Set­ting the bar for Amer­i­can pub­lic edu­ca­tion has been an ongo­ing topic in this coun­try, and right­fully so. From the overused com­par­i­son to for­eign coun­tries that far exceed our math, sci­ence and lan­guage edu­ca­tion to the over­whelm­ing crit­i­cism about No Child Left Behind, this topic sim­ply won't go away.
Last week, a group of state school superintendents, […]

As Eliz­a­beth men­tioned, Feb­ru­ary is a month filled with oppor­tu­ni­ties for bud­ding rela­tion­ships (col­lege accep­tance let­ters) and heart­break. (sigh…rejection let­ters).
In some cases, these same let­ters may force some soon-to-be grad­u­at­ing high schools seniors to revisit a ques­tion they once con­fi­dently answered months before pen­ning rough draft per­sonal state­ments. What's more, the answer to this question […]

Once upon time, Pell Grants, fed­eral loans from the gov­ern­ment, were a great asset to help stu­dents pay for their col­lege edu­ca­tion. How­ever, Kevin Carey, a pol­icy direc­tor at Edu­ca­tion Sec­tor, a D.C.-based think tank argues that this is no longer the case. In a recent arti­cle, he claims Pell Grants are not as beneficial […]

Happy New Year! 2010 should be a great year for Bet­ter­grads.
I received a face­book mes­sage from the Bet­ter­grads co-founder and social-entrepreneurship czar Kevin Adler, inform­ing me that he would be spend­ing the New Year’s week­end in the OC / LA area. Yes­ter­day I met up with him, his brother Chris, and Emer­ald (Chris’ girl­friend) at […]

An AP United States His­tory teacher once inter­rupted him­self dur­ing a lec­ture and shared with my fourth period class­mates the fol­low­ing fac­toid:
“If you think high school goes by so fast, wait until you get to col­lege. It goes by 4 times faster!”
Mr. Rober­son was cor­rect. At times, my col­lege career did feel like some­one was […]

Toward the tail end of my senior year, I would end most week­nights with the fol­low­ing rit­ual: Around 11:00 PM, I would climb a flight of stairs up to Jason’s suite, and would engage in a 30 minute ses­sion of play­ing one of Elec­tronic Arts’ best sell­ing video games, FIFA 2009 on Jason’s XBox.
I went […]

After read­ing Elizabeth’s post, I also wanted to empha­size the impor­tance of using aca­d­e­mic advis­ing ser­vices.
Meet­ing with your major’s depart­ment is impor­tant to do early and often. If you are unsure about your major, ask an adviser which classes you should start with. And as you progress in school, you should visit the […]

Thanks­giv­ing week­end is a time when many col­lege stu­dents are able to return home and see their fam­i­lies for the first time since those August and Sep­tem­ber move-in days. When col­lege is within dri­ving dis­tance from home, mak­ing the return trip by car for the Thanks­giv­ing hol­i­day feels like any other time when you come […]

In most of my blog posts so far, the sub­ject has fea­tured extra-curricular activ­i­ties (clubs, intern­ships, sport­ing events). How­ever, pur­su­ing many of these things can over­whelm any col­lege stu­dent. To avoid over­whelm­ing your­self, you can fol­low some of my tips.
Stay­ing in
No mat­ter where you go to school, there are plen­ti­ful oppor­tu­ni­ties to go out and […]

Some­where within the never-ending piece of lit­er­a­ture you might cur­rently know as the Com­mon Appli­ca­tion (or any col­lege appli­ca­tion for that mat­ter), you are asked to high­light some of your skills. Yes, it’s easy to write that you are pro­fi­cient in Microsoft® Word®, Excel®, and Pow­er­Point® (the later will become the bane of your existence […]