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Re: Free tuition - cardcoug - 04-12-2015
(04-12-2015, 02:57 PM)dabigv link Wrote:Read that article last week. Bunch of garbage. The author came into it with his conclusions decided and didn't even really try to massage the data to fit his viewpoint.
Exactly. I think the entire point is pretty well summed up toward the end: "It is noble that Stanford wants to make sure that any kid who is talented enough to gain admission there, regardless of income, has the option of doing so. It is, of course, preferable that Stanford and other schools have tuition waivers than nothing at all. These programs can only achieve their objective, however, if there are enough low-income high-school students who are accomplished enough to make the application cut for elite schools."
In other words, while Stanford is doing what it can to make its education more accessible, it hasn't eliminated all economic injustice in the United States. The rest of the article is an attempt to somehow spin this into a problem for Stanford's specific policy, generally in incoherent fashion.
Re: Free tuition - socalstanfan1 - 04-12-2015
(04-12-2015, 02:50 PM)akCard link Wrote:Someone found a downside to the widely-publicized, recent modifications Stanford made to its tuition waiver program
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/04/stanfords-tuition-giveaway-is-not-good-news/390090/
Maybe I came across this article at exactly the wrong time but the story just incensed me with its incorrect title (it's a waiver program, not a giveaway) and the highly dubious, specious, spurious logic pretzels that were used to come to the conclusion that waiving tuition (and possibly more) for economically-disadvantaged but highly qualified students is a bad, bad, bad thing to do.
From my perspective, the only real downside I can see to waiving tuition is ... WHYOHWHY wasn't this program around when I was at Stanford??? I left school with $30K in loans *and still didn't finish!* I know I shouldn't live life carrying around regrets but this is one I just cannot let go.
I was about to post this when it occurred to me that perhaps there *is* a downside to this program. I finally scored a nice outside scholarship for my last year at school, only to be surprised come tax time that I owed taxes on it because the IRS considered the scholarship money as income.
Have just read that article and just want to add a couple of points. The jist of the argument, as I read it, is: can we consider a family making $124,000 "economically disadvantaged"? Not that every family receiving a waiver makes that amount, of course, is at the top end of income-based waiver program, but I think this is the main issue. And I don't think the author considers programs to assist the disadvantaged a bad thing, (in fact, stating that the real problem is not the private schools, but the lack of adequate resources given to pubic schools at the K-12 level, resources which would help give more kids the opportunity to qualify for academically elite institutions) He even terms the goals of such waiver programs "noble" and notes the "generosity" of the institutions involved. I think the headline writer, to some degree, does a disservice to what I take to be the main point of the article: the need for better K-12 education generally.
And, as someone who is a product of the public K-12 system, the UC system, and who has taught at both a very elite private HS and a public university in Southern California, I understand that argument. Resources are so much better at private institutions, and families who can enroll their kids in such schools often can afford private tutors and extra SAT training courses for their children, and thus provide them a brobdingnagian advantage in meeting the increasingly stringent college standards. (Tough standards that I also support, given some of the poor basic skills I have seen in Freshman courses.) And, really, what responsible parent would NOT do that for their children if possible? Take the class animosity out of the argument: every school should be the quality of the private institutions, and really every parent should want that education for their children, regardless of socio-economic position.
Stanford, the Ivies, and even public systems like the UC, are doing what they can to make schools more affordable, as they should. And in no way should any of these schools be expected to lower their academic standards to address income equality issues in society; nothing good comes from that. But basically the problems being addressed in these problems are probably more than universities can, or should be expected to handle.
Re: Free tuition - akCard - 04-12-2015
(04-12-2015, 04:42 PM)socalstanfan1 link Wrote:[quote author=akCard link=topic=11950.msg116599#msg116599 date=1428875423]
Someone found a downside to the widely-publicized, recent modifications Stanford made to its tuition waiver program
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/04/stanfords-tuition-giveaway-is-not-good-news/390090/
Maybe I came across this article at exactly the wrong time but the story just incensed me with its incorrect title (it's a waiver program, not a giveaway) and the highly dubious, specious, spurious logic pretzels that were used to come to the conclusion that waiving tuition (and possibly more) for economically-disadvantaged but highly qualified students is a bad, bad, bad thing to do.
