Goodbye mailboxes :(  -  hello package centers  :)

A good review of what I call the “China Trade”. The article shows some of the issues Chinese students face in the USA. Schools are eager to collect Chinese tuitions but much less interested in their well-being. 

A video outlining a few different points of view of the influx of Chinese students into (primarily California) universities.  

Yet more evidence of the importance of learning a second language early. Language instruction remains the Achilles heel of US education. Independent school education is excellent in most regards, yet foreign language instruction, for many schools, remains a weakness.

One of the common questions from our international clients always is “Why do universities spend so much money and effort on sports? Aren’t they supposed to be places where students study?” As Americans, we assume D1 athletics are normal; however, should universities be running minor league teams?

An in-depth look at Massachusetts’s struggling community colleges. Community colleges are a complicated issue: their missions are not always well-defined, they serve an extremely wide range of students, suffer from a lack of funding, and compete for legislative focus. The path from community college to a four-year college is perhaps best mapped in California where “nearly one-third of University of California system students start at a community college before graduating from a UC campus”.

Frank Bruni, NY Times’ columnist, looks at three universities and candidates they admit who might not be traditionally admitted, evidence of the holistic approach to admissions. It also shows the disadvantages low income students and immigrants face.

A somewhat discouraging but realistic article illustrating how much money is involved in test preparation and the potential advantages that larger test prep companies have preparing students. Several large companies we have spoken to have estimated that they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars researching and preparing to tutor for the new exam. Standardized testing is typically a weakness for international students for a variety of reasons, money and access to good test prep both being significant factors. Preparation for the ACT/SAT is important; however, it is only one part of the admissions process. 

“It is the ‘failure-deprived Stanford and Harvard students’ as Ms. Lahey’s book calls them – who are best equipped to fail successfully. For these elites, failure becomes not so much a crisis as a modern-day finishing school, where everyone graduates with the perfect resume of mettle-building career challenges.”