HUNT FOR COLLEGE
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • Podcasts
  • Pricing

How to Ensure Student's Success?

2/14/2018

0 Comments

 
College is more than a goal that is accomplished once a student gets the admittance email and moves in to the dorm freshman year.  Yet too often the attention shifts at that point to the next set of high school seniors or to a younger sibling.
What the dismal statistics of college graduation rates in 6 years, (The 6-year graduation rate was 59 percent at public institutions, 66 percent at private nonprofit institutions, and 23 percent at private for-profit institutions.) https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40  points to is a need for help for students in college to stay there and succeed.
I am a college counselor.  I help students in high school find the college that is right for them.  Lately I have been asked to help students when things go wrong – a college that isn’t the right fit, a mental health issue that necessitates fewer classes or a disciplinary issue that results in a suspension.   There are so many things that can go wrong once a student is in college and parents have very few rights to find out that anything is even wrong unless the student tells them.  Colleges are bound by FERPA laws that preclude them from contact with parents unless a student is under 18 (20 U.S. Code § 1232g)
What is a parent to do when things turn South?  I suggest that colleges need to have success coaches that go beyond what mental health counselors or academic advisors do with students.  Colleges that have implemented this have a history of success. http://success.students.gsu.edu/
Georgia State University has had such a program since 2003.  From 2003 to 2015, according to GSU, its graduation rate (finishing a bachelor’s degree within six years of starting) for African-American students rose from 29 to 57 percent. For Hispanic students, it went from 22 to 54 percent. By 2014, for lower-income students (those eligible for a federal Pell grant), it reached 51 percent — nearly the same as for non-Pell students. Its graduation rate for first-generation students went up 32 percent between 2010 and 2014.
We need more such programs to ensure students success.

 
 
0 Comments

Do You Care About Earnings?

9/18/2015

0 Comments

 
The new College Scorecard website https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/, breaks down earnings for college graduates by school.  The parameters are that the students included are those who received federal student loans and the time accessed is ten years after enrollment (so between six and four years after graduation depending on how long the student spent in college).  One can sort by the percentage earned above the earnings of a high school graduate, the average annual cost (after aid is received), graduation rate (after six years), name and size of the school.  This is invaluable because it reveals that some of the most expensive schools do not result in more earnings for graduates and some less expensive schools do.  This is examined in a recent NY Times article, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/14/upshot/gaps-in-alumni-earnings-stand-out-in-release-of-college-data.html.  The website is easy to understand and use.  I urge every student and parent to examine it.

0 Comments

National College Advising Corps a Lifesaver for Students

5/28/2015

0 Comments

 
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article22437873.html
The National College Advising Corps members do the work of a college counselor but inside the classroom and at no cost to students.  Thanks to a $10 million dollar grant from the Belk Endowment, advisors have been placed in rural North Carolina high schools to help with everything from filling out the FAFSA to scholarship opportunities!  Students that otherwise would not go to college are now attending.
0 Comments

46 Majors at 14 UNC Institutions Eliminated

5/27/2015

0 Comments

 
http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2015/05/board-of-governors-eliminates-46-degree-programs-across-unc-system
Were you attending UNC Chapel Hill to major in biology?  No longer possible.  What happens if you are a rising senior with a math major at Appalachian State or UNC Greensboro?  Your major is now discontinued.  What exactly does that mean if you are already in the program?  The UNC Board of Governors took this action on Friday.  We will follow this and let students and parents know what to do if it affects them.
0 Comments

Ideas for Parents for College Suicide Prevention

2/7/2015

0 Comments

 
Parents need to know what to do before the worst happens.  I am writing this as the parent of a college freshman and high school sophomore and an Independent Educational Consultant.    We send our children to college with every thought that the hardest part of parenting is over.  The possibility of losing a child in college is unthinkable.  Here are some recommendations because we need some action to take.  We are reminded of the father of Anna Marie Smith who, once he realized she had left her laptop at home, raced to the campus only to be too late. No parent should have to go through that.

If your college student seems to not be doing well, a parent needs to have daily communication by telephone, not text, with that student.  Parents need the telephone numbers of students’ dorm and suite mates and the Resident Advisor. 

Colleges are severely limited by FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) and cannot contact a parent when their child seeks mental health services.  If a student who is not doing well cannot be contacted, act immediately by going to them to ensure that they are getting services from the student health center.  Another option is to remove them from school until they can be stabilized with help from mental health professionals and possibly medication. 

Parents can and should plan ahead by helping their student choose the right college.  Independent Educational Consultants that specialize in helping students with any type of special circumstance should be chosen.  Parents can help keep their precious children alive.

