<p>There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today discussing some difficulties in the college application process for a child attending a bad public school.</p>
<p>Not</a> by Tuition Breaks Alone - WSJ.com</p>
<p>Other than educated volunteers going into these poor schools to offer to help with college applications and counseling, I am not sure of what else could be done. This is why I have always favorored socioeconomic, as opposed to racial, affirmative action.</p>
<p>It is an interesting article. That HS girl would almost be better off without a recommendation, than with the one she got from that semi-literate AP English teacher. Ouch.</p>
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Other than educated volunteers going into these poor schools to offer to help with college applications and counseling
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<p>That is an excellent idea. Excellent, excellent idea. "Applications bootcamp."</p>
<p>Concrete, discrete steps, defined timeframe, practical assistance, with the possibility of a great, great payoff.</p>
<p>if you take away the grammar mistakes and the illiteracy, that teacher's letter is quite positive.</p>
<p>Owlice - I read about an alternative spring break trip some Wake Forest students took this year into rural Arkansas in which they worked with high school kids on such a project -
WFU</a> | Spring Break ‘08: Arkansas
It's a start.</p>
<p>I've heard that college counselors from some Los Angeles area elite private schools do, in fact, do "admissions bootcamps". Don't recall (article was in the LA Times, several years back) if they go to certain schools, or if they have students from a lot of schools come to them. Do recall that the counselors were bemoaning that there just wasn't enough time, and that they wished they'd been around a year or two earlier.</p>
<p>But how credible is it? As I read the letter I kept thinking 'this teacher knows flowery expressions, but doesn't know what he/she is talking about'. And the many glaring errors surely point to the severe problems with the level of education that the teacher's students received, at least in writing if not in literary analysis.</p>
<p>Once during a lousy summer job I happened to read something written by a middle aged English teacher from the poorer area of my hometown. It was an eyeopener - very poorly written. I've been inclined to cut some slack for kids from poor schools ever since, at least to try not to judge their potential by their current achievement levels.</p>
<p>Buffalo is one of the nation's poorest cities, yet by school district policy they will only hire city residents, not suburban dwellers, to teach in their public schools, with the exception of a few high-demand subjects such as Math, Science, and Special Education. </p>
<p>They could harvest a great many qualified, experienced teachers from the elementary to the high school common subjects, but won't hire them based on their street address. The city schools' payscale and benefits compete nicely with suburban school districts. </p>
<p>The City of Buffalo could have many more qualified teachers in their schools without their bull-headed, bigoted policy. I feel badly for Jazmine because she has plenty, plenty of company.</p>
<p>If I'm an admissions officer and I see this illiterate mess from a supposed AP English teacher, I give the applicant a big boost. Obviously whatever she achieved, it was in spite of her teachers.</p>
<p>This makes me like the top 10% rule in Texas, where the top 10% of students from any high school, be it inner city or rural-rural, are guaranteed entry into the flagship UT or other excellent Texas public colleges (and the application process is not difficult). Kids like Jazmine, who did well in high school, playing the hand they were dealt? The Texas statistics show they do well in college too.</p>
<p>(Usually I don't like that top 10% rule. Usually I am feeling sad for the 11-15% kids from great suburban schools who have to jump through hoops to get to UT - they are sometimes forced to spend a summer at college or go to another college for a year first - but after reading thise WSJ article, hmmm....)</p>
<p>California has something similar</p>
<p>ELC (eligible in the local context)...I believe it is the top 4% of each school has guaranteed admittance at a UC (not necessarily a top UC)</p>
<p>"I don't know whether the teacher also expected Jazmine to correct the grammar and spelling, but here is a sample of the letter's prose: "Jazmine is enlightened by the journey of academia the twist, turns and heights elevated to farthest stretch imagined. Jazmine will bring a willingness to work, thought provoking, openess and challenges of the worlds positive attributes. . . . Jazmine has shared with her peers & cohorts her beliefs of academia and the wherewithal to never give up to keep trying, to keep learning and to always keep growing."</p>
<p>At least Jazmine had the letter. She had another one, too, from another teacher, but it was barely a paragraph. Then the guidance counselor failed to send Jazmine's midyear grades to two of the schools she applied to.</p>
<p>Is this any way to get into college? Of course not, but it is far too typical of the way the process goes at too many urban schools. Last week the Chronicle of Higher Education released a study showing that the proportion of low-income students (whose families, like Jazmine's, had incomes of less than $40,000) at the nation's top colleges actually declined in the past couple of years. The drop has been seen by educators as particularly disappointing in light of the fact that many colleges have recently started using endowment income to offer free tuition to poor families.</p>
<p>But what stands between disadvantaged kids and college is not mere money. It is orderliness, attentive mentoring and simple organizational guidance. Public schools used to be the great equalizer in America -- the institutions that allowed the children of immigrants and the descendants of slaves to become fluent in the English language and prepare them for careers. In too many urban areas, they don't perform such basic educational functions. But they don't offer structured environments, either, for the few students who are trying to lift themselves up and get a better educational experience at college.</p>
<p>Before they can even apply for college, kids need a real high-school education, complete with literate, motivated teachers."</p>
<p>None of that is new to me since I have volunteered extensively in schools and have served on regional and national scholarship committees.</p>
<p>What was in the story was also why I scoff at people who somehow think that poor kids have it easier when they apply to college. The routine things that students who are middle and upper class take for granted -- literate teachers with good grammar; GCs who know the ropes about college admissions and scholarships, assist students, and are reliable about getting paperwork in; teachers and GCs who know how to write recommendation letters; teachers who are teaching the subjects that they were trained to teach -- all of these things are scare at schools populated by lots of low income students.</p>
<p>These concerns affect more than the students' being able to apply to college. These concerns also mean that the students -- even vals with straight As -- lack the academic background to not only do at the average level on college boards (When I lived in Detroit, the average ACT score for seniors there was a 12. A guidance counselor told one of my mentees-- who'd gotten a 14 -- not to bother retaking the test because she had done "well."), they lack the academic prep to pass at most first and second tier colleges.</p>
<p>I remember students who were taking and getting As in AP English in a competitive public h.s. in Detroit who didn't know basic rules of grammar such as adding "ed" endings to make the past tense. Such students thought it was normal that most students weren't able to get more than 2s on the AP tests.</p>
<p>Makes my blood boil to think of students who are doing the best that they can who through no fault of their own lack the skills for options that would match their intelligence and motivation.</p>