From my perspective, the only real downside I can see to waiving tuition is ... WHYOHWHY wasn't this program around when I was at Stanford??? I left school with $30K in loans *and still didn't finish!* I know I shouldn't live life carrying around regrets but this is one I just cannot let go.
I was about to post this when it occurred to me that perhaps there *is* a downside to this program. I finally scored a nice outside scholarship for my last year at school, only to be surprised come tax time that I owed taxes on it because the IRS considered the scholarship money as income.
Have just read that article and just want to add a couple of points. The jist of the argument, as I read it, is: can we consider a family making $124,000 "economically disadvantaged"? Not that every family receiving a waiver makes that amount, of course, is at the top end of income-based waiver program, but I think this is the main issue. And I don't think the author considers programs to assist the disadvantaged a bad thing, (in fact, stating that the real problem is not the private schools, but the lack of adequate resources given to pubic schools at the K-12 level, resources which would help give more kids the opportunity to qualify for academically elite institutions) He even terms the goals of such waiver programs "noble" and notes the "generosity" of the institutions involved. I think the headline writer, to some degree, does a disservice to what I take to be the main point of the article: the need for better K-12 education generally.
[/quote]
I think we're reading two different articles because right off the bat, the author clearly says it's not a good idea for people of diverse backgrounds to be at the same school: "...Stanfords tuition waiveras well as those at other highly selective collegesshould be cause for concern for anyone who believes that its important for both disadvantaged students to gain access to top schools and well-off students to interact with people from other backgrounds. A key problem with this approach to correcting income inequality is that the scale of its impact outside and, most notably, inside the universities is fairly small. Tuition waivers alone cannot level a educational playing field so heavily pitched to the advantage of the wealthy, which is why relatively few people whose families make less than six figures annually attend Stanford."
He seems to be saying the tuition waivers granted to students who qualify for the program is barely a drop in the bucket big picture-wise, which won't fix anything at all, so ... why bother??
Lost in his rush to reach a poorly-reasoned conclusion that Stanford's waiver program is "not good news" because it doesn't help enough people is perhaps a very fundamental reason why so few students, even at a school with a small-ish undergraduate student body, benefit from the school's generosity: self-exclusion by the applicants and/or their families. Because the costs to attend elite schools such as Stanford, Harvard, et. al. is so well known, a student from a different background other than an affluent one might simply look at $50K+/year and think, "I can't afford that," and never even apply in the first place.
I'll agree that tuition waivers at Stanford alone will not fix this country's higher education iniquities but that fix has to start somewhere and at the very least Stanford is taking a step in the right direction.
Re: Free tuition - CowboyIndian - 04-12-2015
(04-12-2015, 04:18 PM)ferrari link Wrote:.....underspriveled kids
This is one of the great words of all time! Now we need a definition.
Re: Free tuition - 81alum - 04-12-2015
I completely support Stanford's decision. I was able to attend Stanford on precisely this kind of program in the 1970s. My dad was a poorly paid teacher, my mom didn't work, and my older siblings had cleaned out the savings. Stanford wound up being the least expensive choice for me, because of its generous financial aid program.
Stanford's generosity to people like me, though, doesn't change the fact that college admissions inherently discriminate against low income people, simply because low income people go to low income schools and get very unequal K-12 educations. The classic study on this is here:
http://www.tcf.org/assets/downloads/tcf-carnrose.pdf
Colleges like Stanford, in tier 1, take 75% of their student from the top income quartile in the nation. The fact that they give ample financial aid to the 3% that they admit from the bottom quartile is, then, only part of the story. Those kids tend to have stories like mine--having a teacher in the family or access to some other resource that lets relatively poor people get a decent education despite the abominably bad public schools they have to attend in their poor neighborhoods. Certainly not typical of the bottom 25%.
