6 Tips to Write the Best Personal Admit Statement

By Rachelle Scott

While the attractiveness of a resume, qualification, or a recommendation later is hardly under your control, the personal statement is your one and only opportunity to have a clean slate and “wow” a college recruiter. This makes the personal statement one of the most important elements of your college application—and one that should be given a significant amount of effort and attention.

Since, personal statements are mean to be “personal”, what you write (within the given guidelines) is entirely up to you. However, college admission experts have admitted to liking certain key characteristics present in a personal statement.

Based on those key characteristics, we’ve gathered a list of tips that might help students write a compelling personal statement a college recruiter would be highly reluctant to turn down.

• Take your time: Never take only a day or two to finalize your personal statement. Plan it out, try various types, have them checked, and make sure you’re 100% sure about them before you hit submit. Your personal statement should never be a last minute thing!

• Make it about you—but not quite: Here’s the confusing part. Your personal statement should be personal—that means it has to be specific to you. However, if you look at it from a recruiter’s perspective, what’s important is why you are a good fit for the course, the college, or the program. In order words, they are interested in knowing what you can contribute to their program/university. Ask yourself questions like, “what sets me apart from other students?” or “what experiences do I have that are critical to study program?”Make sure you have a POD (point of differentiation) to elaborate on.

• Be descriptive: The more descriptive your essay, the clearer the picture you paint. This can be tricky if English is not your native language, in which case you might have to keep a dictionary and a thesaurus by your side. Look for words that are specific rather than generic. For instance, using “experienced” instead of “had” or “`favorable” instead of “nice”.

• Do your research: The same way you would for a resume intended to be for a particular organization, it’s important to tailor your personal statement according to the University you will be applying to. You can also research on the University or faculty members to figure out exactly why you are interested in joining them. For instance, you could be interested in doing research with a particular notable professor in the University, who’s a leading figure in the industry you’re interested in. Make sure you include these sorts of reasons.

• Follow the instructions: We don’t know if anyone ever told you this before, but every University has its own guidelines and preferences when it comes to personal statements. While some universities prefer a structured essay with word count limits, formatting, and other specification, others prefer to give the student’s freedom to write whatever they like. Make sure you follow the instructions or guidelines, and if necessary ask for help, see some examples, or pick something at groovy essays to be sure.

• Avoid Clichés: Never bore your admission officer with quotes like, “In order to succeed, we must first believe” or “education is the most powerful weapon”. Buzz words and topics are a complete turn off.

Try to make your personal statement different from what they’d find in the bunch of other personal statement they’ve read or will be reading. Regardless of what the moral or gist of your essay is, the trick is to write it in a way they’ve never seen before.

Rachelle Scott loves to research about new ways technology can be implemented in education and how the two can revolutionize the sector. She also loves to blog on the topics related to Education, College.

New Community College Students Do Not Know What To Do

“They Never Told Me What to Expect, So I Didn’t Know What to Do”: Defining and Clarifying the Role of a Community College Student
by Melinda Mechur Karp & Rachel Hare Bork
This article draws interview data from three community colleges in Virginia to articulate the largely unspoken expectations, behaviors, and attitudes to which community college students must adhere if they are to be successful.

Critiques Of Accreditation Start From Wrong Premise

From Real Clear Education

The many current critics of higher education accreditation tend to fall into a few categories: like Marco Rubio and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. Carol Geary Schneider has little in common with Duncan, and probably couldn’t agree less with Rubio’s views on higher education — she refers to their critiques of higher education as a “steady drumbeat of assaults” on accreditation. But the head of the Association of American Colleges & Universities takes her own shots at accrediting agencies, Inside Higher Ed reports. In what she calls an “urgent message” to the agencies and to policy makers, Schneider decries as dangerous the policy proposals that political candidates like Rubio and Duncan’s U.S. Education Department are putting forward to “fix” accreditation. That’s because they define quality and value in higher education heavily if not entirely in terms of economic “return on investment” (job placement, income levels, etc.), almost completely ignoring the “quality learning” that the 1,300 member colleges and universities of Schneider’s organization strive to deliver.

Colleges Lead With Smile But Collect Loans With A Fist

9 Websites College Students Should Know This Holiday Season

By Jane Hurst

Whether you are trying to get through the last few weeks of classes before the holiday break, or you are trying to get ready for the holiday season, chances are that you are going to be a bit rushed and flustered. After all, not only do you have to get through your exams, you also have to make plans to travel home for the holidays, buy gifts, and a whole lot more. Luckily, there are loads of great websites out there that can help you get organized, and stay organized. Here are our top picks.

