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Faith and academics are the promise of Christian colleges and universities. Students across America attending these schools share in the opportunity to strengthen their beliefs and gain a solid education, both of which prepare them for life in the modern world.
STEPHANIE "CULBY" CULBERSON
A pianist, a scholar, a Miss America finalist, and a dedicated Christian, Culby has always been an achiever.
Growing up in Nashville, Tennessee, she was involved in everything from cheerleading to classical music to sports to reading great literature.
Culby decided to attend Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee after hearing university president Dr. Paul Conn speak. "[Dr. Conn] has a passion for learning as well as for making Lee an excellent university," she explains.
At Lee, Culby continued her piano studies and also played violin in the chamber orchestra. "But one of my favorite activities at college was playing intramural football," she says. "We won two championships!"
Double-majoring in music and business, Culby also found time to be involved in the social service clubs Nu Sigma and Alpha Gamma Chi. While still a student at Lee, Culby was recruited to take part in a local beauty pageant. Less than a year later, she found herself at the Miss America pageant, hearing her name called as second runner-up, supported by her many friends at Lee.
Culby says, "One of my favorite things about Lee is that I have friends all over America and the world. I began to realize during my time at Lee that it's okay for people to believe different things, or to be grounded in different cultures or faiths. I learned to appreciate people for who they are and not try to change them."
Culby's fondest college memory? "Having the opportunity to speak at graduation. I felt so proud to be asked, and was thrilled to have the opportunity to thank the professors who had influenced and inspired me." Culby graduated summa cum laude with a 4.0 GPA and received the prestigious F. J. Lee Award as the outstanding graduate.
Since college, she notes, she's become more open-minded and accepting. "I suppose I'm still the independent, opinionated person I was in college," she laughs. "But I strive to understand others' worldview and beliefs."
Now a pharmaceutical sales representative with Pfizer, Culby has plenty of plans for the future. She wants to have a family, continue her education, and perhaps become a teacher. "Besides my family, teachers have made the biggest impact on my life, and I'd like the opportunity to do the same for other students."
Continue reading "Profiles Of Success: Living Your Faith In A Complex World "
Posted by Candice Arnold on August 5, 2008 at 12:31 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
It is your first hours of college, and you are in your new dorm room unpacking when in walks your new roommate, the person with whom you will be sharing a small space for the next nine months. For some, this could be your first encounter with a friend-to-be, for others, it might be a future horror story.
It is your first hours of college, and you are in your new dorm room unpacking when in walks your new roommate, the person with whom you will be sharing a small space for the next nine months. For some, this could be your first encounter with a friend-to-be, for others, it might be a future horror story.
Jessica, a recent graduate of Williams College, in Massachusetts, had a freshman roommate nightmare. Her roomie seemed to thrive in constant mess and once left a banana peel on the floor, which Jessica slipped on, spraining her ankle.
Her roommate also had a habit of borrowing clothing without asking. "I remember getting packages from J. Crew, and leaving them on my bed," says Jessica. "She would open and wear them before I had even seen the clothing."
Clothing was not the only thing that Jessica's roommate would "borrow." She would often come home to find her roommate napping in her bed! "At some point, she must have had the brilliant idea that if her sheets were dirty, it made the most sense just to sleep in my bed whenever she felt like it."
It got worse. Jessica's roommate had a boyfriend who spent a lot of time in the room--a common source of tension between roommates. One evening, Jessica walked into the bathroom shared between her and her roommate to find the boyfriend using her toothbrush. For many, this would have been the last straw, but Jessica stuck it out for the year and lived to tell the tale. Unfortunately, she did so by avoiding her roommate rather than confronting the situation.
Most students don't encounter the monster roommate, but to keep strife to a minimum, Dr. Carol Schmitz, director of residential communities at the University of Southern California (USC), suggests these strategies:
1. Don't room with your best friend. Great friends do not always make great roommates and being compatible roommates will not necessarily mean that you must be friends.
2. Be open and honest. Communication is the way to learn to respect one another's needs. Have an initial discussion about any concerns the two of you may have. By setting clear boundaries early on in the relationship, you and your roommate should be better equipped to solve misunderstandings before they are blown out of proportion.
USC takes this one step further by requiring freshman roommates to create a contract based on a discussion of issues that might arise over the course of the year, including differing ideas of cleanliness, study and sleep habits, and the regularity of visitors to the room. These contracts are often reexamined around the six-week mark, when roommates typically start to feel more comfortable with each other.
Omar Shakir, a sophomore at Stanford University, says you should stay open-minded even if your roommate is not like you at all: "My freshman roommate was my total opposite. I'm liberal and more stressed. He was very conservative and chill. It was great to get a different perspective, and his good qualities rubbed off on me."
