I call attention to their piece in this forum because the demand and influx of Chinese students into American higher education parallels the demand and increase in Chinese students in American boarding schools.

Fischer and Bartlett take an unvarnished look at the current influx of Chinese students into American colleges and universities beginning with the “how’s” and concluding with the “why’s.” The process is akin to learning, or watching, how the sausage is made. The picture is honest- driven by some blunt economic realities.

I posit that American boarding schools may be able to play a role in providing a cleaner, more honest, path for Chinese students into American higher learning institutions.

The collegiate admission process for Chinese students is fraught with graft and fraud. But, the simple truth is that Chinese students seek American higher education/institutions (and boarding school) for all the right reasons.

China doesn’t have enough university seats for its students and, at the other end of the equation, American higher education (and boarding schools) need full-paying customers. Application and admission issues arise out of unclear, and insecure, admission processes for Chinese students coming to America.

“…what seems at first glance a boon for colleges and students alike is, on closer inspection, a tricky fit for both [Chinese students and American universities].”(NYT)

Bartlett and Fischer cover the issues:

• Chinese families (sometimes multiple generations) heavily invested in their child’s achievement
• Cultural and educational fit for each student largely absent from the admission equation
• Unrealistic expectations shaped by status consciousness (too much Harvard, Yale and Princeton)
• Chinese education agents- promising to help families- who over promise, fail to deliver, set unrealistic expectations, prey on the status consciousness of client families, or, are just plain thieves; standardized testing fraud; transcript fraud
• Inflated English proficiency

And, once students arrive, an unfamiliarity with the ways American prep school and collegiate classrooms work presents functional challenges- discussion hallmarked by give and take; premiums placed on creativity; decidedly, un-test centric approaches to learning and achievement; requirements of academic honesty.

American colleges and universities (like Delaware as featured in the article) are choosing an international path to stay viable and offer an international outlook to their students. To be successful in their international growth, the schools must understand the processes and pitfalls of international admission and be ready to adapt and continually work to improve them.

American Boarding Schools Can Have Place in This Equation

Given the economic and geopolitical processes shaping and driving this educational equation, the best question for everyone is how to make it work?

I think American boarding schools have something to contribute to this interconnected world. Boarding schools ofter the opportunity to provide above board admission processes while simultaneously acculturating and preparing Chinese students for the American university experience.

A year or two in an American boarding school can address almost every issue raised by Fisher and Bartlett and their subjects:

• Honest transcripts
• Honest test scores
• Honest English proficiency assessment
• Classroom acculturation
• An understanding of academic honesty
• Cultural acculturation
• All are available through the boarding school experience.

The trick of course will be the boarding schools’ ability to assert and sell their value while inserting themselves into the equation.

Photo credit: rockinpaddy via Creative Commons

Boarding school college placement offices, and the students they support, benefit from a bounty of resources and experiences.

A boarding school college placement office works full-time; works with a very healthy (read low) officer to student ratio; and, features a seasoned faculty that brings broad perspectives and insights to students.

That last thought brings me to a piece that arrived in my ‘in box’ late last week- “Take My Own Advice” by Hector Martinez, college guidance director at The Webb Schools (CA). Martinez publishes periodically and he’s always worth reading if you’re in the kid business.

In “Take My Own Advice,” Martinez reflects on his own actions as his son applied to Webb, offering some advice for the hovering, overly conscientious parent seeking the perfect school application.

“..while I am quick to offer words of comfort and assurance that everything will work out just fine to all of you and your children, I can’t seem to do the same for myself. Worse, I seem to show signs of the ‘difficult parent’ I warn Webb parents not to become, you know the one that gets overly involved in the process and wants to take over it as if they are actually applying for admissions to school instead of the child.”(WS)

Martinez found himself standing over his son’s shoulders thinking about answers that he, as the adult professional, believed should be better- better meaning in the words, voice, and thoughts of someone more experienced than his eighth grader.

“…I wanted to make sure the admission office understood before they were tempted to label him a “slacker!” Instead of trusting my son would explain himself, and also trusting that the admission office at Webb would understand what he meant by his answer, all I wanted to do was change his answer.

