educational - College Admission Counseling

A Classical Education: Back to the Future With The Liberal Arts

Jared Hobson — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 14:57:27 +0000

Stanley Fish wrote a piece for the Sunday New York Times, entitled“A Classical Education: Back to the Future”.
Fans of a liberal arts education (like me) will enjoy his defense of a classical education as the best sort of education for the 21st century. His argument is actually a review of three recent books about education: Leigh A. Bortins’ “The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education,” Martha C. Nussbaum’s “Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities” and Diane Ravitch’s “The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education.”
More to add to my reading list…!
Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant and Liberal Arts Junkie

The post A Classical Education: Back to the Future With The Liberal Arts first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

Major in Art, Fashion, Design and More at SCAD

Jared Hobson — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:45:45 +0000

One of the best parts of my job as an educational planner or educational consultant is that I have the opportunity to meet with representatives of colleges from all over the country.

This morning I met with Tiffany Reissig, an admissions representative from the Savannah College of Art and Design. We had a great conversation, and I learned a ton about this premiere art school in one of the country’s most interesting, historical cities.

After the meeting, I asked if she would share a few words about what makes SCAD unique. Here’s what she said:

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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Campus Cuisine–It’s Not Your Standard Cafeteria Fare Anymore

Jared Hobson — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:12:57 +0000

One of the most important stops on a campus visit is the dining hall. While I try to remind my clients that education the primary “service” they are purchasing when they look at a college or university, it is true that they are also choosing a home for the next four years.

So residence halls are important. Will you be comfortable?

And dining halls are also key. Will you find a pleasing, nutritious, and varied diet?

In the past decade or two, dining halls have undergone an overhaul. In part, this is because the consumer–kids–have developed more discriminating palate.

Gone is the usual rotation of Salisbury steak (a.k.a. “mystery meat”), macaroni and cheese, and breaded chicken cutlets with a slab of cheese (we used to call these horrifying things “elephant scabs”).

Now it’s Vietnamese pho (noodle soup), mini-samosas, goat cheese salad and chicken mole.

Check out what these colleges are doing (courtesy of an article in the Associated Press) to offer more flexible dining options:

Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., offers recyclable takeout containers called “GustieWare” in the dining halls.
This fall, Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., will offer students on its meal plan a chance to pick up groceries in the cafeteria as an alternative to a cooked meal.
At Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif., food waste from the dining hall is used as compost for an organic garden where students grow lettuce, peppers, corn, kale, squash, carrots and other vegetables.

So as you visit campuses, make sure to ask about various dining options, and take the time to have at least one meal in the primary dining hall. You should even ask students (I nab ’em while they are standing in line) what they think of the meals on campus, and what the other options are) how they feel about the food. Before you rush to judgment, keep in mind that any institutional food will become overly familiar to the student who eats in a dining hall day after day, semester after semester.

And also keep in mind that all these dining options do cost money. One of the biggest cost jumps in college costs in recent years has been increases in the cost of “room and board,” with board being that Vietnamese pho, goat cheese, and premium organic groceries.

Great College Advice

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Liberal Arts Colleges–The Educational Advantages

Jared Hobson — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:43:52 +0000

During my recent visit to Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, I asked the director of admission, Mathew Cox, his views on the advantages of a liberal arts education.

Here is his response.

Mark Montgomery
College Consultant

The post Liberal Arts Colleges–The Educational Advantages first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

Millsaps College–Distinctive Features and Admissions Priorities

Jared Hobson — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:34:04 +0000

I recently visited Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, to find out for myself why this small, liberal arts college is included in Loren Pope’s book, 40 Colleges That Change Lives. I was able to spend some time talking to the director of admission, Mr. Mathew Cox.

This short video highlights three distinctive features of Millsaps. It’s a wonderful place.

College Consultant

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Quality of the Educational Experience: Questions to Ask Admissions Officers

Jared Hobson — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:15:21 +0000

A couple of my previous posts have focused on student-to-faculty ratios and class size averages as indicators of educational quality.
By and large, my conclusion is that these statistics are not all that helpful in uncovering the quality of the educational experience for a prospective undergraduate.
So what to do? How can we compare and contrast the educational services offered by different institutions? How can we get beyond these simplistic numbers?
Well, one place to start is the set of questions formulated by Loren Pope in his book, Colleges that Change Lives. I have already posted those here. The point is to ask more substantive questions about how courses are taught, and not to focus solely upon the size of the class.
But there are other questions that prospective students and their parents might ask in order to understand and predict what their experience might be like if they matriculated to a particular college or university.

What is the “course load” for faculty members? How many undergraduate courses is each faculty member expected to teach every year? Is this number the same for all departments, or does it vary by discipline?
What percentage of courses is taught by adjunct or part-time faculty? Is this percentage the same across departments, or do some departments rely on part-timers more than others?
What percentage of courses has a waiting list? How does the college (or the individual department) determine who gets off the waiting list and when?
How many campus lecture halls seat 100 students? 50 students? 500 students? How many seminar rooms are there? What is the ratio of lecture halls to seminar rooms?
How small must a class be before it is canceled by the administration?
What is the most popular course on campus (or in your department)? Is enrollment in this course capped? Who gets in, and who doesn’t?

As you ask these questions, you should not permit admissions people to give vague answers. They will hem and haw. They will will be imprecise.
But these figures do exist on campus, and they exist in the office of institutional research. The administrators in this office crunch the numbers. They have the facts. If you really want to know this information, you need to ask to be put in touch with someone in institutional research who can provide this information to you.
Still, you must not focus solely on the statistics. Every educational institution has administrative problems like the ones cited at Dartmouth in my previous post. You will never be able to guarantee that your son or daughter will not be shut out of a class. You will not be able to ensure that every course he or she takes is a gem.
But if you dig deeply enough, you may be able to figure out how forthcoming and honest the faculty and administration is about these difficulties, and you will learn how they are working to solve them.
Mark Montgomery
Independent College Consultant and
Former College Administrator

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