College Matters

A high school student wrote that she’s confused about choosing classes for college. She’s very stressed out because she hasn’t figured out what courses to take for the following fall. In high school, you’ve solidified the following year’s course schedule by the end of the spring semester, so it’s no wonder the upcoming graduate is stressed. Allow me to emphasize, then, to all of my high school readers: course selection in college can sometimes involve changes up until the first week of classes. If you can avoid making changes following the first day of classes, you’re doing well. Feel free to take all or most of a summer to consider your options.

A friend on twitter posed an interesting question in response to the discussion of minority scholarships. Read the original advice, to the white kid that thinks minority scholarships are racist, here. My twitter friend wonders what people like this student think of disability scholarships. That gave me food for some deep thought, and I went back to some writing I did six months ago, which is integrated into this entry.

Disability scholarships are designed with the same thought in mind as minority scholarships: they are all intended to assist some of the underprivileged yet deserving individuals in their quests for higher education. However, in the same way some admissions policies have made a mockery of these efforts by lowering the standards for ethnic minorities, the office of disability services (every campus has something of the sort) has succeeded in assisting with the dumbing-down of American campuses.

Gasp! Politically incorrect, you say? How can I be so calloused and insensitive? Where do I get off? Here’s where, people: I’m an epileptic. I have grand mal seizures if I don’t get enough sleep, don’t take my medication properly, or take any of a number of other substances, like over-the-counter decongestants, alcohol, or any kind of stimulant, legal or otherwise. When I have a seizure, I’m pretty much worthless for an entire day afterward. I can barely speak or move, and everything is really foggy.

So, as a college student, this certainly provided some difficulty not experienced by all students. For one thing, I didn’t know about the decongestant issue until I was about halfway through college, when a campus doctor finally thought it would be a good idea to explain that to me. I’ve never been a big drinker – wine was always allowed in my house growing up and as such alcohol never held any sort of magical allure – but I was the queen of caffeine, a staple for surviving all-night study sessions. And caffeine, my friends, is a stimulant – and my favorite of the caffeinated poison, espresso, is an especially potent stimulant.

Procrastination led to all-nighters; all-nighters led to caffeine; caffeine led to seizures; seizures led to absences. Most professors at my university had absence policies. So, what did I do? The smart thing, avoid procrastination, perhaps? No, of course not. A professor kindly suggested I seek accommodations from the office of disability services in order to get attendance policies waived altogether for me as a student. Wow.

In light of that, I suppose it’s amazing I graduated at all, and in particular with a “B” average. Attendance policies are indeed juvenile, but suddenly having absolutely no requirement to show up to classes was further incentive for procrastination. Truthfully, I learn better from reading and writing than from auditory instruction, anyway – but most people don’t.

My point is, I didn’t really need disability services. I simply needed to grow up and accommodate my own disability by doing a little adult planning. Instead, I received well-intentioned babying – great for students who need to learn responsibility! And now, beyond epilepsy, we have the ADHD and ADD phenomenon. Every parent who has a kid who wants to act like a kid rather than a miniature adult seems to think the “answer” to this “problem” is to drag the kid off to a psychiatrist and dope them up. So they go through school thinking they have an excuse to be idiotic, and they don’t get to have those crucial years of irresponsible kid-dom – involving, goodness, actual playing – so they get to college and don’t know what to do with themselves. They go to disability services, get everything handed to them on silver platters, and, even worse, they have this effect on the kids around them. Entitlement complexes, when fed, breed personal laziness as well as resentment from one’s peers. Resentment furthers poor performance in college.

A commenter who works in admissions on campus supports minority scholarships but doesn’t agree with providing lower standards for minority applicants. I agree, and I would be insulted if I belonged to an ethnic minority and had standards lowered for me. It would make me feel like someone thought I was inferior. And I don’t think disability services should be viewed any differently. It’s there to provide an even platform. EVEN, not greater than.

Maybe as an epileptic I deserved the disability scholarships I got. Certainly some truly physically disabled students deserve them, just as underprivileged minorities deserve special scholarships. But disability services have not worked out as intended. Thanks to pseudo-psychiatry and the American dream (of not having to take responsibility for individual actions!) these services are making a mockery of so-called “higher” education.