Stanford, by the way, has always been better than the Ivies in this regard--the first to do need-blind admission, for example, and their financial aid reaches much further up the ladder. But until Stanford starts admitting a lot more low income students, its financial aid program will have a limited impact. Need blind admission almost guarantees they won't--it would almost take affirmative action for the poor to actually make a difference. Â
Which brings us to the real subject of this board. Athletics scholarships--for all their problems--probably do more to promote students from the lowest economic quartile than the other parts of the financial aids program. The extraordinary measures that Athletics Departments go to help students from underprivileged backgrounds succeed at elite universities like Stanford would need to be replicated for a great many non-athletes if elites were to play a bigger role in promoting social mobility.
Re: Free tuition (sorry for length, I'm terrible at editing) - socalstanfan1 - 04-12-2015
(04-12-2015, 06:12 PM)akCard link Wrote:[quote author=socalstanfan1 link=topic=11950.msg116605#msg116605 date=1428882148]
[quote author=akCard link=topic=11950.msg116599#msg116599 date=1428875423]
Someone found a downside to the widely-publicized, recent modifications Stanford made to its tuition waiver program
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/04/stanfords-tuition-giveaway-is-not-good-news/390090/
Maybe I came across this article at exactly the wrong time but the story just incensed me with its incorrect title (it's a waiver program, not a giveaway) and the highly dubious, specious, spurious logic pretzels that were used to come to the conclusion that waiving tuition (and possibly more) for economically-disadvantaged but highly qualified students is a bad, bad, bad thing to do.
From my perspective, the only real downside I can see to waiving tuition is ... WHYOHWHY wasn't this program around when I was at Stanford??? I left school with $30K in loans *and still didn't finish!* I know I shouldn't live life carrying around regrets but this is one I just cannot let go.
I was about to post this when it occurred to me that perhaps there *is* a downside to this program. I finally scored a nice outside scholarship for my last year at school, only to be surprised come tax time that I owed taxes on it because the IRS considered the scholarship money as income.
Have just read that article and just want to add a couple of points. The jist of the argument, as I read it, is: can we consider a family making $124,000 "economically disadvantaged"? Not that every family receiving a waiver makes that amount, of course, is at the top end of income-based waiver program, but I think this is the main issue. And I don't think the author considers programs to assist the disadvantaged a bad thing, (in fact, stating that the real problem is not the private schools, but the lack of adequate resources given to pubic schools at the K-12 level, resources which would help give more kids the opportunity to qualify for academically elite institutions) He even terms the goals of such waiver programs "noble" and notes the "generosity" of the institutions involved. I think the headline writer, to some degree, does a disservice to what I take to be the main point of the article: the need for better K-12 education generally.
[/quote]
I think we're reading two different articles because right off the bat, the author clearly says it's not a good idea for people of diverse backgrounds to be at the same school: "...Stanfords tuition waiveras well as those at other highly selective collegesshould be cause for concern for anyone who believes that its important for both disadvantaged students to gain access to top schools and well-off students to interact with people from other backgrounds. A key problem with this approach to correcting income inequality is that the scale of its impact outside and, most notably, inside the universities is fairly small. Tuition waivers alone cannot level a educational playing field so heavily pitched to the advantage of the wealthy, which is why relatively few people whose families make less than six figures annually attend Stanford."
He seems to be saying the tuition waivers granted to students who qualify for the program is barely a drop in the bucket big picture-wise, which won't fix anything at all, so ... why bother??
Lost in his rush to reach a poorly-reasoned conclusion that Stanford's waiver program is "not good news" because it doesn't help enough people is perhaps a very fundamental reason why so few students, even at a school with a small-ish undergraduate student body, benefit from the school's generosity: self-exclusion by the applicants and/or their families. Because the costs to attend elite schools such as Stanford, Harvard, et. al. is so well known, a student from a different background other than an affluent one might simply look at $50K+/year and think, "I can't afford that," and never even apply in the first place.
I'll agree that tuition waivers at Stanford alone will not fix this country's higher education iniquities but that fix has to start somewhere and at the very least Stanford is taking a step in the right direction.
