What Makes a College or University Unique?

When a student and her family are searching for a post-secondary school that will be a “perfect” fit, they may see this as a daunting or even overwhelming task. How can they better the odds that the schools they consider will meet most of their needs? Will they be able to provide an environment where the student will have a chance to thrive in the midst of preparing for their career or post-graduate life?

While there is no easy answer, the process of school selection is quite definable, manageable and with enough advanced research and planning can be a wonderful experience for the entire family. The one MUST of this process is that it stem from the student point of view: what are her passions, what environment best suits her personality, what are her values? If these parameters are not brought into the selection process, there is a very HIGH probability that the student will not graduate in 4 years, will not enjoy the college experience, or not find anything that will facilitate their entry into the workplace upon graduation.

So put all of the above into the mixing bowl and add several additional key ingredients: student stats (GPA, ACT/SAT, rank, curriculum challenge, extracurricular involvement), their essay, their choice of large or small school, location, selectivity etc. When you stir this mixture you have the opportunity to then select several of the over 3500 colleges and universities where you can seek admission. Oh yeah, you then need to factor in that not so little consideration: the actual cost of attendance.

Okay it took a bit of preamble to address this topic of this post but here it is. While you should be prepared to do all of the above, it really helps to look a large variety of schools when you are trying to make a decision. Some you choose should be sure shots for admission, some should be possible and others a bit of a reach-visit as many as you possibly can. Make your visits with variety in mind; see a few large and small schools to get a feel for the campus and students that attend.

Here’s the deal, almost without exception each school you see (even though you have carefully narrowed down your choices) has some MAJOR uniqueness that will make it stand out. Whether it is faculty, specific majors, school spirit, the physical plant, student type or location there will always be something different about each institution.

Over the past few years, we at Educational Avenues have visited over 400 colleges. We use a practiced eye to look at each school as an entity unto itself: what student would fit there and who might have trouble? Is the faculty research oriented to the exclusion of student development? Are the students accepting or exclusionary? For some very good reasons, a number of these schools fall off our list of possible choices for the students we help in the school selection process. The rest have that uniqueness that will be an absolute match for one of our students. Give us a shout (chip@eduave.com or Claire@eduave.com) and we can share some of the ways we spot these characteristics as well discover the true hidden gems. We just completed a tour of 16 private colleges and universities in Florida and can give you an example of how each one has been able to be competitive as well in touch with what students of today require.

The Adolescent Brain

“Adolescents are complicated critters”, said Dr. Jeff M.Georgi a well-known clinical specialist in addiction at Duke University’s department of psychiatry and surgery. I thought back to my own kids and the students I work with and nodded. He continued: “Their brains are biologically vulnerable and psychologically impacted by exposure to adverse social settings”.
Even though I have taken a number of physiological psychology courses, this workshop I attended at the recent IECA national conference, honed in on new research that links early nicotine use to a high probability of addiction. Dr. Georgi explained that the earlier kids start smoking, the more programmed for addiction their brain becomes. In other words, nicotine has a sticky way of priming the developing brain by getting into all the nooks and crannies, thus predisposing the brain to seek out substances that produce those feelings. Exposing a developing brain to nicotine primes it for addiction. No other substance has such a tragic effect.

During my clinical field experience, I attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, where people would smoke during the break and then return to the hall where they worked on their alcohol addiction. Their smoking addiction was not even addressed, and it was clear to me that while they could quit drinking using the 12-steps program among supportive peers, they were sucking on those cigarettes for dear life. Were they trying to give up alcohol when the nicotine addiction had started it all? If nicotine is the root of the addiction shouldn’t we all try to stop young people from starting and help those who are already addicted tackle the root cause of their illness? This thinking had never occurred to me prior to attending this workshop. Dr. Georgi’s research implies that if teens don’t start smoking, they are much less likely to succumb to addiction
Dr. Georgi pointed out what many adults know: teens are excitement seekers and boredom is deadly for them. Physiologically, if those places in the brain that make and retain memories (the amygdola and hippocampus) are not active, the frontal cortex, that performs many functions loosely called cognition, is also not active and kids experience boredom. Teens seek novelty because it results in an increase of dopamine, a substance that gives pleasure to the receptors in the brain. Bored teens are likely to take more risks to get out of their boredom and fulfill their biological mandate. In proper dosage, dopamine allows people to enjoy themselves, but too much causes over stimulation. Teens do not have fully gown neurons in the pre-frontal cortex until their twenties, so their judgment and planning ability is easily compromised. (The neurons in the brain are like a tree, the trunk and branches are called the axion and dendrites respectively). In kids these branches are not yet fully myelinated, or covered with a sheath or coating of myelin. If these “naked” or uncovered dendrites get coated with nicotine, they become programmed for addiction.

