher. Or they may be moving to another school, either from an elementary to a middle school, or from middle to high school. Many have even visited their new classrooms and met their new teachers during a "moving up" day at the end of the school year. Even students whose families have relocated to another school district -- nearby or across the country -- generally know where they will be starting school in August or September.

 

But not all students have a place for the coming year. Public schools in some areas, including New York City, may have a shortage of places in desirable schools and place some students on waiting lists, so that while a student will have a place somewhere, he or she may not know exactly where at this point in the summer. 

Other students are new to the city, and have not yet been enrolled. For these students, the NYC Department of Education has information available on their New Student Page., which includes information on what documentation is needed for enrollment. They also offer in-person assistance at Family Welcome Centers, which are located in every borough.

For private school students, the situation is a bit different. While public schools must provide a place for every student (although sometimes, due to  over-enrollment in some schools, this doesn't happen by the first day of school), private schools of all kinds have no such requirement. They can generally determine their admissions criteria and often set up their classes months in advance. Many families apply to these schools almost a full year before their student would actually start classes. And that situation can be even more so for private schools for students with special learning needs. 

However, even for students with special learning needs facing limited spots in schools that can offer them the support they require, all is not lost. First, keep in mind that a school that might be full in June can have openings by August, as families move or change their plans. Stay in touch with the admissions office of the school(s) you are interested in and let them know you would enroll if a spot opens up. Also, despite what parents may hear (and schools don't want to advertise this fact), but especially in times of economic uncertainty or downturn, not all of these schools fill their spots. Private school is very expensive, and whether families pay completely on their own, or are seeking reimbursement for special education tuition, some parents find these schools beyond their means.  It never hurts to inquire about last minute openings. There is also the possibility of mid-year openings, as schools or families realize that the "fit" between a particular school and student is not a good one. Again, stay in touch with admissions officers to learn of these places. 

Parents of students who require special education and were contemplating private school should keep in mind that the public system not only is required to accept their child, but to provide him or her with a free, appropriate education (FAPE) under an IEP. There are many reasons why this solution may not be acceptable for some parents, including class size and the rigor of special education supports (although some public schools do provide strong special education programs) but it can offer an alternative while parents seek a private setting they may prefer. 

Photo by Pete Bellis on Unsplash

Private School Admissions: An Early Start

Finally, even the last schools to start the year -- those in New York City -- are opening their doors to students tomorrow. Parents everywhere can take a deep breath and know that their children are settled in to their school and class until late next spring.

Unless, of course, your child is moving to a new school level after this year. Or you are thinking about moving him to different school. Or it is time to consider a private special education setting. For these families, there is no respite come the fall. For many private schools, especially those that are well regarded for their academics or general reputation, or those that do a good job helping students with learning or other challenges to succeed, the early fall is the time to begin the admissions process for the following school year.

Parents who go to a private school's website will see that there are open house dates scheduled for as early as the beginning of September. Application deadlines vary, but tend to align with those for college admissions. Many schools have rolling admissions, filling spots as qualified applicants apply and closing the application process once their classes are filled. Other schools have a fixed deadline and will then look at the body of applicants to make sure their classes are balanced in terms of things like academic abilities, gender, and special needs.

So, parents who are thinking ahead and considering a different school for their child for next year should not delay in launching their investigation. Not sure where to begin? The guidance counselors in your child's current school may be a good starting point. If your current school is not a good fit, or if your child is aging out, they should be able to point you to places to consider and can sometimes help shortcut the admission process. You can also look at some of the local and national websites that list schools and often have features that allow you to search for specific attributes and locations.

Most schools have colorful websites, filled with photos of happy students and statistics about enrollment and achievements. Still, the school website is the best place to begin your investigation. Look at information about curriculum, special learning supports, and important numbers, such as class size and tuition. Sign up for an open house or small group tour, the earlier in the term the better. An open house with presentations and tours of empty classrooms may yield some sense of a school's atmosphere. More helpful is a tour that occurs during the school day and gives parents a glimpse of what goes on in classrooms.

If possible, look at the classroom for your child's current grade.  These students will likely be his or her classmates. Can you see your child fitting in with this group? Is the classroom a calm and welcoming place? Is there individual attention to students' needs, especially important in a special education setting? Then, if possible, visit the classroom for the grade your child will be in when he or she enrolls.This will give a sense of what is being taught, a possible teacher at that level, and what the classroom for that grade looks like. Can you see your child fitting into this setting?

And what about those families who children need to make a school switch at the last minute, or in the middle of the school year? These could be children with newly diagnosed learning challenges or who are just not fitting in to their current school. Or a family may have to relocate mid year for work or other reasons. Are they just out of luck? Fortunately, many good schools, both for typical learners and for students with special learning needs, have last minute or mid-year spots available. Choices may be more limited, but parents should reach out to schools and inquire. And parents should keep in mind that public schools must enroll every child who lives in their district.

