Do college athletes get an easy college education?

1. Before your semester starts, decide what commitments you have that are so absolutely important that you can’t miss them. Make sure they can’t be rescheduled.
2. Set up an appointment to meet with your professor to discuss these commitments. Make sure to tell your professor why they are an important part of your life, why they can’t be rescheduled, and most importantly, how they will enhance your experience as a student (and prepare you for life after school).
3. Ask your professor what you can do to make up missed work beforehand to show him/her that you are really serious about taking the class and doing the work. Be willing to go above and beyond what was originally required of you in order to satisfy your professor.
4. Follow through with what you discussed with your professor. Failing to live up to your end of the bargain will not only result in a lower grade for you, but it will also make your professor less likely to make exceptions for anyone else in the future.
5. Stay in constant communication with your professor. Remind him/her of your upcoming event and when you will miss class. And of course, remember to say “thank you” for any exceptions they make…your commitment means extra work for them!

Recently, The New York Times published an article entitled "For Achievers, a New Destination" in which they noted that community colleges are no longer a last resort for unmotivated or underachieving students. On the contrary, more and more community colleges are becoming an attractive alternative to students looking to earn their core academic credit at a significantly reduced cost before transferring to a four-year school to complete their bachelor’s degree.

Citing the College Board, The New York Times observed that the average tuition at community colleges is less than half the cost of a state school ($2,272 compared to $5,836) and almost one-tenth of what it might cost at a private school, which, on average, is upwards of $22,000. As a result, the face of community colleges is beginning to change — to be more precise, it is getting younger. Quoting The Times:

Many two-year colleges are now recruiting students who fit the traditional profile of baccalaureate undergraduates: 18- to 24-year-olds who have strong high school records and are moving directly into higher education full time. Such students are helping to lower the average age of community college students, which has steadily declined: 42 percent taking courses for credit are under 22, compared with 32 percent a decade ago, according to a 2005 federal study. No longer wed primarily to a work force-training mission, these colleges consider it a major, if not predominant, goal to prepare students to transfer to four-year institutions.

The article also notes that many community colleges are becoming increasingly successful in placing graduates in top-flight four-year schools. In other words, top-flight schools are beginning to recognize that students from community colleges are academically competitive, which means that community colleges offer a comparable education to that of four-year institutions.

If this report is true — if you really can get a competitive education at half the price — then it means that community colleges offer more bang for a student’s buck than either state or private schools. Sobering thoughts. I wonder if we’ll be reading a similar article about online education soon …

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Benjamin Welch has been a college instructor in writing and composition for nearly six years. When he’s not teaching or playing golf, he offers advice for students seeking information about online education and online degrees.

How much emphasis do admissions committees put on grades when evaluating applicants? The truth is that grades and GPAs are good long-term indicators of an individual’s performance as a student. Grades do not necessarily reflect intelligence; however, they do show a student’s ability to produce good work — or not-so-good work — over an extended period of time.

Typically, admissions committees focus on grade trends. The best indicator of this is the grade point average, or GPA, which is a numerical way of measuring how a student performed over the course of a year or even throughout high school. As such, a few poor marks here and there won’t affect that overall trend.

However, if students are concerned about any unusual marks in a given semester or with respect to a particular class or subject, they should outline the circumstances in the application (most applications include a section specifically for such explanations). Students should be candid as to why these marks fell outside of the trend and assure the admissions committee that similar problems won’t affect their performance in the future.

On a more positive note, if students used poor grades to show how they overcame a challenge and then show how their grades improved, such grades may actually be used to their advantage.

Finally, while admissions committees do focus on overall grade trends, they tend to put more weight on grades earned in the latter half of high school. Committees know that many students struggle at first to adapt to the rigors of high school. They also know that junior- and senior-level courses are more comparable to college-level courses. So students who struggled during their freshman and sophomore years shouldn’t fret.

Remember the committee is looking for trends, and even more important than the overall trend is where the trend is heading at its conclusion — hopefully up.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kari Whitaker is a technical as well as creative writer. In addition to articles on education and careers, she also enjoys writing short stories, essays, and poetry.