"College Week Live" (November 4-7) Ask the College Experts

College Week Live is coming to you. College Week Live is a virtual college fair that features representatives from over 300 colleges and educational consultants.  College Week Live launched in 2007 and has held more than six successful virtual college fairs. During the dates of November 4 – 7, this Wednesday - Saturday, College Week Live will connect students from across the country and the world to the college search and application process without leaving their home, office, or school. I will be a featured guest representative for IECA on November 5th from 5:30PM - 6:30PM (EST) and November 6th from 1 - 2PM (EST). Please register at collegeweeklive.com and log on this week to explore this college educational tool. Among the highlights: the opportunity to speak to representatives of over 300 colleges, the chance to hear keynote presentations via Webcast (including Ted Fiske of Fiske Guide and representatives from the Department of Education, among many others), and the chance to video chat live with college students.
One of the most popular features last spring was the “Counselor-on-Call” chat area where students and parents by the hundreds were able to pose questions to professional counselors. IECA Members will be staffing the counselor-on-call area, and are doing so as volunteers, like myself.  We expect to answer questions ranging from testing, to volunteer service, to financial aid, and much, much more.(Independent Educational Consultants Association).

Texas Universities participating in College Week Live: Texas Tech, University of Houston, Schreiner College, Sam Houston State, and University of North Texas.

Scholarships....
There are promotional prizes that you can win for registering and participating in "College Week Live." Juniors and seniors, tell your English teachers about the virtual college fair. Maybe, they will even allot class time for you to visit the virtual fair.

Upcoming CollegeWeekLive Promotions

College Scholarship: $2,500 CollegeWeekLive Scholarship Contest
Looking for a college scholarship? CollegeWeekLive is proud to help our audience pay for college with the return of our scholarship contest! One student will win a $2,500 college scholarship, good at any accredited institution! To enter the contest:

1.Register for CollegeWeekLive
2.Login/ attend CollegeWeekLive during a live event during the Fall 2009 semester

A lucky attendee will be chosen to receive the $2,500 scholarship. Please see contest details on the Scholarships page. Good luck to all who enter!
For more details on this wonderful event, visit College Week Live.

It is not too late to jump start your college planning process. The information provided was written by Lauren Kahn, CEO of Lone Star Ed Consulting. If you would like more information about Lone Star Ed Consulting's college planning services, please e-mail Lauren Kahn or call her at 512-294-6608. You can also view LSEDC's brochure here.

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Top 8% Auto Admit... What Will the Impact Be?

In the educational community, many of us have been waiting for change in the way U of Texas - Austin admits their freshman class for quite some time. Last week, the University of Texas at Austin announced they will automatically admit all eligible 2011 summer/fall freshman applicants who rank only within the top 8 percent of their high school graduating classes, with remaining spaces to be filled through holistic review. They will admit automatically enough students to fill 75 percent of available spaces set aside for Texas residents in an entering freshman class. I have to ask the question, "Will the new Top 8% auto admit law really satisfy our desire for a truly diverse, talented pool, full of students who perhaps bloomed later in life?" I am not convinced that the Texas legislature went far enough to ensure a different student body than we currently have. The current class of 2013 is comprised nearly entirely of students from the top 10%; 86% is the number I have seen quoted in The Daily Texan.

I find it absurd that a student possibly could be accepted to Rice (A Top 20 Ranked Private University), but be denied to the largest public university in Texas. Believe it or not, this has happened and will continue to occur under the new law. I propose that we eliminate the concept of "auto-admit" for all students, but set a minimum level of standardized test scores or AP scores for the top 10% to gain a conditional auto admit status. University of Texas' standardized test averages would most certainly rise and the calibur of the students would as well. I find it unjust that a student at Westlake HS (Eanes School District) who is ranked in the 48th % of their class with a 92 average and 1200 SATs (CR and Math) has literally less than a 5% chance of admission to U of Texas at Austin as a freshman, while a student at LBJ (Austin School District)with a 2.9 GPA, less than 900 SATs (CR and Math) and a 9% ranking will automatically be accepted to UT. This is way too large of a discrepancy in academic standards and reducing the auto admit law from top 10% to top 8% will not eliminate these types of examples.

Background: William Powers Jr., president of the university, said that automatically admitting students in the top 8 percent of their high school graduating class to the 2011 entering freshman class would fill 75 percent of available spaces. A new state law, Senate Bill 175, passed by the 81st Legislature, modified the university's admissions program, which previously had been required to automatically admit students in the top 10 percent of their high school class. The top 10% went into effect in 1997, originally intended to increase diversity in regards to ethnicity, SES, and geographics. The Top 10% Law (originally styled “Texas House Bill 588”) was passed in 1997 and went into effect the following year. The law was a response to the Hopwood decision, in which the U.S.Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit prohibited public universities from using a student’s racial or ethnic background as a consideration in admissions decisions.

While Top 10% students on average earn slightly higher grades at UT than non-Top 10% students, the performance is not uniform throughout the Top 10%. Those students in the 6th through the 10th percentile of their high school graduating class earn on average a grade point average equal to students in the 11th through the 20th percentile. (Source: The Top 10% Law and its impact on The University of Texas at Austin from UTexas.edu)

Posted by: Lauren Kahn,M.A. College Educational Consultant
www.lonestar-edconsulting.com