Teens absolutely need novelty and excitement, some of which is positive such as roller-coasting, white-water rafting and even skydiving can be relatively safe. However, a sky-dive does not last three hours or the diver would be dead. Too much stimulation is not good. Too much drive and shame toward perfectionism interferes with learning in school. We don’t learn when we are terrified or humiliated. According to Dr. Georgi, the same brain cells that benefit from novelty die with too much stimulation. For instance, when a child is subjected to a traumatic event, the hippocampus shuts down and does not remember, but the amygdola registers and stores the events subconsciously. This is important to know when helping teens who were traumatized, because the memories you make in adolescence are memories you keep. If adolescents don’t take advantage of their brain’s ability to learn during their teen years, their window narrows, the unused branches or dendrites get cut off. It’s why we want our teens to experience events that produce good memories, to have good relationships, and to experience emotional safety.
We want to challenge our teens socially, physically, emotionally and academically because purposeful attention helps maturation of the prefrontal lobe, that part of the brain that stores working memory and other functions needed for higher learning.

An overall recipe for teens’ health is seeing two parents who love each other. They need to see the commitment and courtesy between mom and dad. They need to see healthy role models: girls need to be exposed to strong women who have power and choose their relationships wisely. Boys need to identify with dads who love, respect and take care of their mate and the children. If mom or dad is drinking every night and s/he can’t help it, s/he sets the example for the children to follow. In our practice we refer teens to special programs where they learn to self-regulate and make better decisions for themselves. However, when they return to a family that has not changed, there’s a gravitational pull toward regression. Successful intervention requires significant time to solidify lasting change in both parents and teen.

There’s a myth about college students drinking, that they study hard, work hard and play hard. Research shows that binge drinking destroys the pre-frontal cortex, which moderates impulsivity among other functions. Impulsivity increases the risk for addiction. (UNC Researchers: Crews FT, Boettinger CA). Students may have studied in the library for 6 hours, if they then go out drinking they wipe out what much of what they just learned. However, it should be pointed out that college is not “Animal House” anymore. The majority of college students do not abuse alcohol. It’s important to dispel this myth so students will not expect themselves to drink once they enter college.

A recent article printed in the Chronicle of Higher Education indicates that a few college presidents at very elite colleges are considering lowering the drinking age, perhaps because they think their high-achieving students are mature and sensible enough to decide for themselves. Smoking which is even more pernicious a substance was not mentioned. It too should be made illegal to purchase before age 21. Dr. Georgi makes it clear that it makes no sense to lower the drinking age when an 18-year-old brain is still at the mid-point of development. An 18 year old is not capable of making the decisions that a 23-year-old can. Dr. Georgi concluded: “If we are going to do something stupid, let’s not do it in the face of this tidal wave of facts and information”.

C. Claire Law, M.S. IECA Certified Educational Planner, is the author of Find the Perfect College for You, based on matching a student’s MBTI® personality preference to the best-fit colleges. Claire is the founder and president of Edcational Avenues. She can be reached at claire@eduave.com
Bibliography: Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are by Joseph LeDoux Buzzed: The Straight Facts About the Most Used and Abused Drugs from Alcohol to Ecstasy (Third Edition) by Cynthia Kuhn, Scott Swartzwelder, and Wilkie Wilson

An IECA Conference: Perfecting Life-long Learning Skills and Passions

We’ve been really busy over the last month. We attended our semi-annual IECA conference and boy was it jam-packed with incredible seminars, updates on schools, colleges and programs!

At the IECA conference, we shared information with our colleagues and Claire and Chip Law organized and presented information on College Financial Aid in a preconference workshop. We proved that we really know our stuff when it comes to understanding the difference between a college’s sticker price and the true net cost to families. This a major factor in determining affordability and its impact on college choice. Educational Avenues will be giving free seminars late this year and into 2010 to help families understand where their student can get in for an affordable price.


As an introduction to her upcoming book Find the Perfect College for You, Claire Law presented ways for her colleagues to determine their personality type and how personality type applies to the Educational Avenues process when helping students find their best college match.
Claire Law worked on the IECA conference committee and secured the appearance and introduced the conference keynote speaker, Nido Qubien, who is currently the president of High Point University and among many other notable things, is known internationally as one of the top speakers in the world, as well as a successful business executive and philanthropist. Qubien presented his formula for success to the IECA conference attendees.

