March 17, 2018
Juniors, although the recommendation letters you are writing for yourselves and your friends are not due until May, and though more instructions will be forthcoming, start thinking about all the great things you have to say about your many fine achievements and attributes.
Seniors, we are delighted by all the good news we are receiving from you, but please continue to keep us posted on all admissions decisions and merit scholarship offers you get, and remember that you do not have to commit to a school until May 1.
Kidguard Scholarship
The KidGuard for Education scholarship is part of that organization's effort to bring awareness and inspire solutions to issues such as cyberbullying, online predators, teen suicide, and childhood depression in the age of technology. Multiple scholarships in amounts ranging from $500 to $1000 are available. For more information and to apply, see here.
Standardized Tests: Another View
Thinking you might skip that ACT prep course? Not so fast. In response to the widespread perception of standardized testing's diminishing role in the college admissions process, The Wall Street Journal recently offered this very robust defense of them. If we are not quite as confident as they are in the power of the SAT and the ACT to predict outcomes over the course of a lifetime, we think it is safe to say that standardized testing is not going away anytime soon, not least because they are an expedient. College admissions officers have anywhere from four to 15 minutes to review each application and can be expected to appreciate anything that simplifies their work.
Celebrate Who Your Daughter is Today
From Kevin McMullin over at Collegewise comes a healthy meditation on how important it is for us to view students' artistic interests through the lens of the present, not the lens of a decade from now: "When a student shows a passion for the arts—acting, photography, painting, etc.—it's natural for some parents to worry about that interest's future practicality. Should you encourage their pottery or painting or songwriting? Or should you push them towards interests where the path to gainful employment is both more certain and more direct?" For his thoughtful answers to questions like these, see here.
RPI Professor Working To Inject Ethics Into STEM Courses
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on the ethical challenges facing a tech industry beset by the racism and sexism that proliferate on social media, the spread of fake news, and perceptions that data sharing have rendered privacy obsolete. "Jim Malazita, an assistant professor of science and technology studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, believes higher education has played a role. He thinks there's something about how the STEM disciplines are taught — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — that discourages students from considering ethical questions as they learn the skills they need to work for big technology companies." Malazita has launched a pilot "initiative to inject discussions of ethics and politics into introductory computer-science courses at Rensselaer, in New York. He is pushing back against the idea that programmers should focus purely on technical work and leave the softer questions about how their products are used to social scientists." For more on this story, see here.
Favorite Books: Colleges That Change Lives
Described as "smart and credible" by The New York Times, Loren Pope's carefully-curated Colleges That Change Lives examines forty schools that offer a transformative education. As the dust jacket puts it, "this is the definitive guide for high school students who are looking for more in their college experience than football and frat parties." Mr. White, a graduate of one of the schools Pope discusses, can affirm that she completely nails it.
Food for Thought: Laptops in the Classroom
The appeal of taking notes on a laptop is obvious. You can capture more of what your teacher says than you can with pen and paper, and you may even be able to multitask well enough to discreetly check what outside sources are saying at the same time. But does this approach really serve the goal of learning? Though the definitive study has yet to be completed, an increasingly sizable body of research seems to say the answer is "No" for most students. For more on the benefits of handwritten notes, see this recent article in The Wall Street Journal.
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