More Ways Student Volunteers Can Support Our Veterans

Amherst College War Memorial

On Veterans Day, our nation honors the brave men and women who served our country and risked their lives to guarantee our freedoms.

In addition to thousands of active military and their families living in every corner of the country, there are almost 23 million vets in need of assistance, support, and simple friendship.

High school students can acknowledge the sacrifices made by our military by getting involved. You can volunteer for an organization serving veterans and/or military families, or you can initiate a project within your immediate community.

Your contribution can be as simple as taking time to meet regularly with an elderly veteran or as complex as initiating a holiday gift drive for families living on your local military base. Often the most valuable service you can provide is just being there and listening.

This Veterans Day, take a moment to reflect on the meaning of service.

Here are some ways student volunteers can help:

• Visit a wounded veteran in the hospital.
• Complete a Create The Good project where you can help military families with chores, repairs around the house or meal preparation.
• Organize a fundraising drive to purchase PX/BX gift certificates or calling cards for troops.
• Deliver meals or care packages to homebound veterans.
• Agree to foster a pet for military personnel deployed abroad or organize a drive to find families willing to foster pets.
• Start a club at your high school to adopt a platoon.
• Help a veteran tell their story through a project such as the Veteran's History Project. You can download a VHP field kit from the Library of Congress website.
• Join with friends to send cards and letters to the troops through A Million Thanks.org or Operation Military Support.
• Volunteer with an organization, such as Canine Companions for Independence, to provide therapy dogs to veterans.
• Together with your family or with the support of a school- or community-based organization, apply for the Adopt A Military Family Holiday Program.
• Organize a Military Moms Day Out event or create a service where you and your friends offer free babysitting services to military moms who need to run errands or spend time away from the kids.
• Host a party or put on a concert at a local VA Hospital.
• Arrange to send care packages through the USO, the Any Soldier Program, Treats 4 Our Troops, HeroBox.org, or Operation Gratitude.
• Support your local USO and volunteer to support “signature” services and events.
• Set up a drop-off site or organize a “drive” for cell phones for soldiers.
• Get your scout troop to pledge hours of community service to Operation Honor Cards, a project designed to support military families, service members and veterans.
• Say thank you.

The Point Foundation Reaches Out to LGBTQ Students

The Point Foundation (Point), the nation’s largest scholarship-granting organization for LGBTQ students is inviting qualified students to apply for one of many prestigious, multi-year scholarships.

Through partnerships with various philanthropic individuals, corporations, and nonprofit organizations, the Point Foundation has created an impressive network of scholarship programs, professional guidance, and mentoring opportunities for students who are underprivileged or have been “socially marginalized” by reason of sexual orientation, gender expression, or gender identity.

"Our Point Scholars represent the best and brightest in our community, coming from diverse educational fields, genders and gender identities, sexual orientations, racial backgrounds, economic circumstances and geography,” said Bruce Lindstrom, co-founder of the Point Foundation.  “Our scholars are chosen for their demonstrated leadership, scholastic achievement, involvement in the LGBTQ community, and financial need.”

Applicants will have until January 14, 2013, to submit Part I of the Point Scholars application, which is now available online.  Part II of the application is submitted only by students notified that they qualify and will be due by January 28, 2013.

Students who will be enrolled in undergraduate or graduate programs for the 2013-14 school year are eligible to participate. That means seniors in the process of applying to college may compete for the scholarships.

Successful candidates must demonstrate academic excellence, leadership skills, community involvement, and financial need.  Attention will also be paid to students who have lost the financial and social support of their families and/or communities as a result of revealing their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Point announced the selection of 29 scholarship recipients in June of 2012, bringing the number of students currently receiving financial assistance and programmatic support to 77.  Since 2001, Point has invested more than $14 million in the education and support of 222 scholars.

The average amount of annual scholarship support is approximately $25,000, per scholar/per year.  So this is a significant program for qualified students.