So, I vowed to listen carefully, offer my advice, but ultimately trust my son to do his best as he presented his profile for admissions, even if it meant having to sit on my hands to stop myself from taking over.”(WS)

To aid parents of applicants, Martinez offers his personal top ten rules.

Of course, they apply to all of us challenged to maintain distance as our kids seek to own their experiences and they really boil down to two principles. Guide, but let your student do the work and trust the faculty.

“Top Ten Rules to Follow for Myself

1. It’s about my son, not me!
2. It’s my son’s responsibility to fill out the application and make sure it all gets done (on time), not mine.
3. He needs to write his own essay and answer all the questions with his own ideas and words, not mine.
4. I’m to support, encourage, and be a friendly reminder to him with such things as deadlines as he progresses through this admissions process but will stop myself from taking over it no matter how tempting it may be for me.
5. I’m to trust his teachers and school administrators that will help him with recommendation letters, especially since the school he currently attends does an excellent job with all of this and has been doing it forever!
6. I will not pretend that my child is someone other than who he really is- even if the other son I’m confusing him with has better grades, scores, and organizational skills!
7. I will trust that the admission office will also see the many fine qualities of my imperfect son and appreciate him almost as much as I do.
8. I will offer to proof and check his application, but will not be offended if he chooses to ask someone else to do this for him instead.
9. I will be the first to congratulate him if he gets in, and the first to tell him that he can still have a great life should he get bad news, while making sure he knows how much I love him and how proud I am of him for doing his best.
10. I will be so much better at all of this with my second son!” (WS)

As part of her National Association of College Admission Counselors (NACAC) conference coverage Rebecca Ruiz sheds some light on the ever greater attention that the gap year receives from parents and schools and she provides a quick primer how to think about taking a year off between high school and college.

In “The Gap Year: Breaking up the ‘Cradle to College to Cubicle to Cemetery’ Cycle,” Ruiz shows just how mainstream the ‘gap year’ has become and how parents and students should think about it.

There’s a clear undercurrent of support for breaking up the consecutive academic year after consecutive academic year cycle with a broadening experience that can add some maturation.

Much of the piece is built around the work of Robert Clagett, former dean of admissions at Middlebury College.

The angle that I find most interesting is the notion that how the student uses the gap year isn’t that important.

“Mr. Clagett’s motivation in studying the significance of a gap year is to ‘disabuse the parents out there of the idea that taking a year off is going to somehow mean disaster for their kids.” He added, “I think the opposite is true.

One audience member cited his son’s interest in ‘riding a motorcycle around South America like Che Guevara,’ asking after the value of ‘individual meandering’ over a formalized program.

“From a college’s point of view it really doesn’t matter,” Mr. Clagett said. “They can stay home and eat bonbons if they want.”

Gap time – regardless of what one does – combats the “let down” a student feels once arriving on campus, Mr. Clagett said. ‘There can be this feeling of ‘now what?’ And that can lead to lower achievement, to lower self-esteem. Gap programs nip that in the bud.’”(NYT)

Colleges now place such value on gap year experiences that they have offices and monies dedicated to supporting gap year programs.

“The group mentionedPrinceton University’s bridge year program, along with the news that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill recently received a $1.5 million donation to help freshmen set up a gap year.”(NYT)

I’ve always been of the school that gap years are great tools- if you make them productive. I think that last qualifying phrase makes a gap year unsuitable for everyone. Sitting around playing video games and eating Cheetos does not a good gap year make.

If you take a gap year, you need to have a plan regarding what you’re going to do and what you set out learn. If that plan changes, great. But, students and parents must know why they’re choosing a gap program over school and why? To just take a gap year seems frivolous- and expensive if it’s away from home.

Might a student grow and broaden his/her horizons as much more so in school rather than in a gap year program?

Which brings me to my last thought, who pays for the gap year?

Additional resources:

Gap Year Programs

A Post Graduate Year; what’s that?

PG Year at a Boarding School

Photo credit: jjwright85 via Creative Commons & Justin Wright

Suffice to say, he’s skeptical; not a fan; and his piece can serve a foundation on why it’s important to approach many types of rankings with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Dodge’s thinking certainly applies to any family engaging in a private or boarding school search.

Of course schools at, or near, the top of the U.S. News rankings will be happy. Social climbing schools will be envious and strive to improve their rankings; and, those confident of the work and role in the market will ignore the goofy exercise and get on with their work.

