(by Tamar Lewin — New York Times)
Harvard and Princeton each announced Thursday that they would revive their early-admission programs, allowing high school seniors who apply by next Nov. 15 to get a decision by Dec. 15 without having to promise to attend the college if admitted.
(by Laura Herrera — New York Times)
MIAMI — On the first day of her senior year at North Miami Beach Senior High School, Naomi Baptiste expected to be greeted by a teacher when she walked into her precalculus class.
Harvard University’s applications for undergraduate admission rose to an all-time high, making it harder than ever before to get into the college.
Raynard S. Kington may not have been the likeliest choice to be president of Grinnell College. His (numerous) degrees came from research universities, and his career has been focused on biomedical research institutions in large metropolitan areas — he was deputy director of the National Institutes of Health when he was named to lead Grinnell.
Primero Hay Que Aprender Español. Ranhou Zai Xue Zhongwen
(by New York Times Op-Ed Columnist Nicholas D. Kristof)
A quiz: If a person who speaks three languages is trilingual, and one who speaks four languages is quadrilingual, what is someone called who speaks no foreign languages at all?
(by Trip Gabriel)
It isn’t often that a third of a movie audience sticks around to discuss its message, but that is the effect of “Race to Nowhere,” a look at the downside of childhoods spent on résumé-building.
(by Robert J. Sternberg, The Washington Post)
Wait list. That was the outcome of my application to Yale. It was better than the outcome at Harvard, which was a rejection, and not as good as the outcome at Princeton, which was an acceptance. I was eventually admitted to Yale, and I later had an opportunity that very few applicants ever have: I got to find out why I had been wait-listed.
Your Child Left Behind
For years, poor performance by students in America relative to those in other countries has been explained away as a consequence of our nationwide diversity. But what if you looked more closely, breaking down our results by state and searching not for an average, but for excellence?
(by Amanda Ripley)
Imagine for a moment that a rich, innovative company is looking to draft the best and brightest high-school grads from across the globe without regard to geography. Let’s say this company’s recruiter has a round-the-world plane ticket and just a few weeks to scout for talent. Where should he go?
Our hypothetical recruiter knows there’s little sense in judging a nation like the United States by comparing it to, say, Finland. This is a big country, after all, and school quality varies dramatically from state to state. What he really wants to know is, should he visit Finland or Florida? Korea or Connecticut? Uruguay or Utah?
A Matter of Degrees
U.S. universities are still on top, but Asia is rising.
(by Emily Quanbeck)
America’s high schools may be struggling, but its institutions of higher learning remain the destinations of choice for college and postgraduate degree-seekers the world over—for now, at least. In the 2010–11 rankings of the world’s universities by Times Higher Education in London, U.S. schools earned the top five slots (in order): Harvard, Cal Tech, MIT, Stanford, and Princeton. Of the top 20 schools, the United States held 15 slots, the United Kingdom three, and Switzerland and Canada one each.
But American college and university presidents are keeping an eye on up-and-coming competitors in Asia. When The Atlantic recently asked a group of 30 American university and college presidents which countries are, in the next 10 to 20 years, most likely to attract students who would otherwise attend an American university, 24 of them named China. Sixteen named India, 15 said Singapore, 10 said Hong Kong, and nine said South Korea.
It is almost Thanksgiving. WOW! It seems as though it was just summer, with my students headed for college in the Fall of 2010 digging into the application process. Thanksgiving is a special date for me. In addition to it being my favorite holiday of the year, it is the deadline I give my students for completing all applications: Early Decision; Early Action; and Regular Admissions (even though the latter may be held in readiness to submit by the beginning of 2011). And I am delighted to say that this year all of my seniors are meeting that deadline. Indeed, they have done excellent work on their applications. Hopefully, they will reap good rewards!
EVANSTON, Ill. — If any of the 70 undergraduates in Prof. Bill White’s “Organizational Behavior” course here at Northwestern University are late for class, or not paying attention, he will know without having to scan the lecture hall.