High School Athletes: Thinking Ahead to College

Applying to colleges can be an overwhelming proposition for most students, but those hoping to play sports in college have an additional series of factors to consider. This is especially true for students hoping to play for universities and colleges known for their academic standards, which tend to allocate fewer resources to athletic recruitment. However, athletic skill can be powerfully influential in the admissions process, so it's worth students' time to learn about the process and develop and implement a strategy.

First, students should familiarize themselves with the National Collegiate Athletic Association's many rules and regulations. Athletes should check with the Eligibility Center, where they can learn what criteria they must fulfill to play college sports. They can also download a helpful guide for college-bound student-athletes from the website. Finally, they should register for the NCAA to begin making themselves visible to coaches.

Most high school students don't launch seriously into the processes of researching and applying to colleges until at least their junior years. But, according to Amy Rader Kice, assistant dean at St. Edward's University, athletes need to get moving sooner. Rader Kice writes that coaches often begin contacting highly promising athletes during their sophomore years, and many athletes know up to a year in advance which school they'll be attending and representing. It may be best to start narrowing down a list of schools during a student's freshman year of high school, then initiating contact with coaches the following year.

Marketing one's self as a college-level athlete is a lot like applying for a job. Because NCAA rules limit the amount of contact coaches can have with prospective college athletes, students should initiate contact themselves; there's no penalty for that. Again, this is particularly important for students who want to attend academically rigorous schools, says Keith Blackwell, founder of a subscription-based website designed to connect student-athletes and college coaches called Elite College Sports.

Students should submit whatever evidence of their prowess they can—videos of them playing, statistics, times, etc.—along with evidence that they can perform in the classroom as well. GPA, standardized test scores, and recommendation letters from teachers as well as coaches are all useful to coaches, who don't want to risk recruiting athletes who may lose eligibility if their grades aren't up to par.

Any serious athlete knows that training in the off-season is important. By the same token, summers can be critical periods for athlete recruitment, too. Many universities offer summer workshops in which coaches work with high school athletes; start looking for postings in February and March. For those who can afford to attend, it's a win-win: coaches are on the lookout for promising talent, and the athletes can benefit from coaches' wisdom and tips at the same time.

Finally, students should remember that a super-sonic fastball or a perfect three-pointer aren't the only things that turn coaches' heads. Coaches want to recruit students who demonstrate leadership, initiative, and resilience. Good sports who are enjoyable to have in the locker room are a pleasure to coach and can buoy a whole team's spirits. Demonstrating good citizenship may be just as important as demonstrating athletic skill.

Different Ways to Think About and Apply to College

High school students, especially seniors, can't help but think about college. So much of their high school career -- coursework, extracurricular activities, grades, and standardized exams -- have been undertaken with thoughts of how these will translate into college acceptances by the second semester of senior year. Many students have spent time in recent months visiting campuses and deciding where they want to submit applications this fall.

Before you or your senior decides where to apply and, ultimately, where to enroll, we'd like to make a suggestion that may help inform your decision process.

Take the time to read or re-read the book Colleges That Change Lives: 
40 Schools That Will Change the

Way You Think About Colleges, by Loren Pope. Originally written in 1996, with a current 2013-14 edition updated by Hilary Masell Oswald, this book is a breath of fresh air in the world of competitive admissions, large schools, and ivy envy that permeates many students' college search. The narrative descriptions of these almost universally small colleges focus on the quality of teaching, the engagement of students with their professors, curriculum, and classmates, and the impact that this kind of personalized instruction has on alumni long after graduation.Most of the schools in this book accept a large percentage of applicants -- and a large number are SAT/ACT optional and take a goodly number of "B" students. But the education they provide is rigorous and meaningful, with many having a required core curriculum that gives students a deep understanding of their world and its unifying themes. Most have significant study abroad components, and it is clear that the authors believe this gives their students a significant advantage after graduation. 

Just a few examples of the different programs described in the book are:

• Emory and Henry College in Virginia, where, as the book notes, they do "a very good job supporting students who haven't hit their stride yet" with strong academic support services.
• Cornell College in Iowa (which the authors stress was the first Cornell, founded some dozen years before the ivy league Cornell), whose 1200 students study under a Block Plan, where they take one course at a time in an academic year of eight blocks of three and a half weeks each.
• Goucher College, in Maryland, where the 1500 students are required to spend at least one term abroad -- even if just the three-week January term or a summer. The book notes that around 30 percent of the students go abroad twice. One aspect of Goucher that is newer than even the most up-to-date revision of this book is that students can apply in one of several ways, including via video. The video application, only available for students who are applying via the non-binding, early action application, asks students to submit a short video about themselves and their goals. It is not the only way to apply to Goucher, but it may be just the way for some students to best demonstrate what makes them a desirable candidate. Take a look for yourself and see what you think. We hope this becomes a common way for other schools to learn about their applicants. 