[/quote]
Not sure if we are reading two different articles, or just focusing on different aspects of the same. He doesn't say it is a bad idea for people of diverse backgrounds to be at the same school. He is just not sure the waiver programs are achieving that goal. The argument that he "seems to be saying" why bother I just see differently. He notes that Stanford is much more economically diverse than it had been, that it is "understandably proud" of this fact, and the tone of the argument seems, to me at least, to be that the universities are really doing what they can, but it's not enough. I don't sense the same, fatalistic, why bother.
Sure, he says the fee waiver isn't going to address a lot of the ills of the education system and income inequality (begging the question of how much of the burden of addressing this problem should really fall on any university admission policy). From a certain perspective, increasing the income level for which people can qualify for the fee waiver doesn't do anything additional to make a private education attainable for poor people (who were already covered under the earlier policy with the lower income threshold); it allows the university to widen the number of applicants available for the waiver, now including every family in the $100,00-125,000 range. Hardly "poor" or "underprivileged" by most people's definition.
My defense of the article hinges on this section, which I find to be the core of the argument. In describing the students who fall under the $100,000 (now $125,000) income level, but still meet the university admission requirements, the author presents this description of their educational background:
"these students tend to enjoy tremendous benefits growing upamong them opportunities to live in neighborhoods alongside like-minded families that have the resources to emphasize and invest in education, go to the best schools, hire tutors, and make the significant financial sacrifices needed to build an impressive extracurricular portfolio."
That is the section I tried to elaborate on when describing the difference between, say, a kid who attends an elite private HS and has private tutors and SAT courses (and whose family income may fall in that $125,000 range) and a kid coming from more dire circumstances.
Please don't misunderstand my position. I think the waiver program is great, and does make Stanford available to a wide range of people who otherwise would never be able to attain such an outstanding education. I also think your additional point, that people often rule themselves out of the application for Stanford because they assume it is beyond their financial means is a very, very important point. Stanford and the Ivies should, IMO, aggressively market the fact of their waiver program. I did not realize this point myself until seeing it here. But I think there is more than just self-selecting out of the process going on here.
IMO Stanford, Harvard, and all the institutions who make themselves accessible to top students of all income levels should be commended for their efforts, and for their awareness of themselves as institutions that play an important role in helping to form a good society. The bigger goal should be expanding the pool of qualified students who can apply for admission.
Re: Free tuition - CornFed - 04-12-2015
(04-12-2015, 07:13 PM)CowboyIndian link Wrote:[quote author=ferrari link=topic=11950.msg116604#msg116604 date=1428880704]
.....underspriveled kids
This is one of the great words of all time! Now we need a definition.
[/quote]
I think the term refers to people who have not been sufficiently "spriveled"? But I'm not sure.
Re: Free tuition - Rally - 04-12-2015
(04-12-2015, 07:13 PM)CowboyIndian link Wrote:[quote author=ferrari link=topic=11950.msg116604#msg116604 date=1428880704]
.....underspriveled kids
This is one of the great words of all time! Now we need a definition.
[/quote]
Sorry. Typo. I meant to type "underspindled."
Re: Free tuition - Leftcoast - 04-12-2015
I googled "Sprivil" and found Sprivil Healthcare.Â
http://www.sprivil.com
So, I think this is REALLY Ferrari's way of sneaking in a subversive comment advocating free Stanford health care along with tuition to incoming students - those without healthcare are clearly "underspriviled". That's my story and I'm sticking to it 'cuz finding out Ferrari has subversive leanings is a lot more fun than finding another typo (of which I create many).
Re: Free tuition - BostonCard - 04-12-2015
I agree that the article suffers from a poor headline. The headline makes it look like the author thinks that the tuition waver is a negative; the actual article is more along the "that's nice but it doesn't address the root problem". Key passage:
Quote:It is noble that Stanford wants to make sure that any kid who is talented enough to gain admission there, regardless of income, has the option of doing so. It is, of course, preferable that Stanford and other schools have tuition waivers than nothing at all. These programs can only achieve their objective, however, if there are enough low-income high-school students who are accomplished enough to make the application cut for elite schools.