I feel very lucky to have connected with a fantastic organization, Al-Jamiat, that assists international students with a desire to come to college in the U.S. Al-Jamiat’s specific focus is upon students from the mid-east, but they are happy to assist any international student. I received an email several days ago from a biotechnology student in Sri Lanka interested in coming over here, and I referred him to Al-Jamiat - and he told me they’ve been very helpful - he’s specifically receiving assistance and support from Ms. Wassan Humadi, the managing editor of Al-Jamiat’s bi-annual magazine as well as their website. I’m so excited - Ms. Humadi is actually giving me the opportunity to contribute to the magazine and potentially assist with some Q&A at the site! The picture above is from this year’s university fair, at their stop in Manama, Bahrain.

It’s really interesting - and eye-opening - to listen to Ms. Humadi’s experiences. She came over here to college from Saudi Arabia, and apparently people wouldn’t stop bombarding her with questions about what they assumed was her barbarian background…asking her how she possibly could have purchased something as modern as denim jeans, for example. It made me think of my own experiences (albeit to a much lesser degree) with my relatives in New York who assumed that because I was from Texas I must have ridden a horse to school. I told Ms. Humadi about that - and the same relatives probably would have asked if she had ridden a camel to school. It’s so wonderful that we have organizations like this to prove that we really have much more in common than we may initially think.

I’ve just posted a new advice column, a letter I answered and received in February that absolutely broke my heart. This poor student, closing in on the beginning of what should be a successful and smooth graduate career, has discovered that faculty recommendations don’t always make good on their promises. Instead, some “forget” to send letters, or, even worse, purposefully avoid sending them, in an effort to trap the student into a second degree at the original university. Instead of focusing upon the student’s best interest, the recommendation focuses upon his or her department’s best interest - and retaining an exceptionally talented and driven student reflects well upon the department. Problem is, of course, that two degrees from the same university appear as stagnation on the the student’s academic resume.

I have a friend who intends to go to graduate school, and she wants to attend one with some prestige. As a result, she absolutely must graduate college in either spring or summer, because prestigious graduate schools generally only admit new students in the fall. My friend has a dual major, and has had to deal with some major catastrophes throughout her school career; no different than most, I suppose, just the usual – financial aid, automobile issues, schedule conflicts, holding down a well-paying job that accommodates school…yet, even with her dual major, she’s planning on graduating at the end of her fifth full time year.

Unfortunately, what this means is that she’s going to have to take 18 hours of coursework in one long semester. I’ve done that once, and it’s a killer, especially if you have to work along with school. It’s one thing to have to sacrifice your social life for a year; it’s an entirely different matter if you’re struggling to find time to make enough money to pay for groceries. She has to pursue this, though, because if she doesn’t, she’ll be stuck postponing graduation until December. In that case, due to graduate school admittance policies, she would have nine months of no financial aid and no school, so she’d have to look for a nine month job and get some sort of special temporary deferment from financial aid. It would be exceedingly complicated.

It’s a shame that the more prestigious graduate schools express hesitance to think outside the box when imposing these traditional deadlines and unwillingness to admit students during other times of the year. Frankly, pouring all of the applications into one deadline and all of the new students into one starting class makes more work for the faculty and administration as well – so I have yet to hear a solid reason for this annoying “tradition,” fought only by commuter schools and online programs.

Early application and admission procedures have become increasingly popular with high school students. Approximately two out of three major universities offer some variety of early admission; these programs overwhelmingly benefit the students and the universities alike. A university has the opportunity to view applicants on a staggered basis and also increases their applicant base. Students have the benefit of less stress regarding the last semester of high school. Early admission programs offer early admission decisions, so a student who has been admitted has a sense of security for the bulk of the senior year of high school. Additionally, an early decision for admission offers students and parents alike further time for specific financial aid planning.

The early admission programs can be divided into two different types: Early Decision, and Early Action. The drawbacks of Early Decision outweigh its potential benefits, because this type of early admission program is binding – meaning that when you, the student, submit an early application, you agree to attend that specific university if accepted. The major problem with this is that it limits the scope of your potential financial aid negotiations. You have to take what they offer, period. Early Decision, therefore, is highly beneficial to the university, but offers little if any worthwhile benefit for the student.

Early Action, on the other hand, is non-binding, and offers the best of all worlds for the student and the university alike. The university’s applicant numbers are increased and more spread out, and the student maintains options as well as security.

Some people assumed that the applications for these early admission programs would decrease sharply in light of the recent economic downturn. They were wrong; instead, universities have seen a sharp increase in early admission applicants. Why? During times of economic insecurity, people are struggling for security of any kind (gained by choosing a college early), trying to plan as far ahead as possible in regards to everything, especially financial matters, and people have become all too aware of the diminishing job market – and hope that a college education will ensure future job stability.