We at the College Board are anxious to work alongside you this year!
Encourage counselors to register for free Fall Counselor Workshop, 9 to noon
Washington State Clock Hours are provided without cost. Register by following the link at the location of your choice below. Lunch will be provided at the Seattle and Spokane workshop and all three locations in Oregon.
Control Click on the site to REGISTER NOW for a Fall Counselor Workshop!
WASHINGTON
Spokane Gonzaga U-lunch & NOSCA Monday, Sept. 26 CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Seattle Seattle University Tuesday, Sept. 27 CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Olympia Evergreen State College Wednesday, Sept. 28 CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
OREGON: Following lunch, How and Why of the PSAT/NMSQT®
Salem Willamette U. lunch & PSAT Monday Sept. 19 CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Portland U of Portland lunch & Financial Tuesday, Sept. 20 CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Ashland South OR ESD lunch & PSAT Thurs., Sept. 22 CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Fall Counselor Workshop Registration: Control Click to Register for Fall Counselor Workshops
Start students with the PSAT/NMSQT®: Tests may be ordered until Sept. 23! (www.collegeboard.com/school) Washington State’s growth in PSAT/NMSQT® orders 3rd largest in country. Student id numbers may be entered on answer sheet. All students benefit. The PSAT/NMSQT® Program provides a wealth of resources for students and educators:
- Planning for College with My College QuickStart™ www.collegeboard.com/quickstart.
- MyRoad™, AP Potential™, and Summary of Answers and Skills Call (888) 477-PSAT
Order ReadiStep until Sept. 16. This middle school low-stakes assessment provides multiple reports and a summary of answers and skills report. Readistep’s two hour administration provides early feedback into student’s academic progress, helps select appropriate coursework, identifies academic skills, and creates college readiness http://www.host-collegeboard.com/readistep/site/
New website to digitally engage, a web page featuring student voices share how they overcame challenges to open College Doors. “You Can Go.” http://youcango.collegeboard.org
College Bound Seniors Report will be released to the press September 14 showing the high school class of 2011’s’ performance on SAT®, PSAT/NMSQT®, and AP®. Created by educators to democratize access to higher education, the SAT® is a highly reliable standardized measure of college readiness used in the admission process at nearly all four year, not-for-profit undergraduate colleges and universities in the United States. Aligned to high school curricula, the SAT tests the reading, mathematics, and writing skills and knowledge students acquire during high school, measuring how well students can apply their knowledge, critical to success in college. Consistently shown to be a fair and valid predictor of college success for all students, the SAT® is also used for course placement and scholarships. The best predictor of college success is the combination of SAT® scores and high school grades.
AP® Scores available online More students are talking more exams and qualifying scores remain stable, with a 2.86 mean again this year. 1.7 million students took nearly 3 million exams, with nearly 1.7 million qualifying scores, a 7.9 % improvement from last year.
One Year Out a study by Hart Research Associates found a representative sample of 1,507 high school graduates from class of 2010 endorsed working harder in school and wanted more rigorous classes. Nearly ¾ continued their education: 43% in a four-year college, 25% in a two-year college, 6% in a trade school or a specific training program. College Is Definitely Worth It they say, an overwhelming majority (86%) feel that a college degree is worth the time and money — including a large majority not currently enrolled in college (76%).
- High School Is Not Enough: An overwhelming majority (90%) agree with the statement: “In today's world, high school is not enough, and nearly everybody needs to complete some kind of education or training after high school.”
- College Is Essential for Career Success: Even in the current economy, 66% say they are very (22%) or somewhat (44%) optimistic that people in their generation will have good opportunities for jobs and careers, while 33% say they are worried about this. Seven in 10 members of the class of 2010 say that a college degree will help them a lot in fulfilling their career aspirations, and another 18% say a degree will help somewhat.
- Cost Is a Barrier: Cost was the biggest challenge faced in transition to college. Five in 9 students who attended college say that affording it was very or pretty challenging. Of those who did not attend college, 56% said affordability was a key factor.
- College More Challenging Than Expected: A majority (54%) report that their college courses were more difficult than expected. And 24% say they were required to take noncredit remedial or developmental courses by their college, including 37% of those who went to a two-year college; 16% report they did not complete the full year of their college program.
- Rigorous Course Work — More Math, Science, Writing: Students wish they had taken more math, science, and writing-intensive course work in high school.
- Life Skills Are Also Important: Students wish their high schools had given more practical career readiness and more basic preparation for how to engage in a college environment — including how to manage personal finances.
Howard Wainer’s Uneducated Guesses: Using Evidence to Uncover Misguided Education Policies, released this month by Princeton University Press discusses current controversies over standardized testing and the Advanced Placement Program. Critical of the movement to make the SAT optional in college admissions, Wainer argues that students who don't submit SAT scores perform worse in college than do those who submit the scores. An AP® fan, he writes:
A major expansion of Advanced Placement achievement remains possible in this country in all types of schools: inner city, high-performing suburbs, and just garden variety schools. American high school students have the capability of quintupling the current [number] passing the AP Calculus examination.
Marc D. Cyr, an associate professor in the department of literature and philosophy at Georgia Southern University, encourages us to challenge all students:
We need to give our students the opportunity to develop to their true potential. We need to teach them how to actually succeed. And this means setting reasonable yet high standards, training them to meet those standards, and holding them accountable for doing so, and throughout their student careers supplying them with honest evaluations of their performance. This honesty, by the way, does not necessitate brutal or demeaning delivery. Do we want our students to have self-esteem? Then we must stop depriving them of the means and opportunity to earn it. Sooner or later they'll find out the truth; we need to do far better, even if it is painful in the short run, than we are doing in order to make that truth something better than bitter. It takes a village both to raise children and to care for the village idiots, and our village needs to stop turning so many of the former into the latter.
So, to apply terms I have read in student essays, if you think we're doing students and this country's future a favor by calling their spade a diamond, you've got another thing coming. The statutes of liberty guarantee the right to the pursuit of happiness, but we're doing our students a huge disfavor by drawing lipstick smiley faces on everything from eagles to pigs, telling them they can fly, and then shoving the whole bunch off the cliff. You can take it for granite that if we keep going on this way, even their self of steam will go up in smoke.
Looking forward to walking alongside you this upcoming school year to inspire minds, let us know how we can help! Nancy Potter, npotter@collegeboard.org , 425-643-7989 or Annette Beamer, abeamer@collegeboard.org, 408 367 1430.
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