That passage is undercut by the headline. (By the way, whether the headline writer meant it or not, I read the headline, which called the tuition giveaway as "not good news" to be that it was "bad news").
The thing is, if you read what the admissions department says, Stanford is applying an informal "affirmative action" program based on social class. Stanford admissions for example, wants students to make the most of opportunities they encounter, which means that poor students who go to a school that only offers two AP classes won't get penalized for not having more so long as they take advantage of the limited opportunities they have been presented. On the other hand, students going to a rich private school that offers dozen AP classes might raise eyebrows if they "only" took two. Likewise, when it comes time to reading the essay, a student who describes how they overcame poverty to become the first in his or her family to go to college will have a more compelling story than the umpteenth mission trip essay that talks about how the applicant was inspired to make the world a better place after seeing the abject poverty in a poor developing country [For disclosure, I should note that I am part of an annual mission trip to provide respiratory care to Honduras, and I think they are great things, but it has become a such a cliché that I heard an admissions officer single out the "mission trip essay" as an overdone trope; see also: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gianna-sengupta/7-cliche-college-applicat_b_5993986.html].
There are two problems that I see. The first is that smart underspriveled (sic) students are undercut by the low expectations of their teachers, councilors, and administrators. Sadly, the goal is simply to get them to college, not to get them to an elite school, so students are advised to apply to their local CSU, or maybe UC, not to elite institutions. Some of it is simply ignorance; overworked councilors guide students to what they know, and many don't have a history of sending students to places like Stanford and the Ivies. Some of it is a bit of prejudice; students are made to believe they wouldn't fit in at a place like Stanford, or that they would struggle academically and socially at a place like Stanford. Where Stanford and others can (and are starting to) be helpful here is by visiting these schools and demystifying the process and letting students, teachers, and administrators know that kids from underspriveled backgrounds can and do succeed at a place like Stanford. To this end, is there a better representative for us than Richard Sherman? Not only is he a highly public example of a kid from Compton thriving at Stanford and beyond, but he now goes back to his school and talks to the students, letting them know that yes they can.Â
The second issue is that once underspriveled kids make it to an elite University, it is important to ensure they have the support to thrive. There was a great This American Life episode that illustrated just how much of a challenge it is culturally for a student from a poor background to go to an elite place like Stanford (and even non-elite private schools like USC where the socioeconomic status of the student body is significantly higher than what they are used to). Here's the link:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/play_full.php?play=550
I share the author's concern about the lack of economic diversity at elite universities. The stats he cites are eye-opening, and I think everyone loses when elite schools become too economically homogenous. And I do agree that more needs to be done than simply waving tuition. Where I depart from the author is that unlike him, I don't dismiss the tuition wavers (and unlike the headline writer, I don't think they are "not a good thing"). It is important that not only is admissions need blind, but that the decision to attend not be driven by economics. When an underspriveled kid gets the fat envelope from Stanford, the last thing we want is for him to look at it and the first thought be "I can't afford this".
Lastly, and I realize that this is a bit "ad hominem", but still, I can't help but notice that the author's job as tutoring manager for the Princeton Review completely undercuts his argument. He's part of the problem he decries. How about instead of working for the Princeton Review, he work to bring the same sort of tutoring, mentoring, and academic coaching to underspriveled kids who would otherwise be great candidates to go to an elite university like Stanford.
BC
Re: Free tuition (sorry for length, I'm terrible at editing) - CTcard - 04-13-2015
(04-12-2015, 07:45 PM)socalstanfan1 link Wrote:The bigger goal should be expanding the pool of qualified students who can apply for admission.
In the end, I think that was supposed to be the point of this article, which is mostly noted in the final paragraph. I presume that the focus on Stanford was supposed to make concrete what numbers show in broad brush strokes. While inelegantly done, IMO, I can see the point.
Unfortunately, the upshot seems to be that most folks miss what I think were his two main conclusions. That colleges should consider affirmative action based upon income, or more broadly economic status, and that our country should do a better job educating all students.