1. Wolfram Alpha– When you need to calculate a math problem, or get data on any number of things, this is the site to check out. You will find step-by-step answers to all math problems. The only downfall is that this site is no longer free to use. If you don’t want to spend any money, check out SymPy Gamma.
2. StudentRate– Visit this site to find the best deals on everything from clothing to travel to electronics to textbooks and a whole lot more. This is a good site to use when buying holiday gifts and planning your trip home.
3. Lynda– Here you will find a massive library that is loaded with video courses that will help you to learn loads of skills. The majority of these courses are based around media production and computing, and they are perfect for those who want to learn everything about computer software.
4. Citation Machine– This tool will help you to create bibliographies and source citations automatically. You can use this tool to search for a variety of sources, and if your search is recognized, it often fills in the citation fields for you.
5. Happy to Survive– If you are looking for a last minute gift for the prepper on your list this is an awesome site that is loaded with great gift ideas. Be sure to take some time to read a lot of the helpful articles yourself. You never know when you are going to need this information. In fact, some articles can help you to become more organized in your daily life, which is going to help you with your studies.
6. Google Calendar– This site has awesome smartphone apps, and it is a tool you need for organizing your life. It has been around for many years, and it hasn’t changed much. After all, if it isn’t broken, why fix it? You can use Google Calendar from any browser.
7. Stack Exchange– This is a great site to use when you have questions about any of the subjects you are studying. You can find a terrific collection of communities where there are loads of questions and answers, and you will likely get what you need right here. This is a great tool when you are confused about content just before an exam.
8. Dropbox– This is a god app for syncing all of your files and keeping them updated and backed up across all of your devices. The browser interface has recently improved, and you can even preview most types of files right in your browser with no need to download anything.
9. Mint– This tool lets you look at all of your banking information, credit cards, and other financial accounts in one location. You can track your spending, create budgets, and much more.

Byline:

Jane Hurst has been working in education for over 5 years as a teacher. She loves sharing her knowledge with students, is fascinated about edtech and loves reading, a lot. Follow Jane on Twitter!

50% Of Community College Students Struggle to Pay Food/ Housing

There is a breaking report, released this morning (Friday, Dec 4, 2015) by the HOPE Lab at the University of Wisconsin, reporting on a national survey of community college students.

Here is the report: http://tinyurl.com/ouzn6nt

The authors explain some of their findings in a New York Times opinion page piece, also released this morning. “Hungry, Homeless and in College
By SARA GOLDRICK-RAB and KATHARINE M. BROTON — DEC. 4, 2015”

States Vary In Growth Of Student Debt

Student Debt and the Class of 2014. By Debbie Cochrane, et al. The Institute for College Access and Success. Oct. 2015. 35 p.

http://ticas.org/sites/default/files/pub_files/classof2014.pdf

“At the national level, 2014 graduates were a little more likely to have student debt than their peers in 2004 (69% of graduates compared to 65%), and those who borrowed left school with a lot more debt. Average debt at graduation rose 56%, from $18,550 to $28,950, more than double the rate of inflation (25%) over this 10-year period. The rate of growth varied widely between states. While the majority of states saw the average debt of new graduates with loans rise two to three times faster than inflation, in five states it grew even faster—at more than triple the inflation rate, and in four states the growth was at or below the inflation rate.” California is considered a “low-debt” state, with the average student debt level at $21,382.

Students: Make Your Own Website For Many Benefits

By Melissa Burns

During the last decades Internet access has become a basic need for college students. There are many everyday things all young people can’t live without and good old web surfing makes an essential part of a college student’s life. Just think about it: the education routine takes tons of time. In that case the Web is a great help. It allows the youth not only to cope with studies but also make some time for virtual chat with friends.

Meanwhile, the main question remains without the answer: why do students actually need the Web access? The most common reasons for college undergraduates to spend a few quick hours in the Internet are:

• complete their homework;
• listen to local podcast or recent lectures uploaded by thoughtful professors;
• visit classes online;
• stay in touch with relatives and chums;
• for pure amusement: play online games, watch clips on YouTube, chat with like-minded people;
• seeking job opportunities.

How about to create your personal brand?