The problem, though, is that too many people with pay heed to U.S. News, and similar, rankings imbuing them with perceived accuracy and looking at them as guides- of sorts.

Just as with college searches, too many people weigh a boarding or private school’s reputation and perceived ranking too heavily in their school search.

Cure yourself of the ranking and reputation ills

If you don’t already bring a healthy dose of skepticism to such ratings, Dodge can help you cultivate it. He challenges the ratings system on several reasonable grounds.

I’ll leave most of Dodge’s criticism up to you to read choosing instead to highlight one.

The U.S. News rankings in no way, shape, or form take into account the quality of their work with the kinds of students they teach. Dodge encapsulates his thinking using this example:

“…An institution in my back yard, Delaware County Community College, attracts a wide age range and a stunning diversity. Students speak a ton of languages but many don’t have a very good command of English. Many work full time. Many are single parents. A fair number never finished high school but have earned a GED. Many have to scrape to come up with any money at all, let alone tuition and essentials for classes. In other words, for most, college is an uphill struggle. And this college does a remarkable job of putting these students on track, keeping them there, and turning them into professionals or readying them for four-year colleges.

Should I rank DelCo above or below Princeton, Michigan, Harvey Mudd? I submit that the answer depends not so much on data or on how U.S. News might massage them as on what I value. And that’s what a college search should be all about: deciding what things are important to you and then go looking for colleges where you’ll find them.”(IECA)

Choosing a school is a value proposition based on how the program fits who you are and where you are in life. In order to produce the best possible fit this kind of thinking must guide any school search.

College/Private School/Boarding School: Fit Matters Most

The best school, or college fit begins with the student:

• understanding who he/she is
• where he/she stands in their personal development
• what is the educational goal for the student
• then, working to find the school that that meets the student where he/she stands and can, then, grow them the furthest

I’ll extend Dodges thinking using a thought that we share with families all the time.

In America, there’s a school or college for everyone. What’s the best one? The one where you can grow the most.

And, most of the time, the best fit has nothing to with ratings, rankings, or reputation.

Our work on boarding school rankings:

1. Boarding Schools: Don’t Rank Them, Understand Them
2. Boarding School Rankings: Ignore Them!

Photo credit: FrenchKheldar via Creative Commons

The quick interview draws on Chapman’s experience as new parent facing the cost of saving large sums in her family’s effort to plan for two future collegians.

The projected tuition bill for young parents is enormous and there’s no better time to start planning than today.

Brian Fisher (BF): Reading the story on Hyde’s web site, you offer straightforward, direct advice to students. Your five rules seem so commonsensical; is it a sign of the times that families and students need them spelled out in a book?

Malcolm Gauld (MG): A simple answer would be, “yes,” but I have long felt that those schools that label themselves “college preparatory” tend to focus so much time getting kids admitted to schools of their choice that common sense gets lost in the shuffle. In short, college preparatory is not just about the obsession to gain an offer of admission to the school of one’s choice. This book is all about what to do after you get there.

I’d like to shift gears here and ask some questions about parents and parenting- as they grow/shift into their new roles. Assuming parents and student have committed to using the five rules and plan for freshman year, I’d like to ask about what parents need to do in their new role.

BF: Talk a little about what role parents can play in working with their students in building a plan for following the ‘five rules?”

MG: Hopefully, as little as possible! I very rarely encounter under-involved parents. However, I encounter far too many who are over involved. So, I recommend that parents find some way to put a governor on themselves. One idea: Make your child make the first move. Make them ask you for help.

BF: How connected/involved should a parent be/stay with their new college student? Should there be a regular check-in/conversations?

MG: This answer depends upon the definition of “regular.” When our two daughters were in their first semesters, we tried to follow a simple rule: Wait for them to call us. (One was 2000 miles away and the other 10 miles away.) Although we sometimes broke this rule, it was a productive rule of thumb all the way around. However, if pinned down, I would advise parents to shoot for once a week. (Just don’t do five times a day!)

BF: What’s the best way for a parent to solicit- from their student- how their first year collegian is doing?