The former Stanford and the other Ivy-level schools already do as mentioned elsewhere in this thread by Boston Card. A more interesting article would probably examine the extent Stanford (or Harvard or any other wealthy school) does so and consider to what degree they should push this. Perhaps connected to the dilemna the approach presents for the less wealthy schools that are struggling to keep things together.
The latter point is just boiler point supposition here. There is much to be said on the matter, but at this point takes a substantial effort to write anything new.
Re: Free tuition - 81alum - 04-13-2015
The standard criticism of elites like Stanford is that their students succeed because admissions selected students who already have proven they will succeed, not because of the quality of education that the University provides. Some critics say that elites sort students rather than educate them. That the value of a Stanford degree is imparted more by Admissions than by the faculty.
The test of whether this criticism is true or not really must be the extent to which the elite universities help students succeed who are not already bound for glory when they are admitted. How well do the elites help students who are genuinely talented, but whose families lack the income to take advantage of admission-getting advantages like the trips and the extracurriculars referenced earlier in this thread?
This is a healthy discussion, and yes, I think elite admissions could do better. 75% vs. 3% is an extreme difference and not one that is consistent with the American dream of social mobility.
Re: Free tuition - Mick - 04-13-2015
(04-12-2015, 10:02 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:There are two problems that I see. The first is that smart underspriveled (sic) students are undercut by the low expectations of their teachers, councilors, and administrators. Sadly, the goal is simply to get them to college, not to get them to an elite school, so students are advised to apply to their local CSU, or maybe UC, not to elite institutions. Some of it is simply ignorance; overworked councilors guide students to what they know, and many don't have a history of sending students to places like Stanford and the Ivies. Some of it is a bit of prejudice; students are made to believe they wouldn't fit in at a place like Stanford, or that they would struggle academically and socially at a place like Stanford. Where Stanford and others can (and are starting to) be helpful here is by visiting these schools and demystifying the process and letting students, teachers, and administrators know that kids from underspriveled backgrounds can and do succeed at a place like Stanford. To this end, is there a better representative for us than Richard Sherman? Not only is he a highly public example of a kid from Compton thriving at Stanford and beyond, but he now goes back to his school and talks to the students, letting them know that yes they can.Â
Lastly, and I realize that this is a bit "ad hominem", but still, I can't help but notice that the author's job as tutoring manager for the Princeton Review completely undercuts his argument. He's part of the problem he decries. How about instead of working for the Princeton Review, he work to bring the same sort of tutoring, mentoring, and academic coaching to underspriveled kids who would otherwise be great candidates to go to an elite university like Stanford.
Great post, BC. The theme of your first post has been nagging at me for about 20 years. I knew a high school counselor in my social circle, and I recall talking with him about a student of special talent. He was discussing his scholastic options and I suggested Stanford and he replied "Well, we don't think that's the right fit for him." Fine, but I knew this young man's family very well, and his qualifications -- he ended up at Yale -- and over the years I've noticed a distinct tendency to both underprepare and undershoot with respect to the school's students...two of which were my sons. The head of the college counseling department made clear to me the following semi-eyebrow raising points, either stated or strongly implied:
1) The counselors and department felt that it was partly their job to route students to favored colleges, particularly small liberal arts colleges. They didn't favor the UC system, and they weren't particularly helpful with respect to the most elite universities (let's say the top 20 ranked schools).
2)Â The counselors had absolutely no problem with students matriculating at colleges for which they were likely overqualified, particularly since their great fear was to fall short of parental expectations, which admittedly occurred in 2008 or 2009 when about 80 students/families had to be told that there was a great "recentering" at the University of California system when admission rates dropped dramatically.
3) The counselors were perfect for students who fell in the fat part of the bell curve, but virtually useless for the most scholastically inclined end. Their advice was off the mark either slightly or substantially in most instances for students who were very highly academically prepared.
4) The admissions department was behind the curve with respect to preparing academically-inclined students; e.g., at the end of sophomore year they suggested at an all-parent meeting that their children "consider" an AP class. Well my friend, that ship has sailed if your academically inclined child wants to go to a great university.