To learn more about the Point Scholars and begin the application process, visit the Point Foundation website. And check out the Campus Pride website for information on issues affecting LGBT students and LGBT college fairs.

UVa Adjusts Policy on “Rush” Scores

University of Virginia

If you have an extra $42 and move quickly, you can ensure that the University of Virginia will consider your scores from both the October and November SAT’s as part of your Early Action (EA) application.

But if you don’t happen to be a reader of Jeannine (Dean J) Lalonde’s Notes from Peabody blog, you might not be aware of the change in a long-standing UVa recommendation against rushing scores as costly, slow, and most importantly, paper-producing sources of admissions clutter.

In fact, if you attended presentations over the past several years, you might be laboring under the assumption that not only does UVa frown on students who rush scores but they might not even consider them.

“We used to say we didn't take rushed scores because the rush reports came by mail while regularly reported scores came electronically,” reported Ms. Lalonde on her blog.  “By the time the rushed scores got here and were scanned into the system, there wasn't that much time saved.”

For those unfamiliar with the term, the rush reporting service is yet another revenue source for the College Board.  Anyone who has taken the SAT or SAT Subject Tests, may request that their scores be rushed.  For a base price of $31 plus $11 additional per report, scores are sent within 2 business days (not counting holidays and weekends).  Schools accepting scores electronically will receive them in 2 days; colleges receiving them by disc or paper will receive them a little later.

The College Board is quick to warn that not every school accepts rushed scores (they don’t keep a list) and suggests that some colleges may not review scores until “their next scheduled processing date.”  In other words, you can pay the money and still not ensure that your scores will receive timely consideration.

While the change in UVa policy is welcome news, the problem is that Ms. Lalonde’s announcement came on November 2—past the original application due date and too late for students to contact the College Board to change their scores to “rush” in order to have them there by the extended November 4 deadline.

In addition, it came in a forum not every applicant or counselor takes note of and not on the UVa website, which makes no mention of the rush reporting service.

There is no problem with the October scores if you ordered them at the time you took the test.  But if you were like many UVa applicants and wanted to take advantage of the “Score Choice” opportunity to review your scores before sending, you had better spend the $42 to have them rushed especially since the admissions office isn’t clear whether or not scores must be requested or received by the deadline.

And there are no waivers here, you pay the outrageous fee or risk having the College Board take weeks to report your scores, which as Ms. Lalonde ominously suggests in her blog, should “…have you thinking about sending scores well in advance!”

The question of November score reports is a little murkier. Ms. Lalonde advises that November scores should be received in time for early action consideration if ordered at the time of registration or during the grace period allowed by the College Board immediately following the test administration.

But in response to the question of whether or not November scores will definitely arrive in time for early action, Ms. Lalonde doesn’t exactly commit, “I can't guarantee that we won't have looked at your file between deadline and November 20th, when scores from the November 3rd SAT/SATII are going to arrive. However, the EA review goes into January, so I think you should still send your scores.”

So it’s more a matter of luck and not policy how these scores will be treated in the application review process.

UVa certainly isn’t alone in the inconsistent ways it communicates revisions in admissions policies.  Columbia University, for example, made a major change in its Score Choice rules by simply editing an admissions page.   

And for those who heard the endless lectures on how UVa doesn’t assign territories or track “demonstrated interest,” check out Dean Robert’s plan to implement a “customer relations management” system to "acquire, track and assess data about prospective students" for purposes of improving enrollment management. 

There are a number of reasons colleges choose not to make a big deal over new deadlines, policies or procedures.  Perhaps it’s because the applicant base is new each year so there’s no need to revisit the past. Or maybe it’s just becoming such a game that colleges just want to see who’s awake.

20 Colleges with the Lowest Admission Rates

Cooper Union

In the backwards world of college admissions, prestige is all-too-often equated with exclusivity. A sad kind of perverse competition exists in which colleges proudly point to how few students they were able to accept in any given year as a badge of honor. During admissions season, the New York Times keeps a running tally, and US News and World Report (USNWR) uses these numbers as metrics in determining the “best” colleges.