News You Can Use

Our pile of newspapers and magazines -- paper and digital -- is growing all the time, and we sometimes get the feeling that education news is happening too quickly for us to keep up with it. Here are some items that we think are important to share.

• Hofstra University, the largest college on Long Island, with approximately 6,800 undergraduate and 3,000 graduate students, has announced that they are implementing a "test optional" admissions policy
  
  for students applying for admission for fall 2015. This policy will apply to all but international and home-schooled students. Hofstra is joining more than 800 other colleges and universities that no longer require SAT or ACT tests for admission. Recent research has demonstrated that there is no correlation between high standardized test scores and college success; researchers have found that the greatest predictor of college success is a high GPA in high school. You can find lists of other colleges that do not require standardized testing on the website of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, Fairtest.
• A new group -- the Coalition for Multiple Pathways to a Diploma, led by our colleagues at Advocates for Children of New York -- is looking at New York's dismal high school graduation rates and at ways to improve these numbers. Check out a report by the coalition and a PowerPoint presentation which presents some stark numbers: New York is well in the bottom half of states in graduation rates, with an overall graduation rate throughout the state of 74%, a rate which falls to less than 45% for students with disabilities. 
• ED, the Magazine of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has an excellent and lengthy examination of two U.S. Supreme Court cases impacting race and education -- Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 decision which outlawed segregation in public schools, and Milliken v. Bradley, a 1974 decision which barred most busing across school district lines to achieve racial integration of public schools and left de facto segregation and sharp differences between inner cities and their more affluent suburbs in place. 
  

New Research Finds No Correlation Between Standardized Testing and College Success

A new study from the National Association of College Admission Counseling may spell good news for high school students who dread the onslaught of standardized tests associated with college admissions. The research, conducted by Dr. William C. Hiss of Bates College and Dr. Valerie W. Franks of the University of Arkansas, indicates that students who did not submit SAT scores as part of their college applications fared just as well in college as students who performed well on these measures and sent their scores to colleges. A high GPA in high school, the researchers found, was the most important predictor of post-secondary success.

The study selected 33 public and private colleges and universities that all had “test optional” admissions requirements; that is, applicants could submit standardized test results if they wanted to, but these numbers were not required for their consideration as potential students. Drs. Hiss and Franks followed more than 122,000 students over the course of eight years, comparing the cumulative GPAs and graduation rates of students who submitted scores and students who did not. The results indicated virtually no difference between the two groups. Those who earned high GPAs in high school, however, tended to obtain similar results in their college courses.

High grades on high school report cards, postulates Hiss, demonstrate that a student has acquired the kind of discipline, curiosity, and study skills necessary to succeed at the college level. This measure, he believes, is a better indicator of a student’s abilities than the snapshot shown by an SAT or ACT score.

A significant difference between the submitting and non-submitting groups did reveal itself, however: The group that did not submit scores was more diverse, containing more students from low socio-economic backgrounds, students of color, and students with learning disabilities than the group that did send in test scores. Importantly, this group turned out to be just as capable, performing as well in college as its more homogeneous counterpart in terms of grades and graduation rates.

For minority students and exceptional students, groups that tend to perform more poorly on standardized tests, the results of this study could lead to helpful changes in college admissions. If it is true that performance on standardized assessments is a non-critical piece of application packages, more colleges and universities may make testing optional, or perhaps do away with the option of score submission altogether. This would spell good news for students who traditionally underperform on these measures. It’s good news for colleges as well; with updated policies, they can look forward to more diverse student populations.

Until there is a more universal policy of not requiring SAT or ACT tests for college admissions, students, families, and counselors can find searchable lists of schools where these tests are not required for admissions on the nonprofit Fairtest website.

NYC Private Schools to End Use of Controversial Admissions Test

We were very pleased to see the announcement in today's New York Times that most private schools in New York City will soon phase out the admissions test many of the City's elite private schools have administered since the 1960's to applicants as young as four years old.

Kevin Jarrett

The Independent Schools Admissions Association of Greater New York (ISAAGNY) advised its approximately 130 members by a letter dated on September 18th that a review of admissions practices for kindergarten and first grade concluded that the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI), which is administered by the nonprofit Educational Records Bureau and is universally referred to by New York parents as the "ERB", indicated that, "high-stakes testing of young children (under 8 years old) provides only a narrow assessment of their cognitive abilities and may not be predictive of future academic success." The group went on to note that, "due to the increased prevalence of test prepping, the results of the WPPSI are tainted and their credibility is in question due to coaching."

Dr. Yellin stated that he was heartened by this announcement and commented, "Today's announcement that private schools are likely to abandon the ERB is a positive development and a change for which we have advocated for some time. The reason stated is that the results have been compromised by widespread coaching and test preparation. The truth, as many educators have expressed to us, is that the system was misguided and flawed from the start. ERB's use portions of IQ tests that were never intended for this purpose. We strongly recommend Dr. Carol Dweck's wonderful book Mindset to provide perspective on this important issue."