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Post by BoilerUp! on Apr 23, 2007 17:17:22 GMT -5
Except when your daughter says she needs to go an extra year to finish classes?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2007 17:42:17 GMT -5
How do scholarships work tax-wise?
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Post by BearClause on Apr 23, 2007 17:53:40 GMT -5
How do scholarships work tax-wise? Academic fees/tuition/books shouldn't be counted as income. Apparently room/board are counted as income. Not 100% sure about travel costs. The school financial aid office should submit a form to the student-athlete and the IRS. Taxes need to be filed by the student-athlete. Some parents incorrectly count this as their own income.
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Post by Phaedrus on Apr 23, 2007 18:06:58 GMT -5
Academics, my favorite topics too.
1) Assume a Gaussian distribution, i.e. a bell curve (you may or may not agree with the concept but it is a generally accepted measure). The top 22.5% at any of the top 50 schools and the bottom 22.5% of the undergraduate population are prettu much the same. The smart people are going to do well, and the not so smart aren't going to do well no matter what kind of education they are exposed to. It is the education of the middle 55% that is of concern to most educators, such is the pedagogical paradigm of the institution of higher learning. That being asserted, it all matters where you sit on the curve and what the specific institution does to educate you, whether you are in the top, middle or bottem segment of the set.
2) The Ivy leagues have a stellar reputation for a reason, but they are geared towards the classical educational paradigm of teaching the idle rich in a liberal arts tradition so that they can continue to grow their family fortunes or contribute to society as only the idle rich can, through the arts, philanthropy, or governance. As such, a liberal arts education at the ivies is an undeniable advantage. But if you wish to pursue certain sciences, engineering, or anything to do with high technology, the ivies may not be the most effective means to that end. Don't forget, being a part of the bottom 22.5% in an Ivy League college means that you are still in the bottom 22.5%.
3) Certain schools aren't for everyone. Not everyone can thrive at Harvard. Not everyone can be happy at MIT. Some can't handle being at a JC. You have to find your own fit. New York Times did a series a few months ago about very smart and very focused high school kids who deliberately avoided the Ivies because they were disgusted by the process and all that it meant: selfishness, careerism, braggadocio, arrogance, one-upsmanship, etc. They researched carefully all of the options and they opted for which ever institution best fit their needs, which at the end it what all applicants for college should but aren't doing. Adding volleyball to the mix certainly muddies the water completely.
4) Rankings is a means to an end: to compare completely disparate insitutions of higher learning on an apples-to-apples basis. The problems have been alluded to in previous posts, but two thing were not mentioned. First, the rankings are not very timely, when an institution has actually slipped in a beauty pageant way, the response of the rankings is very slow, it takes around five or six years for the slip in reputation is registered with the voters. Secondly, the nature of the rankings is to take the infinite facets or dimensionalities which describes an institution and boil it down to a finite dimensions in order to get a number to report. The loss in information is non-trivial and it is information that many would deem important but would not be able to recover.
The best thing to do is to 1) Visit the schools 2) Ask the same questions to every school. 3) Sit in on classes 4) Get a feel for the character of the professors and the ethos of the environment. 5) Re-visit the school if you have to. 6) Work at it.
Some questions to ask: - Student/faculty ratio. - Number of courses taught by professors versus those taught by grad students in the university/college/department/by level (i.e. freshmen, sophomore, junior, senior). - Research load of the faculty bersus teaching load - Required faculty office hours, is there a minimum? - Tutoring service, falls under the dean of students or student services office. - Amount of independent work/thesis required for the undergraduate degree. If there is a requirement, it says they are trying to teach thinking versus memorizing.
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Post by AntennaMagnet on Apr 23, 2007 18:39:32 GMT -5
Phaedrus, you have some curious points. Characterization of IVY schools as idle rich is substantially off the mark and their financial aide profile proves it.
I very much agree that exceptionally talented students avoid IVY schools because of the ego-centrism that permeates many IVY students. Then on the otherhand, you find a bucket load of students who say they could have gone to an IVY school, declined to apply, and therefore are never really able to prove their personal belief that they were IVY worthy. Ivy applications have dramatically increased over the years, thus it has become a crap shoot for a lot of applicants who in years past would have been a cinch for admission.
One perspective that has not been mentioned is the opportunity for undergraduates to pursue research, regardless of their academic major. The academically elite colleges have exceptional opportunities for research, sometimes with Nobel laureates, and it is rare for a high school student to think about these opportunities especially when a coach is giving them the "we've got it all here" speal.
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Post by Wolfgang on Apr 23, 2007 18:47:26 GMT -5
You know, the whole Nobel laureates thing is a big nothing. It's good for the insitution to say they've got N number of Nobel laureates but the fact of the matter is:
1. Unless you're at or near the top in your class, you don't get to work with them elbow-to-elbow in their lab, 2. Most of them are terrible teachers; 3. Many don't even care about teaching; and 4. When you visit them during Office Hours, they're impatient with you and you don't gain any insight from them in a 30 minute session.
