Starting Early to Prepare for College

Parents of high school students have access to lots of information about preparing their children for college. But families rarely realize that there are steps to be taken as early as elementary school to set their students up for college readiness and success, especially in families where going to college is not a given and students may not fully understand how and why they should consider a college education.

The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), founded in 1937, is the professional organization for college admission professionals - admissions officers, counselors, financial aid counselors, and private college consultants. This year, NACAC has consolidated and updated several prior handbooks to create Step by Step: College Awareness and Planning for Families, Counselors and Communities. This multi-part publication includes curriculum for students starting in elementary grades and continues with separate guides for middle school and early and later high school years. There is also a section on financial aid and accompanying PowerPoint presentations. Spanish language versions are also available.

This curriculum is particularly intended for professionals who work with "underrepresented and underserved students to provide comprehensive tools for meeting the needs of first-generation students and their families." Starting with worksheets on things like "What Do I Want to Be When I Grow Up?" in elementary school, and moving on to questions for older students about short and long-term goals, and lessons on types of colleges and standardized testing, the curriculum is rich with ways to engage students to look at higher education through the lens of their life interests and where it can take them. And, as this curriculum makes clear, it is never to early to start to think about college.

Gallup on What Makes a College Degree “Worth It”

A majority of people in the United States believes that it is important to get a college education. For one thing, adults with only a high school diploma earn, on average, considerably less than adults who graduated from college. Perhaps more importantly, a more advanced degree also allows graduates more choices about the jobs they take and the lives they lead. The perception that college is critical prompts ever-rising numbers of young people to drive themselves into heavy debt to attain the goal of attending college. But is it really worth it?

The results of a recent study by Gallup provide some interesting answers. The Gallup-Purdue Index collected information about 30,000 college graduates in the United States, going beyond just salary to measure the subjects’ engagement in their work, the extent to which they thrived socially and financially, their sense of purpose, and even their physical well-being. The results indicated six elements of emotional support and experiential learning in college that are correlated with long-term career and life success.

These experiences impact graduates’ lives so heavily that Gallup calls them the “Big Six.” Adults who report experiencing all of the following six elements in college perform better on every measure of long-term success than graduates who missed out on these experiences. In college, successful adults generally report:

1. Encountering a professor who made them excited about learning

2. Working with professors who cared about them as people

3. Having a mentor who encouraged them to pursue their goals and dreams

4. Working on a long-term project

5. Placement in a job or internship where they applied what they were learning

6. Being extremely involved in extra-curricular activities

The difference between the outcomes of graduates who experienced all six elements versus those who experienced none of them is nothing short of astonishing. For example, results indicate that 82% of Big Six graduates felt prepared for life after college. In contrast, only 5% of those who had none of these experiences felt prepared. Sixty-five percent of employees whose college experience contained all six elements reported being engaged at work while only 25% of those who experienced none of the elements did. Keep in mind that the adults polled are all college graduates.

In light of these results, Gallup’s Brad Busteed, executive director of Education and Workforce Development, advocates adding graduation requirements that would prompt colleges to provide students with experiential learning and supportive relationships in addition to traditional coursework.

College hopefuls, and their parents, should read the original article and view the results in detail; careful selection of a school that can provide this winning formula could make all the difference.

Photo credit: State Farm via flickr cc

American Heritage College Planning

High school students and their families are always looking for useful sources of information about college planning, colleges, and everything related to the process of moving beyond high school to the next step in a student's education. There are countless articles, books, websites, and colleges themselves to learn about, but it is difficult for students and their parents to keep up with the constant flow of information and the seemingly endless lists of colleges to consider. High school guidance counselors and web-based college planning programs can be helpful, but we have found another terrific resource for students, parents, and their counselors alike.

