Windows of Opportunity: The Fine Arts Advantage

You may recall the story about a class of kindergartners who are asked to raise their hands if they are artists. All hands fly up amid peals of delight. Then, a class of ninth graders is asked the same question. Few or no hands appear. What happened to still those creative hands? Unfortunately, as they grow older students are often led to believe that delving deeply into the fine arts will result in an unreliable and unprofitable future. Students are steered to more “practical” endeavors like science, engineering, or business—as if knowledge were deposited like grain into sealed silos.

As college counselors, let us ventilate those silos with windows of opportunity. Each fine artist is imbued with imagination, curiosity, and creativity, and through these windows light pours into every corner of the mind. Albert Einstein declared: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Einstein is in the good company of Leonardo da Vinci, who, had he been practical and followed his father’s profession, would have become a clerk. Imagine the loss, not only to art.

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Survey: Majority of Americans Believe College Is Worth It

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A majority of Americans see the value in a four-year college degree, according to a new survey.

The survey was conducted by the APM Research Lab to see what Americans believe about the value of a  college degree as it relates to its cost.

Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed agreed that a four-year college degree is worth it, despite the high cost of college.

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College T-Shirt Beach Etiquette

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Editor’s note: This post was originally published on Admitted in July 2017. It’s being republished as part of NACAC’s Best of the Blog series

Like many college counselors, the only T-shirts I own are college T-shirts. Last week, I wore lots of them during a beach vacation. Since the only time I usually wear them is at the gym at 5 a.m., I don’t usually get many reactions. However, at the beach, people would respond to the college on the shirt, and it became challenging to know how to respond:

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Michelle Obama Speaks to Students at 5th Annual Beating the Odds Summit

Reach Higher hosted the fifth annual Beating the Odds Summit Tuesday to support first-generation college-bound students.

“No matter how much you may front, there is a part of you that is wondering whether this was a mistake and whether I belong and whether I can do this. Can I go on this campus or start this program? Am I really worthy of it? Those were the messages I had going on in my head and they still come up in life,” former First Lady Michelle said.

“…But here’s my one big message. This is not a mistake. You are here because you are more than capable of doing it.”

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ICYMI: NACAC Releases International Research Brief

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High schools and colleges continue to develop and refine their strategies for recruiting abroad, according to new findings from the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC).

In particular, the association’s latest research brief shows that over the last two years more colleges have adopted practices that provide greater oversight of commissioned-based agents.

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Report: Improve Net Price Calculators for Student Success

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The Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn AHEAD) recently released a new research brief that examines the usability and usefulness of university Net Price Calculators (NPCs).

The brief offers recommendations for colleges and universities that will help ensure prospective students have accurate and transparent information on college costs.

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Study: Traditional On-Campus Housing Offers Academic Benefits

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Cinder block walls, bunk beds, and shared bathrooms: Undergrads may like to complain about their on-campus accommodations, but new research suggests that living in a traditional dormitory may help freshmen keep their grades up.

A study published this summer in the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice found that first-year students in traditional dorm rooms had higher GPAs than those living in on-campus apartment-style housing.

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Guide Helps Ensure Access, Success, and Visibility for Native Students

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The needs of Native American students are too often overlooked in all phases of higher education— including the admission process, according to a recent research project from the American Indian College Fund.

“(I)nvisibility is in essence the modern form of racism used against Native Americans…when a student is invisible, his or her academic needs are not met,” according to a recent executive brief produced by the College Fund, the largest US charity supporting Native student access to higher education.

As a result, many Native students are dissuaded from considering postsecondary education. And when American Indian students do try to access higher ed, they often are left feeling unwelcome and alone. Sometimes, they are even the target of hostility, as was the case in May 2018 when two brothers from the Mohawk Nation were removed from a Colorado State University campus tour after a mother on the tour became suspicious of their motives.

Inspired to create change in response to that traumatic event, the College Fund crafted a Declaration of Native Purpose in Higher Education.

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