You're better off with a really good and inspirational teacher, regardless of their credentials. (within limits, of course)
I myself took several classes taught by Nobel laureates and though I received good grades and got to say "I took a class taught by so-and-so," the fact of the matter is, there was nothing special about those experiences. My best experiences were some high level math classes taught by some Ph.D grad student who looked like Thor.
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Post by Phaedrus on Apr 23, 2007 21:49:53 GMT -5
Phaedrus, you have some curious points. Characterization of IVY schools as idle rich is substantially off the mark and their financial aide profile proves it. I very much agree that exceptionally talented students avoid IVY schools because of the ego-centrism that permeates many IVY students. Then on the otherhand, you find a bucket load of students who say they could have gone to an IVY school, declined to apply, and therefore are never really able to prove their personal belief that they were IVY worthy. Ivy applications have dramatically increased over the years, thus it has become a crap shoot for a lot of applicants who in years past would have been a cinch for admission. One perspective that has not been mentioned is the opportunity for undergraduates to pursue research, regardless of their academic major. The academically elite colleges have exceptional opportunities for research, sometimes with Nobel laureates, and it is rare for a high school student to think about these opportunities especially when a coach is giving them the "we've got it all here" speal. Its spelled spiel. Anyways, on the rant about the Ivies. Look at the history of the Ivies. It has always been the stopping point on a male heirs road to inheriting the family business. The thing that changed it was the second world war and the GI bill. My point however, was that the tradition of the Ivy league education, the curriculum and the preferred pedagogy was established at its inception, which is the education of the scions of the captains of industry. The academic traditions of the educational method therefore has more to do with obtaining a classical education, i.e. a classical western liberal arts education with aconcentration on the Greeks and the Italian Renaissance. Nothing wrong with it, but limited. Much like an education at MIT is limited, different limits for different people. THE IVIES ARE NOT FOR EVERYONE. And if you are going to try to go to the Ivies for the sake of the prestige, I pity your self loathing. As for the research aspect of the undergraduate education. I agree with Wolfgang, you are much better off with the unknown scholar whose emphasis is on teaching critical thinking rather than the worldly famous pedagogue whose emphasis is on his own research. Learning to do research has more to do with the method rather than the teacher. Working for Stephen Hawking has its privileges, obviously, but it is more important to learn to do research than to hide in the shadow of the great man and hopefully gain advantage through the reflected brilliance of his mind. My friend did a post-doc with Leon Lederman, he enjoyed his time at Fermilab but he did not gain one bit of wisdom since he was a cog in the vast machinery, one of an army of post-docs. It is what you do with the opportunity rather than the opportunity itself that matters.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2007 22:54:41 GMT -5
Anyways, on the rant about the Ivies. Look at the history of the Ivies. It has always been the stopping point on a male heirs road to inheriting the family business. Definitely true, look no further than George W. Bush for evidence of that. Explain to me again how does a C student gain admission to Harvard Business School? Oh, wait I know the answer through daddy's connections right.
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Post by Chance on Apr 23, 2007 23:33:19 GMT -5
Ah, this is one of my favorite topics....academic fit. Ivy League schools are by far and away the best for academics, mainly because they are ultra - selective and their students are as much of an educational asset as the professors. They remind me (somewhat) of a common critiscm of high school gifted magnet schools. 1. They take in by far the best students. Those students are already very smart and were going to do awesome wherever they were. 2. They often are not super great at teaching. 3. The kids suceed entirely because of their own qualifications. 4. The program is declared an overwhelming success as a result... I generally agree with the things phaedrus and wolfgang said.
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Post by AntennaMagnet on Apr 24, 2007 9:17:56 GMT -5
Wolfgang and Phaedrus, you can poo poo Nobel laureates all you want...and if you brushed shoulders with one in a classroom setting, that does not represent the 1 to 1 research mentorship experience that I describe. I agree that Nobel laureates may not be the best didactic teachers or even the best mentors, however, their exceptional intellectual power can not be underestimated as one of many educational opportunities at an academically elite campus. These people have fundamentally changed the world. For many places like Harvard and Yale, pretty much every senior faculty member represents one of the top minds in their respective fields. If an intellectual environment is sought at all possible levels, the Ivies are hard to beat with a few exceptions like Amherst.
Chance, if you bring exceptional people together, exceptional things happen. One of my colleagues whose son is incredibly bright but not industrious remarked that his son was so disappointed in the University of Vermont because he found student discussions unbelievably uninteligible.
From a volleyball student's perspective, I worry about their ability to capatalize on the research and other opportunities as part of their educational experience at any university, mainly because there is an Overwhelming commitment to the sports program. This issue is one of the reasons that Ivies don't have athletic scholarships....students lose their academic freedom as slaves to the coach and expectations of their scholarship.