MG: Again, I recommend one call per week as a guideline. But here’s a question to ask: If and when it’s more frequent than that, who’s calling whom? I believe it’s preferable for your child to be calling you. If you are calling him or her most of the time, it may well be due to difficulties you are having letting go than anything else.

BF: How can parents best stay both involved/supervisory/parentally supportive while encouraging independence?

MG: I hate to sound like a broken record, but I typically see parents who give support in abundance but fail (sometimes miserably!) when it comes to encouraging independence. For most kids, college is a critical report card on their own adolescence. Too much parental interference can be very detrimental to the process of personal growth that must occur. Learning to cope in autonomous fashion is an essential component of that process. That’s why I say, err on the side of indifference. (Sounds horrible, I know!)

BF: What advice do you have for parents as they grow into being the parents of a collegian?

MG: We Baby-Boomers are far more concerned with having a relationship with our children than probably any generation of parents that has gone before us. Our job is not to foster and maintain a relationship. Our job is to help our kids grow into adults of character and connect with their deepest potentials. (If we truly help them do that, we will end up with a wonderful relationship with them!) So, whenever you engage, ask yourself, “Am I doing this for them OR am I doing this to fulfill some need that I have?” Then try to stick to the former. Good luck!

“Don’t make a hobby into a deal-breaker. Whether — and how well — a college can accommodate your extracurricular interests is a reasonable thing to consider in making your final decision. Just don’t let it dominate your thinking. Yes, it’s nice to find a school where you can be on the wrestling team in spite of your less-than-Olympic-level skills, or play in the string quartet even though you never went to Interlochen. But you wouldn’t want to trade a better school, all things considered, for a lesser one, solely on the basis of a personal interest or hobby.”(NYT)

One of Jacobs and Hyman’s points also resonates well for families making their boarding school decisions right now. If you’re making your decision, I recommend making this angle part of your deliberations if you haven’t already:

“Imagine yourself there. …Your personal commitment to learning, your individual learning style, your ability to withstand the increased competition… — all of these are important determinants of how well you’ll learn — and grow… Take them into account when making your final selection.”(NYT)

His argument is nice, but everything in it is premised on time, money and resources that most schools don’t have.

Of course a school, or district (does Mallory know about public school districts?) can write their own curricula. They all can, again, if they have the time, money, and expertise to dedicate to the multi-year process of developing a sound, thoroughly examined, and tested, curriculum.

Mallory works hard to pooh pooh AP tests but he doesn’t seem to understand the single biggest reason schools use them (it’s the same reason schools use the IB). The Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs provide developed, well thought-out, reasonably respected curricula that are already done.

Teachers, schools, and school districts- except for the richest (admittedly Mallory’s audience) don’t have the time or resources to write their own curricula. The most important thing undergirding a school’s use of an AP or IB curriculum is that each system, AP or IB, provides quality plan/curriculum that the district/school doesn’t have to develop from scratch.

Mallory harps on the declining recognition of AP for academic credit, but focusing on possibly not receiving collegiate credit after taking the course and sitting for the examination misses the point. The credit is only a piece of the larger process. The college credit is nice for the kids who get it but that’s not what drives schools, students and families to choose AP classes. Quality and rigor drive opting to take and AP class.

Mallory reaches, then, tries to explain that without AP courses students and teachers become free to produce richer college applications.

“…The schools rejecting AP classes have finally acted on what they had recognized for a long time: AP not only restricts curricula that is vastly superior when decided by teachers in the classroom, but is also a hindrance to submitting a top-notch college application by draining too much valuable time from studying for the SAT and preparing for other courses.”(HP)

This statement is just plain wrong in light of the fact that the single most important thing that liberal arts colleges consider when reading application is quality/rigor of course load. AP courses signify a standard of rigor that is accepted, measured, and followed over time. The course frameworks are developed around professionally accepted knowledge and understanding in each course/test field. If a school rejects the AP or any other well known measurable, affordable curricula, it’s the kind of school that has the resources to explain themselves. Most schools that I know can’t afford to do this.

He also argues for the efficacy and primacy of one test, the SAT over the other, AP. AP courses take to much time from preparing for the SAT. Huh?

Here’s the solution: TAKE DIFFICULT, CHALLENGING COURSES. Don’t get hung-up on the tests.

