Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Heard of FIRST Robotics?

“To create a world where science and technology are celebrated… where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes”

This is the motto of FIRST, whose members include, at last count: 212,000 students, 17,634 robots, 57,376 mentors, 19,134 teams and 34,000 event volunteers.

What is FIRST?
From Wikipedia:
For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) is an organization founded by inventor Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers in 1989 in order to develop ways to inspire students in engineering and technology fields.

FIRST seeks to promote a philosophy of teamwork and collaboration among engineers and encourages competing teams to remain friendly, helping each other out when necessary. The terms frequently applied to this ethos are “gracious professionalism,” and “Coopertition,” the terms coined by Woodie Flowers which support respect towards one’s competitors and integrity in one’s actions.

Breaking news – The finals for this year’s FIRST Robotics Championship are being held this weekend, April 15 – April 17, 2010 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Watch the 2010 FIRST Championships live at:

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/robotics/

I have seen firsthand the amazing enthusiasm generated in my own children by participating in FIRST – designing, building, and testing a robot in 6 weeks with the help of patient, experienced mentors, and then competing against other teams from around the nation and the world.

I recently found myself wondering how FIRST had fared amongst homeschooled students. A Google search turned up evidence that the inspiration of FIRST and its philosophy can blend with the intense intellectual dedication and flexible time capabilities of technologically-motivated homeschooled students to make a magnificent and successful combination, as seen in this FIRST Championship-winning team of homeschoolers:

http://nche.hslda.org/docs/BrightSpots/200805300.asp

What does FIRST Robotics have to do with college? Scholarship money!

The website for FIRST explains:
Many colleges and universities, professional associations, and corporations offer college scholarships to high school students on FIRST teams. This is official recognition of the knowledge and technical and life skills these students have gained from participating in a FIRST competition. FIRST scholarships enable students to pursue majors and careers in engineering, computer science, science, math, design, aeronautics, and many other fields. In 2010, the FIRST Scholarship Program boasts: $12.2 million in college scholarships, over 746 individual scholarship opportunities, and over 136 Scholarship Providers.

For more details on FIRST scholarship opportunities for college, go to:

https://my.usfirst.org/scholarships/index.lasso?page=scholarshipsearch_printed

April 13th, 2010
by Gail Lewis

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Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Congratulations, you have been accepted! Now what?

Many students who applied to regular decision programs now have a big envelope (or more likely these days, an email!) in hand telling them that they have been accepted to a school. Congratulations! Those who got good news from their dream school feel like they were handed the keys to the kingdom. For most, having at least one offer of admission is an enormous relief – let’s face it, one school is all it takes!

But as that good news keeps on streaming in, you may now find that you have difficult choices to make between those schools that looked good earlier on. So keep the following in mind:

***This is all wonderful. After being a supplicant at the mercy of admissions committees, the ball is now firmly in your court. Enjoy it – soon you will be a first year and at the bottom of the college totem pole again!

***Seek out the information you need to make your choice. Phone financial aid offices and talk to them about your aid package. They may not change their minds, but you won’t know unless you ask.

***Try to attend accepted student events, even if you had visited before. It changes the experience to know that college is yours if you wish! Also, if your earlier visit was over summer, a campus feels very different when it is in term.

***When you do visit, hone in on the things you care about – student organizations, research facilities, teaching faculty, or dorm rooms. Don’t confine yourself only to a few new friends or the set program, but rather explore the campus, talk to students, or attend a class.

***During your visit, have a good time but behave with propriety – schools would rather retract their offer of admission than end up with a freshman whose lack of good sense marks him or her for serious trouble.

***Don’t doubt the decisions of the admission officers and wonder if you have what it takes to succeed. If they had doubts, they would have informed you quite bluntly!

***But don’t harbor the illusion that you now have made it either – college is meant to challenge us because that is how we grow.

And then get back to senior year, relishing the last days of high school, preparing yourself academically for college, and enjoying what may be your last months living at home. Above all, stay safe!

March 21st, 2010
by Andrea van Niekerk

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Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

College Admissions and Service Work

A recent blog in the New York Times’ Education section (http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/activity/), raises interesting questions about the way in which high school students may actually be choosing to do volunteer work (or any other activity, for that matter) purely for college admissions sake.  Indeed, given the emphasis that college applications place on things like community service, it seems logical to assume that many kids do in fact sign up for all sorts of activities with their applications in mind.  But even if this is true, does it really matter?  What are the consequences of such pragmatism?  This is an important and thorny question, and certainly one with which I have often wrestled, as an admission officer, as a private consultant, and as a parent.

I do in fact believe that many students, consciously or otherwise, opt to do community service with their college applications in mind.  And I equally believe it is silly to spend hours doing something after school you care little about.  (Whatever activity a student is doing, keep in mind that countless others are doing the same thing for the same reason, making it unlikely that the activity in itself will impress the admission officer who has, I fear, seen it before!) But I don’t think it is silly to encourage students to see service to, and engagement with, their communities as an important part of passing on their privilege.

So perhaps the answer is that we encourage students to do community service, but we also urge them to be aware and thoughtful about finding the service opportunities that speak most to their own interests.  After all, why feel compelled to dig latrines in another country if you would rather clean up the beach where you surf every day; why think that your job refiling books in the library must have less value than becoming president of the service club at school?

Students can then achieve several crucial things.  They will hopefully learn that good citizenship extends beyond their college applications.  They will also move towards that marvelous and transformative moment when they can see the connection between what they learn from books and what they see in the world around them.  In that sense, they will be well ahead of many others that may only begin to get a glimmer of that in college, if ever.  And pragmatically, students who can show and articulate a critical awareness of how the different elements of their young lives are integrating even at seventeen – intellectually, politically, socially – are the ones with the most interesting applications in the end.

January 15th, 2010
by Andrea van Niekerk

Posted in College Admissions, Parents, Students, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »