Graduate Admissions

State legislatures continue efforts to restrict academic freedomSince state legislatures convened nationwide this winter, FIRE has noticed a distinct trend: Many states have introduced and considered legislation to limit or prohibit the teaching or training of certain viewpoints on campus, generally patterned on former President Donald Trump’s “Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping,” which President Joe Biden rescinded on his first day in office. The bills introduced in recent months in states across the country generally aim to ban the training or teaching of so-called “divisive concepts” at public colleges and universities, along with a variety of other provisions. For example, a bill in Rhode Island defines “divisive concepts” as: One race or sex is inherently superior...

The Pursuit of Education: A Story of Homelessness, Perseverance, and the Impact of Caring Educators By: Jahnee S. I was 8 years old when I first experienced homelessness. Homelessness then became a struggle that my family and I couldn’t escape. I experienced standing in the snow, hoping my family and I had a place to sleep on a church floor; how packed and unsanitary emergency shelters are, as I got lice within two days of staying there; how “The Florida Project” brought me flashbacks to the many months my family lived in motels, and how I viewed peers with “the basic necessities” with such envy. Constantly moving and being disappointed led me to become extremely detached and avoid relationships of any kind out of fear of abandonment. Eight years later, at 16 years old, I was still experie...

Does It Hurt Children to Measure Pandemic Learning Loss? Over the past year, Deprece Bonilla, a mother of five in Oakland, Calif., has gotten creative about helping her children thrive in a world largely mediated by screens. She signed them up for online phonics tutoring and virtual martial arts lessons. If they are distracted inside the family’s duplex, she grabs snacks and goes with the children into the car, saying they cannot come out until their homework is done. She has sometimes spent three hours per day assisting with school assignments, even as she works from home for a local nonprofit organization. It all sometimes feels like too much to bear. Still, when her fifth-grade son’s public-school teacher told her he was years behind in reading, she was in disbelief. “That was very off...

Envisioning Alternative Course and Program PortfoliosThe importance of envisioning future course and program portfolios will be familiar to readers of my recent blogs.  Provosts, deans, and others responsible for academic resourcing invest time and money to get better data on their portfolios:  e.g., by using Gray Associates’ Program Economics Platform (PEP).  These data help them identify strategies for improvement, which is especially important given the current Covid-19 disruptions.  We are pleased to introduce PEP+, our new predictive model for envisioning the consequences of changing a school’s lineup of courses and programs, just in time to help mitigate these disruptions.  Changes in student demand and modes of teaching can upend an institution’s operational activities and finances,...

Why Republican efforts to ban the 1619 Project from classrooms are so misguided Republican legislators in a handful of states are trying to cut funding to schools and colleges that use the New York Times’ award-winning 1619 Project for classroom lessons — efforts that have served to keep the provocative retelling of American history in the spotlight.The project, published in the newspaper’s magazine in August 2019, is a collection of essays and stories that argue that America was not founded in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was adopted, but rather in 1619, the year that enslaved Africans were first brought to the land that became the United States.The project annoyed President Donald Trump so much that he appointed a panel — the 1776 Commission — to write a report about the “pa...

Nominate Your Students for CollegePointTwitterFacebookLinkedinemailiStock It’s a persistent problem: Talented lower-income students are less likely than their peers to enroll at selective colleges. And amid the pandemic, many students—particularly those from low- to moderate-income families—face even greater obstacles on the journey to higher ed. For those reasons, Bloomberg Philanthropies’ CollegePoint has expanded its eligibility criteria and is calling on counselors, teachers, and others to nominate talented teens in the class of 2022 who would benefit from its free advising program. Prior to the pandemic, the nonprofit—which provides personal support throughout the college search, admission, and selection process—relied on standardized test scores to help identify students for the prog...

Top Five Tips For College FairsCollege fairs are in full swing around the country. To make sure you have the best strategy for the college fairs you might want to follow these five tips. 1. Research which schools will be attend the college fair. For most college fairs you can find a list of schools that will be attending. It is worth getting a copy of this list. Then going through it to see if there are any colleges that you are considering on the list. Go through and highlight them and consider going to their tables first. You might also find other schools that you weren’t aware of that you want to talk to. No matter what, it is nice to at least know who will be in attendance to make sure you don’t miss visiting with any schools. 2. Register in advance for college fairs. Many ...

Live Updates: Latest News on Coronavirus and Higher EducationNew Limits on Students at 2 UniversitiesFeb. 17, 6:18 a.m. Two more universities have imposed limits on student movement as a result of increasing COVID-19 cases. Plymouth State University, in New Hampshire, moved classes online and canceled all athletic events until at least Feb. 21, WMUR reported. The University of Virginia is keeping in-person classes, but banning students from leaving their rooms for most other purposes, except attending classes, obtaining food, individual exercise and being tested for COVID-19. -- Scott Jaschik Student Parties Criticized as Unsafe at 3 Campuses Feb. 16, 6:02 a.m. Officials at three campuses are criticizing recent student parties as unsafe during the pandemic. At Syracuse University, athletes...