As usual the conference provided us with incredible learning opportunities. Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind gave us a very compelling argument about how our educational focus and training needs to change radically and quickly. Only those that embrace change, develop the cultivation of right brain skills which include creativity, innovation and critical thinking will have mastery over the exciting yet unknown opportunities and challenges we face in the future.
The conference concluded with an absolutely fascinating master class that covered the essence of addiction in a developing young adult. The material presented by Jeffrey Georgi, a clinical faculty member of the Duke Medical School and the Duke Addictions Program was both enlightening and frightening. We at Educational Avenues plan to help our families fully understand the nature of this disease by providing factual data, resources and advice on how the family system needs to become a stronghold of support for the prevention and/or treatment of this corrosive malady.


Respond to our blog or contact us by email if you want more info on these topics. Claire@eduave.com, chip@eduave.com or (843) 278-1271 or Skype us at Educational Avenues or Chip Law. Visit our website-www.eduave.com.

Application to a Selective College: The Addendum-Friend or Foe

So you’ve decided to apply to a fairly selective college or university. You’ve completed all the steps that you need in order to apply and are now in the final stages prior to hitting the submit button and getting this daunting process behind you is your top priority. In fact, you may have tried to submit your application and found that it could not be processed because you did not complete the particular school’s addendum.

So what is this beast and why is it of importance in some cases when you apply to a selective school? Well, in many cases it is not and the addendum simply asks for additional demographic or family information. For these addenda you simply fill them out as per directions and you then apply to that particular school. These selective schools use other factors than the addendum to differentiate admission offers.

Today we are also seeing selective schools looking for creative ways to shape their incoming classes. They are looking for diversity in such traditional areas as geography, ethnicity, and socioeconomic circumstances and they are also looking for real diversity in thought. One way to accomplish this goal is to challenge prospective students with addenda to the application that will demonstrate a student’s creativity as well as their problem solving and critical thinking abilities. The key here is that the student must respond to these addenda in a way that reflects their best in demonstrating these skills.

Let’s look at an example. Wake Forest recently went SAT/ACT optional. One the reasons for this was that they wanted to achieve some of the class-shaping/diversity goals described above. Wake was quite transparent and when it made this announcement it explained its new process for admission. One addition was the interview while another was a strong emphasis on the addendum. This addendum could have a powerful impact on an admissions decision. The questions are potential minefields or golden opportunities. The student completing the document must be in “I’ m applying to a very selective school mode” and answer each question with thoughtfulness, clarity and in some cases innovation and creativity. Some students may answer a question such as “What outrages you?” with “I hate it when I work in a team on some members do not do anything and I have to do their work”. This is not a good answer. In fact, it reflects an image of a whiner and of someone that is immature and self-centered. When one thinks about it, a proper response to this question (as expected by the admissions staff) might be to reflect on the situation in Darfur, or cruelty to animals or man’s destruction of the planet. If you look at each of the questions in Wake’s addendum you’ll find similar opportunities to shine or fail miserably.

Many other selective schools have these addenda. You must be careful and take a larger view when you fill them out. While you cannot have anyone other than yourself make these responses, you should strongly consider having parents, peers, or a guidance/counseling professional review your work. Putting in the extra thought and review can clearly make the difference between acceptance and rejection.

The College Application-Are you on the track or headed for derailment?

Here we go again. The senior class is now in various stages of getting ready for applying to college. Perhaps you are assuming that you are ready to start applying to schools and filling out the application. This assumption is a pretty big one in that most or all of the bullet items below should be complete before you begin the actual application process:


· You’ve looked at yourself in an unvarnished way in terms of assessing where you stand with your grades, your class rank and the difficulty of your high school curriculum


· You’ve taken your standardized tests and understand what role they might play in your admission to a specific college and made plans to prep retake them if necessary


· You’ve confirmed with your school counselor that you have or will have the necessary requirements fulfilled by the time you graduate next year


· You are clear on who needs what by when from the guidance perspective. (they mail transcripts, updated grade reports, etc. to each of the schools that you choose for application)

· You’ve picked the teachers you think will give you the best recommendation and gotten their commitment to provide that recommendation by a predetermined time


· You’ve set expectations for the kind of school you want to attend: public vs. private, large vs. small, social vs. intellectual, liberal arts vs. pre-professional along with other considerations : financial, demographic and geographic preferences/necessities or school reputation


· You’ve given a lot of thought to what possible majors you might choose based upon your personal strengths and passion and then looked carefully via the Web to have a firsthand virtual “visit” to the school


