• Round 3 MBA Special: Save $100 on all orders over $1,000 placed by February 22, 2010. Can be used for MBA essay editing, waitlist letters, and mock interviews. Use coupon code R3100.

• In the State of the Union address, President Obama urged colleges to “get serious about cutting their own costs.” To assist in the goal of making higher education more affordable to the greatest number of students, Obama plans to increase federal support for education by 6% in 2011. Obama also supports the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act which, if passed by Congress, would eliminate bank-based federal student loans. This bill, according to the presdient, “will finally end the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies that go to banks for student loans.”A more lenient payback plan is also being discussed. (The Chronicle)

• According to The Chronicle last week college endowments have declined by about 23% in the last two years. In fact, the investment return for 2009 was the worst return recorded in the history of the endowment study, at -18.7%. According to John D. Walda, president of the National Association of College and University Business Officers, however, “the picture for endowments is a lot cheerier than it was a year ago.” Optimism for the future, though, doesn’t help the fact that certain schools that had been dependent on endowments are now in pretty bad shape, especially considering the sizable loans they’re now forced to take out. The only reason why these schools didn’t go under was because of fortunate investment returns from previous years.

• The Moscow Times reports that “Russia’s business education market was among the world’s worst hit in 2009.” In some cases, admissions fell about 50% from last year. Some schools are even dipping into their own funds to create lending programs for students in order to maintain adequate student enrollment. Besides the fact that students (or their sponsoring companies) can no longer afford to pay for business schools, students in general seem to have lost interest in pursuing an MBA, at least for the time being. However, despite the decrease in MBA program enrollment, interest in EMBA programs in Russia is on the rise.

• Women are equally represented in medical and law schools, but still lag well behind in numbers in the b-school sphere. “Business Schools Sweeten Lures for Women,” a recent article from WeNews, suggests that in order to increase female enrollment in America’s business schools, MBA programs are forced to lure women in by their sweet teeth, both figuratively and literally. Recruitment events for female MBA prospects are popping up all over the country, including a private party at New York City’s Dylan’s Candy Bar.

• Do students benefit from being in a diverse educational climate? Is affirmative action, or "race-conscious admissions," justified? Will diversity improve education? These are questions raised by Peter Schmidt, author of a recent Chronicle article on campus diversity. The answer: It depends (of course). If situations are handled optimally then educational benefits will increase and the inherent problems of affirmative action will decrease. Most agree that affirmative action is not a policy that can be accepted on its own, but most be implemented along with other educational and diversity initiatives and even at that, with caution. Still, many universities are skeptical of the educational benefits derived from race-conscious admissions and believe that accepting more qualified students will benefit the students and the school, both long- and short-term, more than were they to focus on boosting classroom diversity.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

Rankings like those in U.S. News have become essential tools for grad school applicants. And for good reason: they’re some of the handiest ways to evaluate which programs are the best fits for all kinds of prospective students.

But do published rankings affect the schools themselves? Recent research suggests that they do, according to this article in The National Law Journal.

While rankings are valuable means of differentiating between schools, the study argues that they also put pressure on graduate programs to raise (or maintain) their positions on national lists. One area that can be negatively affected is class diversity:

Administrators consistently reported that they have allocated more money toward merit-based scholarships in order to attract students with high LSAT scores, a factor that accounts for half of a school’s selectivity score. That leaves less money for need-based scholarships, which in turn can hurt student body diversity because applicants from lower income groups tend to have lower scorer LSAT scores, the researchers found.”

It’s easy to see how this could lead to a systemic problem. Schools can raise their rankings by increasing selectivity, but selectivity itself may not be a quality that leads to any educational benefits for students. When schools are pressured to allocate resources in certain areas, choices may be made at the expense of institutional improvements.

Shifting priorities is one way schools are affected, but there were even reports in the study of more illicit efforts to manipulate rankings:

The researchers found that some schools have employed ethically questionable tactics, such as categorizing students as part-time or probationary so their LSAT scores would not count [...] Some schools cut first-year class sizes then aggressively recruit transfer students, the study found. Other schools hired graduates on a temporary basis so they would be considered employed for the U.S. News survey.”

