Great College Advice

During my recent visit to the University of Wyoming, I met a woman from Suzhou, China, chattering away in Mandarin with a friend.  I had learned that there were significant numbers of international students on the campus.  In fact, my tour guide that day was from Zimbabwe.

But I wanted to learn a bit more about how this woman made her decision to attend the University of Wyoming.  Below she explains.

I was impressed by two points she makes.  First, accounting is accounting is accounting:  it doesn’t really matter all that much where you study accounting, as long as you learn the principles of accounting and are able to use those skills.  So this woman chose her university based more on location, the price, and the general safety of the campus-factors that were most important to her and her family.

Second, this emphasis on price is especially important for international students, who may be unable to apply for financial aid.  So international students often are keenly aware of the value of their education.  The University of Wyoming offers an outstanding value in this respect, as another Wyoming student pointed out to me in an interview.

Mark Montgomery

College Consultant

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I just finished reading Jeremy Miller’s article in the September issue of Harper’s. It’s entitled, “Tyranny of the Test:  One Year as a Kaplan coach in the public schools.”

The focus of the article is Kaplan’s corporate foray into the tutoring business, which has mushroomed since the implementation of No Child Left Behind, which requires school districts to provide tutoring to students who continue to fail to meet expectations.  Many private tutoring companies have sprung up to take advantage of this federally mandated program, and the dollars that go with it.  The government has increased the amount of money going to the tutoring industry to $2.55 billion.

Miller was a tutor with the program, and describes his experiences in New York’s urban schools.  The gist is that the program is not helping students much–especially if you consider the return on investment our government is making.

To me, the problem is that that the tools of NCLB are blunt instruments.  Tutors like Jeremy Miller swoop into high schools with the idea of “rescuing” the failing kids by preparing them for exams, such as the Regent’s exam in New York.  The fact is, such interventions are mostly futile.

The article is a blistering indictment of NCLB.  The act is well-intentioned, to be sure, but the tutoring provision has served only to line the pockets of tutoring companies–and not to significantly raise the achievement of poorer students.

The article also serves as a reminder that the biggest players in the Test Prep industry–who help kids to score well on the ACT and SAT exams–are large companies with a formulaic approach to teaching and learning.  Kaplan and Princeton Review have a good track record in the Test Prep business, but their approach is standardized and impersonal.

In recommending test prep services for my clients, I usually try to hook my students up with talented individuals who can tailor their tutoring to the needs of that student.  While the testing strategies are the same across the board, each student’s strengths and weaknesses are different.

Individual tutors often cost more, but one should think of the cost as an investment in one’s future.  Students usually take these exams only once or twice, and if it’s worthwhile to get some help, its probably worthwhile to get the best help you can get.

Classes like those offered by Kaplan and Princeton Review are not horrendous. But like the tutoring offered in our schools that is described in Jeremy Miller’s article, cannot be fine-tuned to the needs of individual students.  If you think it’s ridiculous that we, as a nation, are wasting our money on NCLB tutoring, it’s may be worth considering whether your investment in these test prep juggernauts is worth the price.

Mark Montgomery

College Admissions Counselor

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During my recent visit to the University of Wyoming, I came across two women chattering away in Mandarin Chinese.  While one was Chinese, the other was from Saipan, a small island in the South Pacific that is within the US Commonwealth (like Puerto Rico or Guam). Her name is Jennifer “J.J.” Jang, and she’s a senior majoring in international studies and education.

I asked this poised young woman how on earth she landed in Laramie.  She turned down offers from New York University and the University of Florida in favor of the fresh air, outdoor activities, and laid back environment of the University of Wyoming.

Listen to how she made her college choice and what she thinks of her decision.

Mark Montgomery

College Counselor

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Often when I visit a college campus, I sit down with students to discuss their experiences. Such discussions initially unnerve the students (”Who are you, and what do you want?”).  But when they realize that I’m genuinely interested in learning about their college, they usually open up and share the good with the bad.

The young woman in this video, Allie Coit, is a third year student at the University of Wyoming. She had recently transfered to the university from Northwestern Community College.  She was delighted with her decision to continue her studies in Laramie, and she had some good things to say about the advantages of a larger universities (great facilities, for example).  She also admitted that the large size also caused her problems in navigating the bloated bureaucracy and advocating for herself.

Have a look at what she had to say about being a Wyoming student.

Note that this young woman transfered from one of Wyoming’s community colleges.  In what may turn out to be a trend in higher education, students are turning to their local community colleges to get their general education requirements out of the way, and then turning to the state flagship university to complete their major and obtain their degree.

Such a trajectory can save a family loads of money and still provide a student with an excellent education.

Mark Montgomery
College Counseling

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The big show at last week’s conference of the National Association for College Admissions Counseling was a report by NACAC examining the role of SAT and ACT tests in the college admissions process.  Essentially, the report called upon colleges to look more carefully at the role of these tests, and called into question their true importance in predicting college success.

The New York Times today carries an excellent analysis of the report in an article titled, “Study of Standardized Admissions Tests is Big Draw at College Conference.”

Colleges and universities know that there is not a lot of convincing research-based evidence that SAT or ACT tests measure academic aptitude or act as good predictors of a student’s success during the first year of college.

However, many of the same colleges that question the tests’ true value will continue to use them because they are useful short cuts to comparing one student against the next.

I wrote a while back about a point raised by Dartmouth’s retiring dean of admission:  while the number of applications had skyrocketed in the past decade, his admissions staff had not grown.  Of course, computers have simplified much of what admissions offices used to do by hand.  But my sense it that many college still rely on the SAT and ACT to make it simpler to reject those whose scores are on the lower end of the scale.  And given the conclusion in the Times article, it seems that most of our most selective colleges and universities will continue to use the tests–flawed though they may be.

Mark Montgomery

College Admissions Counselor

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