TCU and SMU Add Early Decision to Application Options for Fall 2014

Brought to you by: Lone Star Ed Consulting , CEO Lauren Kahn, MA    512-294-6608
 Lauren@lonestaredconsulting.com                                                     Follow Me @LoneStarEd
 

Lauren Kahn is an educational consultant located in Austin, TX and helps families find colleges and school placements for students throughout the country.

TCU

It was bound to happen sooner or later. TCU has now added a binding early decision option and SMU has added a second early decision deadline. These universities want to know who is choosing them first and this binding option allows them to increase their confirmed yield rate for their incoming first year classes. Most likely, students will be somewhat rewarded for making that choice and will have an advantage in the admissions process if they apply early decision by the November 1st deadline.

Nancy Greisemer reports:

All too often colleges
fail to publicize or otherwise let counselors know when they’re moving
deadlines, changing requirements or otherwise making adjustments that have a huge
impact on applicants and those who advise them.

They simply change a few words on the webpage and expect the
world to notice.

But several Texas universities are letting everyone
know—well in advance—that they have some new policies for students applying
this fall.  And here they are:

SMU and TCU add
Early Decision

Beginning fall of 2013, Southern Methodist University (SMU)
and Texas Christian University (TCU) will offer a binding Early Decision (ED)
option to their respective application processes.  According to their joint press release, SMU
and TCU will also continue to offer an Early Action (EA) option, which will
remain non-binding.  Both schools have
set November 1, 2013, as the deadline for all early admission applications—ED
as well as EA.  SMU, however, will offer
students a second-round binding application option (ED II).  This allows students who identify SMU as
their first choice later in the process to indicate their commitment to attend
SMU if offered admission.

SMU's list of deadlines for Fall 2014 (1st Year Students)

Decide which application deadline is right for you

SMU POOL

• Early Decision I: November 1
• Early Action: November 1
• Early Decision II: January 15
• Regular Decision: January 15

Texas A&M sets
New Application Deadline

The new deadline for students applying for admission for the
Fall 2014 semester and forward is December 1, 2013.  This new admission deadline aligns itself
with the scholarship application deadline at A&M and coincides with that of
the University of Texas.  Students can
apply for scholarships and admission online at www.applytexas.org.  ApplyTexas opens August 1.

TCU superscores
the ACT

TCU joins a lengthening list of colleges and universities superscoring
the ACT (most colleges automatically superscore the SAT).  To superscore the ACT, colleges recompute the
“composite” score by selecting the highest subscores from different test dates to
come up with a new higher composite or superscore.  Since students are increasingly turning
to the ACT as their test of choice, and 20 percent of the states in the
nation require it for student assessments, more students have multiple test
results that could benefit from superscore policies.

(Lauren Kahn, educational consultant from Austin, TX, is particularly excited about the superscoring option, because students can really waiver in scores between sections and this gives them the best possible composite score).

ApplyTexas
announces New Essay Topics

Like the
Common Application (CA), ApplyTexas is changing essay topics for the
2013-14 application season.
Unfortunately, there’s little in the way of overlap with the five
prompts recently announced by the CA.
ApplyTexas essay choices will be:

• Essay A:
  Describe a setting in which you have collaborated or interacted with
  people whose experiences and/or beliefs differ from yours.  Address your
  initial feelings, and how those feelings were or were not changed by this
  experience.
  
•  Essay B:
  Describe a circumstance, obstacle or conflict in your life, and the
  skills and resources you used to resolve it.  Did it change you?  If
  so, how?
  
  
  
• Essay C:
  Considering your lifetime goals, discuss how your current and future
  academic and extra-curricular activities might help you achieve your goals.

This article was originally posted on the blog College Explorations by Nancy Greisemer

I believe there are several schools that are ideal for each candidate and it is what you make of your college experience. In order to give yourself the optimum number of choices for college, have several people that you revere, review your college applications. 

Lone Star Ed Consulting offers essay and resume editing services, college selection assistance, and can provide rush services for a fee.  Please download my registration form or email me at Lauren@lonestaredconsulting.com if you are interested in learning more about my educational consulting services.

 Twitter: @lonestared Website: www.lonestaredconsulting.com

The information was provided 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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Housing Crisis Influences College Choices

Housing Wealth Impacts Where You Go to College  By: Lisa Scherzer 

Brought to you by: Lone Star Ed Consulting , CEO Lauren Kahn, MA  512-294-6608

Lauren Kahn is an educational consultant located in Austin, TX and helps families find colleges and school placements for students throughout the country. 

image from: directbanc.com

At the height of the housing boom in the early 2000s, it was natural for homeowners to feel wealthier than they were. Inflated property values translated into a so-called wealth effect: Confident the value of their homes would climb ever higher and bolstered by the cash obtained by easy refinancing, owners spent freely.