These tactics are pretty extreme, but they highlight an inherent tension in the publication of rankings that are trusted to such a high degree. Is there a point where the rankings are so influential that they begin to undermine their purpose of objectively measuring the quality of schools?

It seems like some of these problems can be addressed by rankings’ publishers (U.S. News, for instance, considers many factors aside from selectivity and post-graduate employment rates). And in a certain way putting pressure on schools could be a good thing. If rankings only encouraged schools to improve course offerings and student resources, it’s doubtful that anyone would cry foul.

The question is, can a rankings system be designed so well that it only rewards positive changes in schools? The findings of this study suggest that there is definitely room for improvement.

[The National Law Journal] Research documents the ‘U.S. News’ effect on law schools

Chris Black is a Content Developer at Knewton, where he helps student with their LSAT prep.

Massachusetts will finally have a public law school, as UMass Dartmouth is to acquire Southern New England School of Law, a private institution that is donating its campus and assets to the state, The Boston Globe reports.

The school will concentrate on public service law and offer a curriculum in economic justice, legal support for businesses, community law practice, and civil and human rights.

In-state students will have to pay $23,500 a year for tuition, which is much less than at most private law schools. There will be public service fellowships subsidizing 50% of tuition and fees offered to 25 new students each year, as long as they work in public service law for four years after graduation.

UMass Dartmouth also hopes to uphold the 34 percent minority enrollment at Southern New England, which is the highest among Massachusetts law schools.

The public law school, not yet accredited by the American Bar Association, anticipates a program that will allow students from any UMass campus to earn an accelerated law degree, finishing their undergrad studies in three years, and beginning law school in their senior year.

There will be rolling admissions for the first year, and students can start applying now using Southern New England's online application. The public service fellowship applications will be available next week and are due March 20.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best

In my non-admissions life, I recently went to a lecture given by a biographer whose work I admire. In the course of his talk he mentioned that while writing about genius has merit, writing about typical folks and their extraordinary achievements is more valuable. The compelling story -- the inspiration, and attention grabber -- resides in the tales of "ordinary people who made a difference."

Bingo! That's relevant to applicants. One of the most commonly asked personal statement questions I see on Twitter is "What should I write about?"

You need to write about when YOU made a difference.

So if you are a Michelangelo, Einstein, Gates, or Buffett, you may be able to write about your incredible talents and how they propelled you to achieve, although you may appear arrogant if you take this approach. In any case, you geniuses can stop reading this post.

For the rest of you, please continue.  Think about those times when your participation in a project, organization, business, team, or club made a difference.

• What was the situation? the problem? the challenge?
• What was your role in meeting that challenge?  What did you do?
• What was the result?

You may or may not want to tie this story explicitly to your educational and professional goals. That decision will depend on many factors, but one evergreen topic for your personal statements and application essays remains: times when you made a difference.

Related Resources:

• "PAR" or "CAR" Anyone?
• MBA 5 Fatal Flaws
• Med 5 Fatal Flaws
• Law 5 Fatal Flaws
• Grad 5 Fatal Flaws
• College 5 Fatal Flaws

  By Linda Abraham, President and Founder of Accepted.com.

The debate continues, according to The Chronicle’s report on the Association of American Law Schools annual meeting, as to whether law schools should be assessed based on “input” measures or “outcome” measures. The first looks at library holdings, faculty size, and the like, while the latter measures the skills and competencies of the school’s graduates.

Law schools are resisting this suggestion for outcome measurements, saying that “they have enough to worry about with budget cuts, a tough job market for their graduates, and the soaring cost of legal education without adding a potentially expensive assessment overhaul.”

Supporters of these proposed revisions, however, say that the difficult job market is exactly why these graduate assessments are crucial, despite their hefty price tags: In a competitive job market, it’s important that graduates possess certain skills if they want to pierce the law firm market. The pressure and costs of such a test will only encourage law schools to “churn out” graduates who possess the skills that employers are seeking.

Cost and timing are key players in this ongoing debate. Is the middle of a meltdown in the legal job market the time to start implementing costly changes? Will such reforms offer a return on investment?

Other issues raised by opponents of performance-based assessments include the questionable measurability of legal practice skills and the effect diversity will have on bar passage rates.

Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best