But the reality is a little more complicated. Some of the most “exclusive” colleges in terms of admissions rates are there because they offer a specific kind of experience or have a corner on the education market. Others have low admission rates because tuition is free or extremely low.

So those who think the nation’s lowest admission rates are only found within the Ivy League will be surprised to find that the Curtis Institute of Music (3.2%) and the Julliard School (6%) are right at the top along with Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford for the lowest admission rates in the country.

The Naval Academy (7.5%) topped the local list, with Georgetown University (18.1%), Washington & Lee (18.2%), and Johns Hopkins (18.4%) all coming in under 20 percent.  Liberty University (24.6%), the Corcoran College of Art & Design (27.2%), the University of Richmond (32.7%), and George Washington University (33%) also made it onto the top 100 list.

Thanks to the numbers crunchers at USNWR, here is the most recent list of colleges with the nation’s lowest admission rates (the rest of the list may be found on the USNWR website):

• Curtis Institute of Music (3.2%)
• Julliard School (6%)
• Harvard University (6.3%)
• Columbia University (7%)
• Stanford University (7.1%)
• US Naval Academy (7.5%)
• Cooper Union (7.7%)
• Yale University (7.7%)
• Princeton University (8.5%)
• Brown University (8.9%)
• College of the Ozarks (8.9%)
• MIT (9.7%)
• Dartmouth College (10.1%)
• Florida Memorial University (10.5%)
• US Military Academy (10.6%)
• US Air Force Academy (10.8%)
• University of Pennsylvania (12.4%)
• Berea College (12.5%)
• California Institute of Technology (12.8%)
• Amherst College (13.3%)

Colleges Continue Pushing Back Early Deadlines

University of Chicago

Colleges are slowly waking up to the fact that many students on the east coast simply won’t be able to get applications completed in time to meet early deadlines.

While those targeting November 1^st were among the first to respond with revised due dates, colleges with later deadlines are now reassessing the likelihood that students most affected by the storm will not be able to get them in by November 15 or later.

“As a result of the storm aftermath, we have changed our Early Decision application deadline of November 15 to a soft deadline; applicants will have until December 1 to submit Early Decision applications to Syracuse University,” said  Nancy Rothschild, associate dean of admissions.  “Portfolio and audition deadlines have also been changed to December 1.”

In addition, several colleges, including Princeton University, which originally requested justifications for their extensions backed off when counselors loudly protested on behalf of students already overwhelmed with paperwork and essays.

Others have not.  The best guess is that students with access to phones or the internet should alert colleges asking for notification and then provide written justifications in the section of the application asking for “additional” information.

Note that some schools are also specifying that only those students “affected” by the storm should take advantage of later due dates.  Some continue to attach the term “flexible” to their storm statements leaving us to wonder just exactly what that means.

Still others, such as the University of Chicago, have given up setting a deadline and are asking for applications to come in as soon as “feasible.”

And be warned:  the dates are all over the place from UVa’s early action extension to November 4 to Virginia Tech’s early decision extension to November15. 

As an added aggravation, students can’t depend on the Common Application to update deadlines provided on their member requirement grid. 

Although colleges are notifying the Common App of extensions to ensure the software is adjusted to allow late submission, officials have announced that deadlines provided on the website will not be updated.  You have to find the information elsewhere.

Luckily other organizations are working to fill the gap. Expanding on a list begun here immediately after the storm, the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC) put out a request to member colleges for information on plans to postpone early deadlines.  Their list is being updated daily but provides very few specifics and only links to websites (and sometimes they’re not working).  The NY Times is also building a list.

As always, the best sources of information are the colleges themselves.  It’s almost certain that deadlines will require further adjustment down the line, so keep checking back.

Again, the best advice to students is to complete the process of applying early as soon as you are able.  If you don’t need the extension, why drag out the process a minute longer than necessary?

And for those truly affected by the storm—stay safe.  You no doubt have other more important things to deal with, and colleges really do understand.