A new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research looks into what role this housing wealth — a household's overall finances — played in homeowners' decision-making when it comes to sending their children to college.

The study -- "The Effect of Housing Wealth on College Choice: Evidence From the Housing Boom" and co-authored by Professors Michael Lovenheim and C. Lockwood Reynolds --  found homeowners that experienced a windfall from the housing boom were more likely to send their children to college, to send them to four-year public institutions instead of two-year institutions and to send them to state "flagship" institutions — which are better resourced, have higher faculty-student ratios and SAT scores and are also more expensive to attend -- rather than nonflagship public institutions.

College Payoff: Education, Occupation, and Lifetime Earnings

Brought to you by Lauren Kahn, Educational Consultant, from Lone Star Ed Consulting

Originally published in The Chronicle of Higher Education

When it Comes to Earnings, Higher Education Isn't the Whole Story

By Beckie Supiano

How much money people make has a lot to do with how educated they are, but sometimes less-educated people earn more.

This spring, Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce injected some nuance into the debate over what a college degree is worth when it released a report showing how what people study in college affects their earnings. That report, based on the center's analysis of a trove of new data from the U.S. Census Bureau, compared workers whose highest degree was a bachelor's. Now the center is following up with a new report that works to untangle the relationship between earnings and education more broadly.

The new report, "The College Payoff: Education, Occupation, Lifetime Earnings," released Thursday, is also based on data from the bureau's American Community Survey. In this case, the researchers calculated a lifetime-earnings figure for full-time, full-year workers with various levels of education, from less than high school to doctoral and professional degrees.

Unsurprisingly, they found that median lifetime earnings rise with education level: The typical worker with less than a high-school diploma earns $973,000 over a career, in 2009 dollars, while a worker with a professional degree (mainly in law or medicine) earns $3.6-million. But that is not the whole story. "There was a time when the differences by education level were really much more powerful," says Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the center and lead author of the report. Education level still matters. But what really intrigued the researchers was the diversity of experiences underneath that general pattern.

For example, while the median lifetime earnings of bachelor's degree holders (about $2.3-million) are higher than those of associate-degree holders (about $1.7-million), 28.2 percent of those whose highest degree is an associate earn as much as or more than does the typical bachelor's holder (see interactive chart).

National Merit Finalist Contest: PSAT Cut Off Scores are in for 2011 Class

Written by Lauren Kahn, Educational Consultant / CEO of Lone Star Ed Consulting, LLC
512-294-6608  Lonestaredconsulting@gmail.com

Updated on January 2011
Before we delve into the "overachiever" scores for the 2009 PSAT (Class of 2011), I want to put things in perspective. If you are a national merit semi finalist for the 2010/2011 school year, you performed exceptionally well on this standardized test and scored in the top 1% of your state. Bravo to you. To see the next steps in the process to cementing your place as a National Merit Finalist and possible scholarship recipient, click here.

According to the College Board, the average Selection Index for students in eleventh grade is about a 141. Note: Only students in eleventh grade are eligible to enter NMSC scholarship programs. This score is equivalent to about a 1000 on the CR and Math combined for the SAT. The PSAT Selection Index, which is used to determine eligibility in National Merit Scholarship Corporation programs (NMSC), is the sum of the three scores in each test section (CR + M + W). The Selection Index ranges from 60 to 240.

Campus Visit Guide

Provided by Lauren Kahn M.A., Educational Consultant / CEO of Lone Star Ed Consulting, LLC

Maximizing the College Campus Visit

Sophomores, Juniors, Seniors ....

What college campuses will you visit this spring break?

College Campus Visit Guide

Top 10 Ways to Test Drive a College, with Some Added Features

Brown University - Spring 2007

by: Lauren Kahn, M.A.

NOTE: If you are staying in town this spring break and live in the Austin metro area, you may want to consider attending Lone Star Ed Consulting's Essay & Resume Writing Workshop. March 15th - March 19th, 2010. For details, click here.  

Lone Star Ed Consulting will provide you the first six tips in this blog. Contact us directly if you would like to receive the remaining college campus visit tips or call us at 512-294-6608 to schedule a college planning consultation. We serve families throughout Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC.    

1. Timing of Your Visit - Lauren highly recommends visiting a college campus during the academic school year. Try and visit a campus while school is in full swing to get an accurate picture of everyday college life. A prime time to visit is during your high school spring break. Colleges often have spring breaks at different times. Check which schools do not overlap with your break and start your college visit planning.

College Tool Kit reports, "Although summer might be the most convenient time to make such excursions, it is the worst time to experience a college; most smaller schools are not in session, so students and classes are absent. Dorm rooms are empty and devoid of all personal touches, making it difficult to envision oneself there. Bulletin boards, usually so revealing of the cultural and social opportunities of the college, are bare. The campus grounds, on the other hand, look neater and cleaner than they will look again the entire year."