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Post by BoilerUp! on Apr 24, 2007 11:06:40 GMT -5
I would think another thing a parent could ask about would be study tables and tutors. I would think options and rules would vary with this. Like if you are a freshman, you may be required to attend study tables X hours per week. Or there may be a policy on if you have straight A's you can skip study tables as a Sophomore. Having a set time to be somewhere to study can help busy athletes manage their time. And some schools have rooms set aside for athletes, that have computers or tutors or other resources. Find out what is available! Another thing to look at is how many of the team are Academic All Americans. This is easy to find online. It shows you how many of the players are having above average academic success. You might also look at what the majors are, of the current players. If everyone is taking basketweaving, then there probably is not a strong academic push at that school. Or if you have a lot of academic all americans in basketweaving, that is not great either.
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Post by AntennaMagnet on Apr 24, 2007 11:21:31 GMT -5
Study tables are typically for the undisciplined student and for coaches who are trying to protect their athletes from academic probation. Structured study hours are another example of how student athletes lose their freedom.
Academic all americans are a nifty device to recognize grade point accomplishments, however a straight A student in geography is not quite the same as a straight A student in math or chemistry. Perhaps a better question to ask is how many athletes at the University become Phi Beta inductees.
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Post by Wolfgang on Apr 24, 2007 11:22:41 GMT -5
Another thing with rankings: it fluctuates and changes over time.
One of my lawyer friends was in his 60s. He went to UCLA Law, which today is a highly reputable law school. He laughs about it now, but he said that at the time he went to UCLA, it was a nothing school. Now, it's a great school. Today, he said he wouldn't even be admitted. Of course, no one cares which school he went to, just so long as he can counsel his clients properly on the law. I don't even think he has his degree framed and hanging up on the wall.
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Post by Chance on Apr 24, 2007 11:35:30 GMT -5
God... All the others schools suck so hard compared to the ivies... I think i speak for everyone on the board when i said i wish i had gone there instead. Perhaps a better question to ask is how many athletes at the University become Phi Beta inductees. Maybe they arnt interested in "promoting the best in the creative and performing arts." Or maybe they just arnt interested in joining a fancy little group.
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Post by Phaedrus on Apr 24, 2007 11:49:41 GMT -5
Wolfgang and Phaedrus, you can poo poo Nobel laureates all you want...and if you brushed shoulders with one in a classroom setting, that does not represent the 1 to 1 research mentorship experience that I describe. I agree that Nobel laureates may not be the best didactic teachers or even the best mentors, however, their exceptional intellectual power can not be underestimated as one of many educational opportunities at an academically elite campus. These people have fundamentally changed the world. For many places like Harvard and Yale, pretty much every senior faculty member represents one of the top minds in their respective fields. If an intellectual environment is sought at all possible levels, the Ivies are hard to beat with a few exceptions like Amherst. Chance, if you bring exceptional people together, exceptional things happen. One of my colleagues whose son is incredibly bright but not industrious remarked that his son was so disappointed in the University of Vermont because he found student discussions unbelievably uninteligible. From a volleyball student's perspective, I worry about their ability to capatalize on the research and other opportunities as part of their educational experience at any university, mainly because there is an Overwhelming commitment to the sports program. This issue is one of the reasons that Ivies don't have athletic scholarships....students lose their academic freedom as slaves to the coach and expectations of their scholarship. My question to youis: how much average face time does an undergraduate get with a superstar senior faculty member? Even at an Ivy? How much interaction does the average undergraduate get with the top notch researchers of their chosen fields? I got my PhD is a public school surrounded by the top researchers in my field, I had opportunities to deal with them on a daily basis and socialized with them somewhat. Yes, the allure of extremely smart people and the daily interaction with them are both educational and seductive. BUT, I was a graduate student. The average undergrad had no standing until they are well into their junior or senior years, and you had to be an exceptional student in order to be accorded these opportunities, i.e. your average Ivy undergrad is not going to get close to those faculty members, no matter how much they yearn for it. The schools with the Nobel Laureates will troop them out for PR purposes but that is not true interaction. You seem to believe in education by osmosis: you just need to get close to them and the brilliance will rub off on you. Not the case at all. I was a freshman at the University of Illinois when I sat down to do a homework set in physics. I sat next to a professor at the library and we kind of exchanged a few words. That professor was John Bardeen the only two time nobel prize winner in the same area. I wasn't any smarter, he imparted no great wisdom on me, I still got a B in mechanics. My best friend in high school took his freshman physics from Richard Feynman at Caltech. He interacted with Feynman weekly at lecture. He got a nice story to tell at bars but he didn't get any smarter than he already was. IT IS WHAT YOU DO WITH THE OPPORTUNITY RATHER THAN GETTING THE OPPORTUNITY THAT MATTERS. You also seem to infer that all the best faculties congregate around the Ivys and only the deadbeats go teach at the large landgrant institutions. This is certainly not the case. It all very depends on the majors and where the superstar professors prefer to work. University of Texas collected nobel laureates or soon-to-be nobel laureates in the 1980's using all that oil money wisely. They ended up with a lot of them. Just for grins and giggles, AM, what is your academic experience such that you believe in education by osmosis?
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