Essay Writing in a Nutshell

Without fail, each time I walked into my magazine writing class in college the black board featured the phrase "Read and Imitate" in giant letters. Robert McClory loved this phrase, often soliciting students to come up with a jingle that would immortalize it. 

An accomplished author, McClory discovered that the best way to improve one's writing is to dissect how others do it and try to mimic the style. In doing so, a writer truly master the tools of the trade. 

A writing lesson in the The New York Times has a similar approach that is definitely worth perusing. 

In the academia of academics, a debate has long lingered as to what the significance is of standardized testing and how well it measures what a student has learned.

A blog posted in Education Week engages this discussion with some intriguing insight, concluding that what is tested counts, but much of what counts cannot be tested.

Register for Subject Tests

Now is the time to really start thinking about subject tests. Hopefully, you have already thought about what tests you will be taking. If you are in an AP class and there is a respective subject test for that discipline, we suggest that you take a diagnostic to see how you do. Chances are the AP class sufficiently prepared you for the subject test, too.

AP tests are often administered in May, so it makes sense to take the subject test then as well. May 7 is the next official college board test date. The registration deadline is April 8, so it's time to sign up now.

You don't really have to commit to any one subject test when you sign up. As long as you're on the roster, you can decide what you want to take when you show up that day. You can take up to three subject tests in one sitting, but we recommend that you only take two at a time.

These are one hour tests, and you can prepare for them. So sign up now and let us guide you to the finish line.

Behind The Scenes of College Admissions

Unfortunately, this clip was not able to be embedded, but I would encourage parents and students to click on the link to take a look at the types of discussions that occur behind closed doors at colleges across the country. In this particular segment, Grinnell College, a small, elite liberal arts school in Iowa, showcases its admissions officers in action.

While it is evident that there is a process in place, it becomes especially clear throughout the piece that a cross-section of unique parameters comes into play that make gaming the system impossible. At the same time, it is particularly reassuring to see how important those personal essays become during the process.

SAT Essay Prompt Causes Controversy

For people who took the SAT on March 13, the essay question might have seemed a bit out of the ordinary. In what is usually an open-ended question that allows students to discuss literature, history, or current events, the prompt featured a more narrowly focused question concerning reality television. 

While the College Board has stood by this decision, others are scratching their heads. For a test that hopes to reveal a student's scholarship, why ask students about the lowest common denominator in popular culture. 

At the same time, we all know that we have to play the hand that was dealt to us. Students should follow the same structural groundwork for the essay regardless of how puerile the question might seem. Include an introductory paragraph, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Be sure to have a definitive argument and use specific examples to support that argument in the body paragraphs. The conclusion should not reiterate what you previously stated, but manage to take a bird's eye view of the topic and connect your dots to a larger picture. 

Dollars Without Sense

The rising cost of tuition provides a great reason to seek out what one gets out of a private institution over a public one.

In an ongoing series, The Huffington Post publishes stories of the indebted -- college graduates who discuss what they borrowed and what it means once they have to start paying it back.

Not that there is anything wrong with paying $200,000 for a four-year college education. But it's good to know what the options are before blindly signing your name.

Five (or More) New Words

Reading about international politics, economics, and science certainly helps build a respectable vocabulary. However, there is plenty of good writing in any field, so there is no reason why you need to go to far from your avocation to learn some new words.

To be sure, look at all of the great words used in a recent New York Times piece about the return of The Strokes to the music scene.

Julian Casablancas, the singer and insistent frontman for the group that a decade ago revived louche New York City rock ’n’ roll, was in a dressing room, listening for the first time to the final mix of the Strokes’ fourth album, “Angles,” due on March 22 from RCA.

But over the years, as age, fame, addiction, solo projects and creative foment interceded, their vision striated.

The result is an album with 10 highly worked-over songs that are identifiably the Strokes — those counterpoint guitar riffs, Mr. Casablancas’s dyspeptic vocals, with their late-night energy and lyrical self-doubt, a few synths and downbeats for modern measure — but with a distinction.

And it was recorded not in a studio in New York City but in a bucolic setting upstate.

Trendy Trends on the College Scene

Population growth, technology enhancements, and the Great Recession have caused some tectonic shifts in the university landscape recently. Carleton College's alumni magazine just published some of these noticeable and intriguing trends, including incoming tech-savvy undergrads seeking courses that employ technology, the increasing ratio of women to men throughout higher education, the rising cost of tuition, and the decreasing amount of foundation grants. 

On a more alarming front, new data suggests that more college students have turned higher education into an easy-paced pleasure ride toward a degree. The unfortunate result of this undergraduate behavior seems to be a more compliant faculty. Perhaps this is what led Cornell to recently ban homework during breaks. 

A Dad Speaks Up

Without a doubt, the college admissions process has become a nail-biting, costly, formidable amalgam of confusion, anxiety, and paranoia over the last decade. The competition is fierce and nothing can be guaranteed. At the end of the day, though, it is probably healthy to take a bird's eye view of this journey with a wide grin accompanying a shaking head. Seriously, it will all work out.

With this in mind, we are pleased to see that one father managed to find the humor in the entire undertaking of getting his son into the "right" school. Andrew Ferguson brings his wit, charm, and newfound knowledge about getting into college in the 21st century to his new book entitled Crazy U.

Unfortunately, the tide has failed to ebb, and the educational shoreline is eroding. Perhaps we should soon expect  to see a humorous account of what it takes to get your kid into the "right" high school.

Long Live The Teacher!

As state houses continue to engage the teachers' unions in a no-holds-barred battle of the budgets, plenty of vehement discord has surfaced in the national rhetoric. It is certainly true that sky-high deficits have triggered the draconian measures pursued from New Jersey to Wisconsin. But somehow in that fiscal powwow, teachers have not only become a financial liability, but the source of all our present troubles.

I beg to differ. So does Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. Enjoy.

The Daily Show - Diane Ravitch
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It's The Climb

As much as preparing for college is about getting into the college of your choice, think about what an education really offers and how to take advantage of it.

We are culture obsessed with brand names. True, those brands have done a great job making a name for themselves, but we fail to recognize that we have an obligation to define ourselves as a brand, too.

There is a value in learning how to do something, and then how to do it better. But if the goal is simply acceptance, what next?

It's Now Never Too Early

Harvard and Princeton have decided  to call it quits on their strike against early admissions practices.  Losing potential ideal candidates turned out to be the key factor in the decision by both schools to reinstate their early admissions option. It turns out that most of the top-tier students wanted to get into the top-tier schools as soon as possible by committing to places like UPenn and Dartmouth.

Does it pay to apply early? Survey says, "Yes."