It is widely believed that life after college is full of chances to do things we love… To get a dream job. Not likely! Right after graduation many young employees face big disappointment. The reason is: there’s no job for you, my dear unknown but promising graduate.

Still, as soon as you have some time before entering the cruel world of adults, you can take care about your future today, of course, using the power of the Web. Create your personal brand to make you more competitive in the job market. It doesn’t matter whether you lack hands-on experience or not. The main thing here is to let your potential employer see the best of you. The summary for you is: build your personal brand now and get hired later.

Create your very own website

Suppose, you got the point of online self-branding. Your next move is to create a personal website to make it a virtual showcase of your current and future works. Believe it or not, but many business owners while looking for fresh ideas, visit personal blogs and websites of young talents. This strategy is very efficient because it allows potential employers to exclude thousands of mediocrities and hire a person with great potentials. Sounds pretty inviting, doesn’t it? However, before dreaming about your very own website, you need to think about one more thing.

Get web hosting

As you perfectly know, your showcase-to-be needs a place in the Web. Fortunately, these days you can find tons of hosting providers ready to help people in getting a spot in the virtual area. And not only that! Places like www.dailyhosting.net offer free hosting guides containing the latest info about different hosting companies. All you need to do in order to find a place for your site is to visit one of those online reviewers and choose a company you like most of all. They say, the first step is the hardest. Well, it’s definitely not that case, folks!

The bottom line of the whole story is that your online activity is a key to opening the gates to a wide world of possibilities. No matter, whether it be just a one-page portfolio or a full-fledged website, every step to self-perfection brings you closer to a cherished career. Let people know about you. Let them talk about you in popular social networks. After all, an actual job offer will be the best reward for your efforts.

Melissa Burns graduated from the faculty of Journalism of Iowa State University in 2008. Nowadays she  is an entrepreneur and independent journalist. Her sphere of interests includes startups, information technologies and how these ones may be implemented.

Student Evaluations Of Professors Flawed

By Dan Berrett, Chronicle Of Higher Education

In the coming weeks, students will participate in a ritual as familiar as it is reviled: evaluating their instructors.

One of the latest and most visible critiques of these assessments came this year from Carl E. Wieman, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. He cast doubt on their validity and reliability, proposing that instead, professors complete an inventory of the research-based teaching practices they use. That would be more likely to promote learning than garden-variety evaluations do, Mr. Wieman wrote in a recent issue of the magazine Change. “Current methods,” he said, “fail to encourage, guide, or document teaching that leads to improved student learning outcomes.”

Is there a better tool out there? If student input matters, how can it be made meaningful?

The IDEA Center, a 40-year-old nonprofit that spun off from Kansas State University, thinks it has a student-ratings system that overcomes two chief critiques of most surveys: poorly designed questions and misused results. Its course-evaluation tool, which has been steadily gaining traction on campuses, is designed to help professors judge how well they’re meeting their own course goals. “It’s all about the improvement of teaching and learning,” says Ken Ryalls, the center’s president.

Still, IDEA says it’s a mistake to rely too much on any one factor to evaluate teaching. That should involve multiple measures: student feedback, peer observation, and instructors’ self-reflection. “We’re the first ones to say that student ratings are overemphasized,” says Mr. Ryalls.

Most of what’s wrong with typical evaluations, he says, is that administrators often take their results as numerical gospel. The difference in scores of, say, 4.3 and 4.4 becomes objective and meaningful. That’s like judging a researcher on one standard, the center says, like number of publications or grant money. “Neither by itself would signal quality research,” the center’s staff wrote in response to Mr. Wieman, “any more than an average student ratings score should be used as the only measure of teaching effectiveness.”

Better To Compare US Education To Other States Than Nations

By Susannah Meyer

A report recently published by the Economic Policy Institute suggests that United States schools may not be trailing behind those of other countries as much as previous studies have suggested.

The report was authored in part by professor of education Martin Carnoy, an economist specializing in education who has been a professor at Stanford for more than 40 years. The report analyzes international results of two assessments, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).

Stanford professor emeritus of education and business administration Michael Kirst, who is also in his fourth term as president of the California State Board of Education, found Carnoy’s report to be both insightful and helpful as he continues to engage in work surrounding the improvement of California’s education.

“This is a very informative and unique analysis,” Kirst said. “I think a lot of international organizations like the OECD have been making claims about U.S. education and how to reform it without truly understanding it, and this will help get us on the right track.”

The Stanford Daily