American Heritage College Planning is a Facebook page administered by Luciana Mandal, M.Ed., Director of College Planning at American Heritage School, a private Pre-12 school (with over 1400 high school students) in Plantation, Florida. Featuring the oft heard quotation attributed to Frank Sachs, Past President of the National Association of College Admission Counselors (NACAC), "College is a match to be made, not a prize to be won," the page includes links to current books and articles, information about specific colleges, and planning tips that can be useful to all students thinking about college. 

"The media can often skew information," Ms. Mandal noted. "So, when we see well-written and accurate articles in the media that represent our real experiences in the field, we like to make them available to anyone who follows our Facebook Page." She continued, "The practice in our college office at American Heritage is to guide students individually, based on family and student priorities. We believe that education is a process and not a race, and that the college degree is a step toward a career. That "good fit" college is what we seek for each student, so having toured over 250+ colleges (collectively in our department), we know much more about the college fit than where it sits on a rank list. Therefore, the articles we post present important angles not well-known to the public."

It's easy enough to keep up with the information posted by Ms. Mandal and her colleagues; just add the page to your "friends" list and be prepared to be informed.  

Free Back-to-School Workshops for Parents and Educators

The Yellin Center for Mind, Brain, and Education will present a series of free back-to-school workshops for parents and educators at our Center on West 29th Street in Manhattan in the coming weeks.

Jeremy Koren

First up: on Tuesday, September 24, Paul B. Yellin, MD, FAAP,, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine and Director of The Yellin Center will discuss ADHD, Attention, and Learning. Special emphasis will be placed on the topics of common symptoms, the process of diagnosis (and what labels like "ADHD" really mean), some recommended treatments, and how to deploy individualized strategies to best support weak attention and executive-function controls in learners at every grade level, from elementary school through college.

On the following evening,Wednesday, September 25, Susan Yellin, Esq. will present College 101: What Students with Learning Issues (and Their Parents) Should Know. Mrs. Yellin will focus on matters of import to students and parents who are in various stages of the process of transitioning from high school to the more independent setting associated with colleges and universities, including admissions, student support services, choosing a school, SAT/ACT testing issues, disability disclosure considerations, and more. Parents of students from middle school through 12th grade should find this presentation highly informative.

Finally, on Thursday, October 17, Dr. Yellin will present a special discussion on Memory and Learning. In this conversation, Dr. Yellin will aim to provide parents with a new understanding of how variation in the brain functions which control memory can impact a student's performance in school.

All of these events are free, but advance registration is required and space will be limited. Doors open at 4:30 p.m.. Events will begin promptly at 5 p.m. and conclude by 6 p.m. each night.

Register online here, or call The Yellin Center at (646) 775-6646. Please tell a friend to join you! We hope to see you there.

Download printable fliers for the events here and tack them up on your local community or school bulletin board.


-Jeremy Koren

An Experiment in Being "Test Flexible"

We've written before about the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, usually referred to as Fairtest. Fairtest's website includes lists of colleges that are SAT/ACT optional and can be a helpful resource for students who believe that their scores on these exams don't reflect their real abilities.

Brandeis University in Massachusetts, one of the schools on the Fairtest list, has taken an interesting approach to what they call being "test flexible". As described by the University, students applying to Brandeis can choose to submit a combination of scores in subject tests, or an academic portfolio that includes a sample of analytical writing and an additional teacher evaluation. However, even students who don't submit traditional SAT/ACT tests will be asked for these scores after they matriculate. After two years, the Brandeis Senate will decide, based upon the success of the text flexible admitted students, whether to change, expand, or eliminate this program.

Brandeis University, by Hannah Rosen

Andrew Flagel, who heads up student enrollment at the school, is quoted in a Brandeis newsletter as noting, “This is an evolutionary change, since we already strive to de-emphasize the role of standardized tests in our admissions decisions through the careful evaluation of high school program and grades, recommendation letters, interview reports, and other ‘non-cognitive’ factors.” He further noted that this research based approach to test flexible admissions allows the University to maintain its high academic standards while giving students control over how their application will be evaluated. 

We will be interested to see how this experiment in having students decide how to best "package" themselves for admission will turn out.