Ever since I was first interviewed for a news story and especially when I was interviewed for the documentaries I was in (both the Test and The Art of Thinking and Netflix’s Operation Varsity Blues). I’ve been fascinated by what’s left out. I asked both producers of the documentaries if they would release the uncut footage but alas that’s not something they do. I feel that the cutting room floor and editing choices are as interesting as the final product.
So in the spirit of practicing what I preach, I’ll periodically post my cutting room floor. Anything labeled “cutting room floor” will be incomplete thoughts, mildly edited text, unfact checked data points, etc. Do with it as you see fit.
Things worth reading
A couple things of note that are worth paying attention to.
Jon Boeckenstedt published an analysis of discount rates at colleges and its well worth reading and playing with. If you’re unfamiliar with the term discount rate, it captures aid that isn’t new money (merit aid that is essentially discounting, grants that are discounts, basically all the things that are coupons). Jon breaks it down nicely. And you can look up individual colleges. As you can see from the screenshot below, you can rollover a university and see their discount rate and even the percent of full pay (Damn Georgetown . . . I guess money means merit). Click here to check it out.
Also, I wrote a thing. I looked at the latest IPEDS data (government reporting of educational statistics), which is for the 2022 enrolling class of college students, to see trends in how many students are enrolling without test scores. The big take away is lots of kids are enrolling without test scores, but I’m not revising my previous advice on should you test. Ask the 3 questions: Should my child prep? Should my child test? Should my child submit? The screenshot below shows one of the tables in the post. As you can see the number of students ENROLLING (not applying) with scores has dropped precipitously since 2018. Click this link to see the full post.
Merit: Myths and Money
Many people believe that merit aid means aid awarded for students who are the smartest and most accomplished, but that’s not true. I just spent months reviewing state-funded “merit” scholarship policies and school-funded “merit” scholarships rules at flagship universities and what I found WILL SHOCK YOU!
All dramatics aside, my report found a few important, and somewhat surprising to me, things:
1. Metrics not merit.
Merit means nothing. There is no formal definition of merit. There is no formal determiner of who is meritorious and who isn’t. So getting a “merit” scholarship just means you met whatever criteria was set.
Many “merit” scholarships are given on the basis of random criteria, for example this one:
My Favorite College Search Things
It’s easy to hard to find information on colleges, its hard to sort out what’s good info from what’s bad. I am constantly sending emails to people about tools to support college search and learning about what tools are good and which aren’t. So I’m going to try to compile my favorite things in this post.
This will include all the things I think you should read and use to help you understand the higher education landscape and related industries. This is essentially the listicle form of this post with additional things added in each section. I’ll update it as I remember.
Enjoy.
#HateRead: Admissions, testing and the media
Back in 2016 I wrote about the media coverage of college admissions and testing issue. I’d taken to fisking articles on Twitter under the hashtag #hateread and thought I needed to provide a bit more explanation of that and nuance. I’m updating it now because, with all that’s going on (waves vaguely at the world), finding good information is getting harder. So here goes . . .
Continue reading “#HateRead: Admissions, testing and the media”Ben Simmons and Educational Testing
In a recent interview with Dr. Rawls-Dill, he mentioned Ben Simmons and an example of how what’s measured and who’s evaluating matters in determining success and quality. This really resonated with me and fine-tuned a sports analogy I’ve been making for years. Ben Simmons’s saga is the perfect example of how we’ve let standardized testing define students ability/aptitude/potential.
Continue reading “Ben Simmons and Educational Testing”Should You Take the SAT/ACT or Not?
For parents of 10th, 11th and 12th graders, the question of testing looms large (especially this fall as the test optional movement has really taken hold), so let me try to help you out and give you the lowdown to help you make decisions. I’m not going to do a detailed discussion of testing policy, overuse, misuse, or the like (that’s my day job and this is my side gig), rather I want parents to come away with the tools to make the 3 binary testing decisions on the road to college application:
- to prep for tests or not to prep
- to test or not to test
- to submit scores or not to submit
Also I might update this post like I do my College Admissions Resources post, so check back periodically.
College Essay Trauma Porn
My sons make me hopeful about the future. My sons impress me with what they know and can do. My sons often surprise me. But most often my sons amuse me. Today, I share one of the amusements and surprises. My sons (Enid-Michele, my internet daughter wasn’t part of this so that’s why I’m not mentioning her.) have apparently been paying attention to pop culture and to my work. These boys, in 7th and 9th grades when this started, have been workshopping lines they claim are going into their college essays. They shared with me the beginnings of their joint effort:
Growing up in the poorest borough of NYC, raised by a mother fighting addiction, and a father who couldn’t get a job.
What if . . . thoughts on education
Since we’re living in “unprecedented” (are you tired of that word yet) and “challenging” (euphemism much) times, I’ve been thinking a lot about the alternative timeline we could have been living in. I’ve also been thinking quite a bit about policy, advocacy, philanthropy, and the power dynamics of education in this country. All of this combined with the disappointing “Marvel’s What If . . .?” series on Disney+, led me to start blogging again. So here it is, you get my late night thoughts about policy, philanthropy and possibility.
College Admissions Resources
I’ve recently been talking to a lot of friends about how to help their children in 9th – 11th get ready for college. I keep inefficiently sharing the same resources over and over again, so I finally wised up and am going to post my current favorite college admissions resources here. I’m listing mostly informational resources. If I list a blog that doesn’t mean I endorse or recommend the company’s services.
This post will evolve over time (I’ve edited and added to it 6 times in the last 2 days) so feel free to check back periodically and see if there is anything new added.
——
There is a lot to the college process so I’ll break this resource list into a few general categories:
1. Academic preparation
2. Financial planning
3. College Research
4. Admissions strategizing
Continue reading “College Admissions Resources”
Bellowings 
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