Always take the most challenging course load that you can take. Come college admission time, consideration and admittance grow out of a student’s rigor/quality of course load.

At virtually every school with some degree of selectivity in admission, the single most influential piece of the admission puzzle is quality of courses that the student has taken and how he/she has done in them. This isn’t to say that test scores don’t count only to encourage you to study and recognize the role in the admission equation.

Parents encourage and push your students to take the most difficult course load they can handle. Students, set aside the urge to coast and be comfortable. Fighting, working and growing through a challenging curriculum in high school provides the best preparation for college and, in most cases and places, this means AP courses.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs aren’t going anywhere any time soon.

Photo credit: Creations Look Divine via Creative Commons

Most students figure this out along the way during their K-12 years.

Either you find you’re quite good at something that you enjoy doing, or, you encounter topics that are painfully difficult and that leave you disinterested. Often this process occurs in a solitary way. It’s just something that you figure out about yourself.

For a student with learning differences, mastering this process of discovery, and personal placement, can take- like may endeavors- some planning, strategy, and overt mechanisms.

I just read a post by Harry Tubman at The Forman School (a co-ed boarding school for students with learning differences in Litchfield, CT) about the ways that Forman instills the processes of self-assessment and placement as the school prepares students for college. Forman teaches its students to build, plan, and install mechanisms of self-discovery, self-evaluation, and self-placement.

“Quick introduction, if you’re unfamiliar with Forman School, Forman is “devoted to educating young men and women with learning differences…Bright students who may have difficulty in previous academic settings may simply process information differently. At Forman, focusing on the needs and strengths of students isn’t a supplemental part of what we do…it is all that we do.”(FS)

Forman teaches a pair of sister courses, Transitions to College and Perspectives in Learning.

Tubman writes:

“…the goals of the course are for students to become more self-aware strategic learners and confident self-advocates through understanding themselves as learners, developing learning strategies (e.g. notetaking, reading, test preparation, etc.), linking strategy development with appropriate technological support, preparing for the SAT’s and refining a focused search for colleges that match their specific needs and interests…”

Individual class activities throughout the year break down all of these categories into many components through regular journaling of students’ experiences, self-assessment exercises and weekly sessions in team-building and collaborative learning in the Outdoor Leadership program. For example, students get to choose and explain adjectives that best describe themselves, discuss their top strengths and describe “peak experiences” in their lives. They confront self-revealing questions: Who are your heroes and why? If you had a motto to live by, what would it be and why? What are your greatest accomplishments and why? Describe a book or movie that affected you deeply and explain its significance.

Choosing a college is not a fishing expedition. Choosing a college should be a journey through which an individual refines the process by matching his or her talents, interests, learning style and personality to the most appropriate learning environment available.”(FS)

Don’t leap blindly. See, understand, and plan. Forman’s work may focus on learning differences students, but Forman’s emphasis on self-discovery and self-understanding can apply to us all.

The school, or college at which, one might grow the most might not be the one with greatest brand cachet. The best job might not be the job at the high profile firm.

If Forman students graduate with this kind of self awareness, they’re miles ahead of the game.

Photo credit: The Forman School

At Brentwood College School (www.brentwood.bc.ca) we use consultants in strategic markets – areas where visits are sometimes limited.  I am, however, confident that these consultants are highly professional and that they represent us well.  The students that they recommend to our school are capable, keen and are a good fit for Brentwood.  I view these consultants as an extension of my admissions office, part of my team.

ICEF (www.icef.com) holds various fairs and workshops around the world each year.  It is an opportunity for consultants from various countries to meet with admissions people in one location.  ICEF vets the consultants; schools attending these fairs are able to meet them and arrange a working relationship if mutually beneficial.  It is a speed-dating approach but an effective way to make many contacts in a short amount of time.  Last year the ICEF held its Canadian event in Toronto and this year Vancouver, British Columbia will be the host city in May.

The six boarding schools on Vancouver Island in British Columbia are pleased to have the opportunity of showcasing our world-class facilities to the world – it is rare that so many consultants will be in our area at the same time.  As more and more people get to know about our schools, the more interest from potential students is generated.  Consultants new to the area will be blown away by what they discover here on our island; I, for one, am really excited about the opportunity to showcase our school!