The funny thing to me (to your last point) was that the school-employed counselors did a lot of work off the books and not too expertly.
Re: Free tuition - washingtonismoney - 04-13-2015
A study -- authored by a Stanford prof no less -- suggests a large number of students systematically set their sights too low in applying: http://www.brookings.edu/about/projects/bpea/latest-conference/2013-spring-selective-colleges-income-diversity-hoxby
Re: Free tuition - yvonne - 04-13-2015
Perhaps, city council meetings are a poor place to get college information. You should have talked to your guidance counselor at school.
Re: Free tuition - dabigv13 - 04-13-2015
(04-13-2015, 11:13 AM)ferrari link Wrote:My public high school "councilor" was atrocious. I had never met him by the start of my senior year, but went to see him for a Stanford app. Without knowing anything about me or my record he immediately recommended the local JC. when I asked for the Stanford app anyway he refused to give it to me, saying I would never get in. Just a bit irritated I asked if he would mind looking at my record, PSAT, etc. he reluctantly did, told me I was a fine young man, and still refused. So I asked my uncle, who lived in Los Altos Hills, to pick one up and send it to me. This was the same school which, when. Said I wanted to take English the summer before my freshman year. They complied, by enrolling me in a remedial reading class. I quickly figured out this whole thing was a joke and completed freshman college Englis my senior year at that JC (which Stanford allowed me full credit for.) being naive and, I admit, a little cocky, I applied to only one college and fortunately was accepted.
I think you might want to look over your notes from that Englis class again.
Re: Free tuition - CTcard - 04-13-2015
(04-13-2015, 11:13 AM)ferrari link Wrote:This was the same school which, when. Said I wanted to take English the summer before my freshman year. They complied, by enrolling me in a remedial reading class. I quickly figured out this whole thing was a joke and completed freshman college Englis my senior year at that JC (which Stanford allowed me full credit for.)Â
Apparently what you needed was a remedial typing class (or some such). [emoticon]
--------------------
Two things about the American public school system have always mystified me - having grown up in another country (northwards).
One is the guidance counselor as gate keeper to college thing. Just didn't exist for us. I guess they expected that if we were qualified to go to college we would be able to write letters asking for applications. I can see why some guidance could be helpful, but it still seems awfully foreign to me to trust one's future to somebody trying to oversee several hundred kids a year.
The other is buses zipping around all over town, eating up school budgets and determining the start/end times of the school day ... but that is quite another story.
Re: Free tuition - washingtonismoney - 04-13-2015
(04-13-2015, 12:33 PM)CTcard link Wrote:The other is buses zipping around all over town, eating up school budgets and determining the start/end times of the school day ... but that is quite another story.
Is there less segregation in Canada? For the US busing, all things being equal, surely reduces school segregation -- which is, of course, bad.
Re: Free tuition - CTcard - 04-13-2015
(04-13-2015, 12:51 PM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:[quote author=CTcard link=topic=11950.msg116644#msg116644 date=1428953619]
The other is buses zipping around all over town, eating up school budgets and determining the start/end times of the school day ... but that is quite another story.
Is there less segregation in Canada? For the US busing, all things being equal, surely reduces school segregation -- which is, of course, bad.
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Good question.
I cannot quite comment on now, been down south of the border for too long. There was less talk about segregation in Canada, and Canadians tended to believe that they had fewer segregation and general race-related problems than did the USA (the States as we would say). That might reflect the less talk as much as actually fewer problems, however.
I see buses all taking kids to school even in districts where there doesn't seem to be any out-of area population mixing in the schools. My impression is that every kid in the USA who lives more than about 1/2 mile from school gets a bus ride - but it's just an impression and I don't really know how all of this works.
Re: Free tuition - stupac2 - 04-13-2015
(04-13-2015, 01:16 PM)CTcard link Wrote:My impression is that every kid in the USA who lives more than about 1/2 mile from school gets a bus ride - but it's just an impression and I don't really know how all of this works.
That was true where I grew up.