· You’ve narrowed the school list to 6-8 choices with a variation in selectivity i.e., probable admission school vs. a possible vs. a high reach institution and visited the ones that interest you the most


· You’ve prepared your “brag” sheet or resume


· You’ve consulted with your parents and college counselor and obtained their input


So now if you’ve done all that you are pretty much ready to fill out the application to each of the schools to which you wish to apply. You may find the Common Application to be a wonderful tool if most of the schools on your list are private and of higher selectivity, The Common App allows you to apply to multiple schools using only one online effort for the main application. However, in order to differentiate applicants, many schools now make use of supplements (this will be discussed in a future post) which are separate addenda to the Common App, but can still be submitted online to that school along with the regular Common App. Unfortunately many smaller private schools and most public institutions have their own application and as such each app. must be filled out and submitted separately. Depending on how many schools you want to apply to, you can start to see that this activity can be tedious and eat up a lot of time. Patience and careful scrutiny of your work is still a must.


Perhaps the most vexing part of the application process is the writing section. Most schools have a short essay and then have a “personal statement”. We find this task to be most challenging to students because they are asked to write about themselves and to do it in a manner that will present a very clear picture of them to an admissions staff. It is critically important that you are able to show vs. tell about yourself in the essay. Doing a good job on this part of the application can be a key factor in the admission decision and is not to be taken lightly. While we recommend critical review of the essay by your parents, teachers or other respected adults; the essay must be written by you: trained admission personnel can easily spot a perfectly crafted essay created by a well intentioned parent or a writing professional. Be yourself, stay in character and show the reader what makes you tick. You want them to see you someone that they want on their campus next fall.


Most importantly if you haven’t completed most of the bulleted items above, you really need to get focused and moving on this now. Make a timeline, create a checklist and enlist the aid of a classmate to keep you accountable and on to ask. If you start now the train will never have a chance to come off the track.


Next post : The application supplement friend or foe?

College Rankings and the Prospective Student: Caveat Emptor

Every year at this time parents anxiously await the results of the US News and World report annual rankings of colleges and universities. The rankings are compiled with an incredible amount of provable fact based statistics and are then coupled with soft data such as peer reviews of other institutions of higher learning, faculty ratings etc. . These rankings are often filled with controversy: some of which is “ranking envy”, while other concerns are related to the ways schools can and do things to game the system to improve their overall ranking.


So why all the hubbub?


Well, there are over 3500 four year schools and colleges in the US from which a student may choose to apply. The family needs some basis to narrow down that number and one of the ways to do it is to look at the rankings and then use the myriad of data available to try to figure out which school the student will have the best chance for admission. So the better the student performs, the target schools for the family will also rise relative to the rankings. Let’s say the list of schools that a student/family desires to attend/apply becomes defined by the rankings. They will need to sift through a complex matrix of data sets to determine their student’s chances for admission. Some of the criteria are hard facts (GPS, rank, SAT, rigor of curriculum) and there are additional criteria that look at soft (but highly important at some highly ranked schools) admission attributes including the personal statement/essay, recommendations and extracurricular activities.


So now the focus for college admission has been whittled down to a list of options based on ranking, and what might come next could be cost, or geography or the size of the school etc. So for data gathering and filtering, rankings can be a tremendous asset in college selection. However, this methodology of generating a college list is significantly flawed. Its basis is completely off the mark because it does not take into account the most important aspect of college consideration: what school is the best fit for my particular student?

Parents may feel proud that their child has been offered admission to a highly ranked school and the reasons are many: social status, living their dreams through their child’s accomplishments, assuming that attendance at a highly ranked school will automatically translate into a lucrative future, etc. As Lee Corso might say “Not so fast my friends…”


As educational consultants one of the most important services we provide is that we drive the college selection process based on the student’s passions and aspirations. We take all of the same data described above and (in our practice) use personality and career assessment tools to determine the best possible fit based on the student’s potential and not the possible parental infatuation with a school’s ranking.


Importantly, we have visited the schools on the list we generate, we’ve met with students, faculty and school administrators. We apply this knowledge in the context of the student’s personality type, career aspirations and his or her “numbers” and then choose the list of best fit schools. So while at times, a number of highly ranked schools appear on the list, there may be few or none on others. When you focus on the best fit for a student the US News rank of a school has little to no correlation with the actual match.

Rankings are a useful tool, but nothing replaces a thorough assessment of all the student’s attributes culminating in their school selection based on where they will thrive by optimizing their experiences at the school they attend to achieve their life goals and passions.


What do you think about the US News rankings?