Winter Break from the Monotony

by Kendra Weinisch on November 20, 2009

With Thanksgiving weekend, we will get a preview of the winter break we can look forward to. If yours is anything like my family, there will be a lot of television-watching interrupted only by videogame-playing and arthritis-inducing text messaging. I appreciate my children’s need to relax and unwind, but the idea of such mental lethargy is a little upsetting. That’s why I was so intrigued by a friend’s story about a Maryland program that keeps students’ minds from freezing over while the weather outside is frightful.

When winter break rolls around, students at the Thornton Friends School, in Silver Spring, are invited to participate in a two-week session of extracurricular activities aimed at making the students well-rounded and expanding their “life skills.” The courses, which are taught by teachers at the school, focus on things like outdoor survival skills, art, music, home repair basics, and writing. Last year’s outdoor skills students journeyed to Joshua Tree National Monument in Southern California. They spent two weeks hiking through the park, which does not have toilets or running water, all the while carrying fifty-pound backpacks and, presumably, singing marching songs. The situation sounds a little too intense for me, actually. However, the intersession participants who stayed in Maryland stretched and painted their own canvases, created a literary magazine, or formed a rock band (all with the educational guidance of their teachers). I was particularly moved by the home repair group, which utilized its newfound drywall skills by fixing up the home of a family in need.

A program such as this one may not be available at your child’s school, but the premise is certainly easy to reproduce. I have often thought to myself about the simple things I wish I had been trained in as a young adult. I wasted so much time learning about absolute numbers and “Y” as a function of “X,” but no one ever taught me how to balance a checkbook (not even in college). Likewise, I was on my own the first time I left my headlights on and had to jumpstart my car. And while I certainly don’t want to guide my kids out to the desert to recreate basic training, a lesson on disaster preparedness would be good for the whole family. If nothing else, life-skills training is a way to get your kids off the couch and, theoretically, the juices flowing in their little heads. It’s also a way to bond with them while disproving their theory that they are smarter than you about everything. This winter break, give your kids a challenge with a homework assignment of your own—after they clean their rooms and shovel snow off the driveway, of course.

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Are Universities Discriminating Against Women?

by Kendra Weinisch on November 19, 2009

“Probe of Extra Help for Men.” The headline on the Inside Higher Ed website shocked me. Could it be that the tide has shifted and that male students now require affirmative action to get into college? It seems impossible. For as long as I can remember, there have been organizations dedicated to eradicating the gender imbalance in academia (weighted, of course, toward men). Throughout school, all I heard were rallying cries for women continuing after high school, taking advantage of admissions assistance policies, and scholarship opportunities specifically for the fairer sex. Clearly, times have changed.

According to an article in the New York Times, “’for every one hundred women who graduate with a bachelor’s degree, only seventy-three men’ do so.” This describes the backend but doesn’t explain why these boys are having trouble getting in to begin with. Then I read further. Apparently, these gender imbalances—and consequent discrimination issues—are most common at small, private liberal arts schools. Okay, I can buy that. It seems that the ratio of women to men at these schools is hovering around six to four. To try to keep the balance, these schools may be favoring men in their admissions processes. Although private undergraduate universities are exempted from Title IX admissions rules regarding gender, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has launched a study to determine if the accusations of favoritism, which are often downplayed by the schools, are accurate.

Interestingly, the trend is moving into non-liberal arts schools as well, particularly research universities. The majority of bachelor degrees, fifty-eight percent, now go to women. To attract male students, schools are trying different approaches. Some are simply letting their admissions records do the talking, hoping the statistics will illustrate that they are friendly to male applicants. A study by Skidmore College, a small school in upstate New York, found that “being a male applicant raises the probability of acceptance at these schools by between 6.5 and nine percentage points.” Others schools are more creative. Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, refreshed its marketing materials with more pictures of sports and students in hands-on learning situations. Others are going farther, expanding their sports departments and fraternity rows.

Getting into college becomes more complex every year. These arguments of favoritism underscore the importance of doing your homework on prospective universities. If your son is looking for good odds on admission into college, you might want to start your search at liberal arts and research schools.

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529 Plans: A Great Way to Save for College

November 13, 2009

By the time your high school student applies to college, you’ve probably already done some financial planning for it. Perhaps that planning involved a jar in the kitchen or even a CD at the bank. Often overlooked, there is also the “qualified tuition plan,” or 529 (called that because they are authorized by Section 529 [...]

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Scholarships: Your Child’s Ticket to the School of Their Dreams

November 11, 2009

Every student has a dream school, a university that embodies all of the images they have had about college since they were old enough to fantasize about coed dorms. For many parents, a hefty price tag has made their child’s dream school a personal nightmare. If your son or daughter has their heart set on [...]

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Early Action vs. Early Decision: Do Early Applicants Get the Worm?

November 6, 2009

Nothing says happy holidays like having the college application process wrapped up. Imagine the winter break without a looming deadline or unwritten personal essay hanging over your child’s head. This relaxed, joyful vacation is possible for students who take advantage of the early action and early decision options from some major universities. But don’t adhere [...]

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AVID: College Prep in One Hour a Day

November 3, 2009

With tennis, baseball, student government, wilderness club, and an academic schedule packed with advanced placement (AP) and honors classes, it’s a wonder my eldest son has time to breathe much less concentrate on preparing for college. But he does. Some kids have the gift, I guess, and thrive on perpetual motion. I was definitely not [...]

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Make a Difference to Your Child’s Education: Volunteer

October 14, 2009

The act of volunteering at your child’s school used to be a quaint notion generally reserved for stay-at-home mothers. Free time in the middle of a weekday seems an impossible luxury for corporate crusaders and other full-time workers. Even after the bell rings, few of us make it to the PTA and school site council [...]

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College Matchmaking 2.0

October 13, 2009

There are two new Web sites that are making choosing a college more interactive. Cappex and Zinch are like Match.com for universities and students, combining the personal profiling of Facebook with the ability to search for perfect mates based on specific criteria.
On the sites, students build profile pages about themselves. They can include pictures, videos, [...]

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Choosing the Best State School For Your Child

October 9, 2009

Despite popular Hollywood depictions of quaint, fire-lit study halls and knotty-wooded private school lecture halls, the majority of American college students attend public universities. Of course, this is not to say that you have to attend a private university to enjoy traditional architecture and crackling fires in common areas (in fact, many movies and television [...]

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Sure, There’s Ivy, But How Does Your College Rank in Terms of Value?

October 7, 2009

I’d love for my children to enjoy the dinner table-size classes that I hear about outside the state schools, but how do you find those hidden gems?

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