0 Comments

The Internet World-Don't Be Afraid To Jump In

6/4/2014

0 Comments

 
So you've decided to change careers around age 50.  You are nervous but excited.  What is the scariest thing you could do?  Invest your retirement money?  Nope.  Change your look to be more professional?  Nope.  The scariest thing I have done is to take a class called "Using the Internet for College Counseling".
I had never used facebook or twitter.  The only podcasts I had heard of were from NPR but I'd never listened to one.  I had certainly never dreamed of making my own podcast or writing this blog every week.
The class has opened my eyes to so many possibilites with social media.  I now tweet and retweet and check twitter daily.  I enjoy facebook and especially the photos on it.  I have made a website and a podcast. 
This brave new world is today's world.  My teenage children have never known another.  It is rewarding and interesting.  It is time to join.  Even if you are scared, jump in, the water is fine.
0 Comments

Student Athletes- Read the Fine Print

6/1/2014

0 Comments

 
You are a student athlete who got a scholarship offer to play your sport in college.  Congratulations.  Do you know exactly what you've signed up for?  What if you get hurt?  What if you can't keep your grades up?  What happens to your scholarship money?
Student athletes have the dual responsibility of school work and sports.  A regional director of the National Labor Relations Board recently ruled that the amount of time spent by college athletes (in his ruling football players at schools with large programs) makes them into workers not just students.  The amount of time spent by scholarship athletes practicing and competing can equal 40 hours per week or more.  
If you think it will be easy to find the time to do your best on the field and in the classroom, think again.
So what is the answer?  Read the fine print of your scholarship offer.  Take the offer to a trusted professional person to explain it to you and your parents.  Do this before you accept it.  It will be worth it to understand what your life in college will be like and what could go wrong.
 

0 Comments

Sometimes You Can Get What You Don't Pay For!

5/23/2014

0 Comments

 
Do you need to pay for SAT/ACT preparation?  That depends on you.  If you can learn from an online website then the answer is no.  There are dozens of free test prep sites with actual full length practice test that can be timed or not and score your answers.  You can even get explanantions for each answer - for free. 
What about videos?  Do you need to listen and not just read the explanations?  Also free.  What if you want to download a test and print it?  Also free.
I could not find one difference between online paid site services and free ones.  If you need in person help then hire a tutor one on one or go to a class.  If you can learn online then do it for free and save hundreds or thousands of dollars!
0 Comments

All Money Is Not Good Money!

5/17/2014

0 Comments

 
You may be thinking - I can get all of the loans and grants I need for college.  Yes, you can but should you?  The answer is No.  American students have an average student loan amount of $29,400.  Do you want to owe that much when you graduate from college?  What can you do to avoid this?  Money that is a grant not a loan does not need to be repaid!  Work-study money is payment for services.  Beware of all of loans!

What can I do to get the right money?  There are so many websites that say they can help you find the money for college.  Can they?  I found one that I recommend you check out.  It is a full service website called financialaidtoolkit.ed.gov.  It can help you with every step of the process from understanding the FAFSA, loans and grants to filling out the forms to interpreting the aid offer once you get it.

One thing to keep in mind is that a higher priced school doesn't necessarily cost more.  Some expensive colleges have more grant (not loan) money to give.  You must carefully evaluate your offers of financial aid to get to the bottom of what you get as a grant and what would have to be repaid.  This decision will affect the rest of your life!  Be careful and get help if you need it.


0 Comments

Virtual College Tours - Worth Watching?

5/10/2014

0 Comments

 
If you are considering a college should you visit one of the multiple virtual sites?  Are the tours realistic or even interesting?  
Well the answer is yes, yes and yes.  If you have never been to a campus then the video walking tours on sites such as the college websites themselves or youvisit.com will show you the landmarks of the campus with a detailed commentary.  This can help you eliminate colleges that you find unappealing from looks alone.  Once you have selected several of interest then  you can try different parts of a website like collegeclickTV.com to compare statistics of colleges and view videos.

Videos made by students can be viewed on every subject especially on youtube.com.  If you want to know what the inside of a dorm looks like then youtube.com will have a video to show you.  Keep in mind that this site is not edited and contains students' subjective opinions so it might be wise to view several videos on controversial subjects before coming to the truth.

Once you have narrowed your college preferences down you really need to visit the schools in person.  The reason is that it is vital that you feel at home and that you can see yourself spending the next four years of your life at the school.  Visit while school is in session and see if you get the feeling 


0 Comments
<<Previous

    Author

    The author is Rachel Hunt a lawyer turned college counseling consultant.  She is the mother of one college senior and one college freshman.

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.