March 10, 2018
Welcome back to News and Views!We hope that Winter Break has left you refreshed and excited for the weeks ahead.
Seniors, be sure to inform your college counselors of all admissions decisions from colleges--acceptances, rejections, and waitlists alike. Continue to put your merit-based scholarship offers on the whiteboard in the college counseling office. And finally, please resist the siren song of senioritis, remembering that all admissions offers are predicated on receipt of a final transcript that does not reveal second-semester, senior-year grades significantly lower than the ones you earned previously.
Juniors, if you have not yet lined up an initial one-on-one appointment with Ms. Van Wagenen, please do so right away, so that we can begin developing our strategy to advocate for you with colleges. If you plan on visiting colleges over Easter Break and you need any help with planning an itinerary, please see Ms. Van Wagenen. If you need transportation to the April 14 ACT at Hartnell College, please remember to sign up on the clipboard in the college counseling office as soon as you have registered.
Cal Day 2018
If you think you might be interested in UC Berkeley, save the date of Saturday, April 21, when they will host Cal Day, their annual open house for prospective students. Admission is free, and over 500 unique events will offer a glimpse of life as a Berkeley student: labs, classrooms, and libraries will be open, as will many research museums not normally available to the public. Newly admitted students and their families are especially invited to a welcome by the Chancellor and special guests. For more information, send an email to calday@berkeley.edu.
Carmel Valley Kiwanis Club Scholarship
Residents of Carmel Valley may wish to apply for scholarships from the Carmel Valley Kiwanis Club. As they put it, their intention is "to select civic-minded students who demonstrate academic excellence and the desire and ability to offer leadership in school and in the community." Applicants must have at least a 3.5 GPA for grades 10 through 11 (though this requirement is modified for students with special needs) and provide an acceptance letter from the college where they plan to matriculate. An interview is also required. For more information, start here, and see Ms. Van Wagenen or Mr. White for more details.
Over Time, Humanities Grads Close the Pay Gap
Perhaps your heart tells you to major in English or art history, but your inner pragmatist reminds you of the conventional wisdom that earnings prospects for humanities degree-holders are dim. Your heart, it turns out, may be well-advised to stand its ground, as this story from The Chronicle of Higher Education explains.
Give the Phone a Rest
A number of recent discussions within the Catalina community have called for us to think critically about the not-always-constructive role that our smartphones are playing in our lives. All of us are coming to understand that we could use more time away from them. For the benefits to your study habits, in particular, of taking regular breaks from scrolling and clicking, see this recent article from the BBC.
How Long Does It Take to Read a College Application?
The perception that college admissions officers have to wade through mountains of applications at a breathtaking pace is justified. However, there is a lively debate in their profession about exactly how much time they should, in principle, give to each. Estimates range from four minutes (!) to upwards of fifteen, but how to get it right is a thorny problem to solve. See here for a thought-provoking discussion of this dilemma with Jonathan Burdick, Dean of Admission at the University of Rochester.
Intentionally Incomplete
Do you ever, by any chance, get burned out while studying and struggle to regain your momentum? Collegewise blogger Kevin McMullin offers valuable insights into how to get past this obstacle in his recent post "Intentionally Incomplete," where he cites the research of bestselling author Daniel Pink to support his contention that it can be best to call it a day "in the middle of a task. Stop writing in the middle of a sentence. Stop studying right in the middle of an equation or a paragraph. Stop programming right in the middle of a line of code. Call it a day without a clean ending point."
How to Handle College Rejections
Never short on wisdom, Collegewise's Kevin McMullin also has a few pearls to share about the essential question of how to handle college rejections. He notes that many students "predicate their hard work on goals to be admitted to particular, often very selective, colleges. For those kids, it's an especially painful sting when those colleges say, 'No.' " The solution to getting past that sting boils down to taking the steps he outlines here.
For Parents: How to Help Teens Reduce Stress
To be sure, not all stress is bad, but there is a point where it becomes toxic. Moreover, seeing where the boundary is and staying on the right side of it constitutes its own challenge. If any of this sounds frustratingly familiar, and you would like some guidance on how to help your teen deal with stress, this empathetic article from Your Teen magazine may be a good place to start.
Top-Tier Schools Deemphasizing Standardized Tests
The majority of undergraduate programs continue to take standardized tests very seriously in the admission process, but a surprising number of excellent ones are nonetheless responding to the test-optional trend by declaring that they have significantly deemphasized this factor in their decision-making, even if they have not quite eliminated it. Though college ranking systems need to be taken with a grain of salt, you are nonetheless likely be intrigued by this new list of schools--in order of U.S. News and World Report rank--that have pledged to deemphasize standardized testing in the admissions process.
Spotlight On: The Claremont Colleges
The five Claremont colleges, also referred to as "The Claremont Consortium," include Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Pitzer, Pomona, and Scripps. These five colleges share a one-square-mile campus in the charming town of Claremont, which is about 30 miles east on "The 10" from Santa Monica. The five colleges average about 1000 students each, so while each school population is relatively small, their shared resources--library, sports, music and theater performances, and dining halls--make the Claremonts more like a mid-size university. Enrolled students can take classes at any of the five, eat at any of their dining halls, and, after freshman year, can choose to live in the dorms at any of the colleges, although there are a few caveats (i.e., no men in the Scripps dorms). As Division III colleges, the sports teams combine forces: Pitzer and Pomona vs. Harvey Mudd, Scripps, and Claremont McKenna. The rivalry between the two D3 teams is competitively fun! And keep in mind, Scripps really does have a football team. However, unlike Santa Catalina's football team, Scripps' team has been defeated! And if you're looking for a great spot for lunch in Claremont, check out Walter's, a great spot that is walking distance from campus. For statistics and further thoughts on the Claremont Colleges, see Ms. Van Wagenen's notes.
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