3. Confront problems first, then get help. Approach your roommate first rather than call your parents or a friend to complain. Try to work through the difficulties, then if the situation grows into something more than you feel you can handle with a one-on-one discussion, consider speaking with your Residential Advisor (RA). An RA can act as an unbiased mediator to help you and your roommate work through the issues you are having.
No doubt your freshman-year roommate will play a significant role in your first-year experience. By working to make the relationship a positive one, he or she will be someone with whom you share a few late night pizzas or even someone who becomes your life-long friend.
Article by, Jesse Nankin and courtesy of www.careersandcolleges.com
Posted by Candice Arnold on August 5, 2008 at 12:19 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
Calling all high school women: If you think you might want to major in science or engineering, you've picked the right time to look for a college.
In some fields, women are quickly catching up to men in the percentage of science students, so you'll find a welcoming atmosphere and plenty of female company. In engineering, male students still significantly outnumber women, but that only stands to help you. Engineering schools are really hungry for women applicants.
"Women can really be masters of their own fate," says Kristin Tichenor, Associate Vice President of Enrollment Management at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. "There are so many opportunities for them, because women engineers are still a relatively rare commodity."
In order to interest more female and minority students in engineering, many big companies, colleges, and universities now sponsor engineering outreach and summer programs for high school girls and minority students (check out the box on the opposite page to search for these programs).
If it's science you're interested in, the opportunities are also vast. Robin Davies, professor of biology at Sweet Briar College, says, "We get a lot of students who think they are pre-med because that's the only career they're aware of that has to do with science. If you enjoy science, there are plenty of things you can do besides med school."
Science: finding what you love Kim Wilson '06 arrived at Sweet Briar College thinking chemistry was her first love, but the biochemistry courses looked so interesting, she took one. She ended up pursuing a major in biochemistry and molecular biology. "It's a lot of fun," she says, "and a lot of work, too." Her advice: "Find something that you love and enjoy in the sciences. That's the key."
One of the most exciting things for Kim has been the opportunity to participate in summer research projects (something more often available at smaller colleges). One summer she worked on a project synthesizing compounds that potentially could be used as anticancer drugs for ovarian cancer. "What you're doing is new," she says. "No one's ever done it before. You really learn."
Keep in mind that pursuing science does not mean your world is limited. Kim has taken many non-science classes, since the college requires students to take classes in all areas. "Don't stick to one thing," she advises. "Try a variety. It helps balance out the sciences."
So if you are wondering what the right science is for you, or even if science or engineering is right for you, look for a school that will give you lots of opportunities to try things out, to participate in research, to develop camaraderie with other students, and to get to know professors.
Don't be intimidated by engineering Jenna Rea '08 chose to major in chemical engineering at Cornell. She had very enthusiastic math and chemistry teachers in high school, but she admits, "I was quite clueless about what engineering is or what kind of engineering I wanted to do." She recommends trying engineering out by taking the freshman introductory courses. The campus diversity office provides lots of support for both women and minority engineering students, and women now represent 28% of the engineering students at Cornell. Jenna's major, chemical engineering, is 50% female! "I love the atmosphere," she says. "Engineering is all about working in groups." She also enjoys the fact that companies are trying hard to recruit women engineers to diversify their workplaces. "You'll go to a recruiting fair on campus and walk into this huge hall and realize recruiters are looking at you very closely, to try to get you to come to their table."
In high school, Jan Ma, Cornell '07, attended a Society of Women Engineers week-long engineering program offered at Cornell for female high school students the summer after their junior year. She became a biomedical engineering major and worked on a project to deliver genes into cancer cells more susceptible to cancer drugs. She also worked on developing biosensors to detect viruses in patient blood samples. "Most of the problems we work on are real-life problems," she says. "Engineers can do anything. They touch every aspect of people's lives."
The number of women undergraduates in engineering rose steadily during the 1990s and early 2000s, and now about 20% of engineering students are women. Many schools, however, have a higher percentage of women, and certain majors, including chemical, environmental, civil, and bioengineering, have much higher numbers (see the sidebar on this page). Don't let low numbers of women in a field deter you, though. Engineering is about teamwork, and many engineering students find that differences in gender fade as they work together with fellow engineering students in small groups to do what engineers are trained to do: solve real-world problems.
Engineering for a better world Engineering is changing. By using computers, less time is spent simply doing calculations. And the field of bioengineering is growing, which is good news for women. "There's strong evidence to suggest that technology is more appealing to women if they can see an end point to it to help humanity," says Tony Collins, president of Clarkson University. At Worcester Polytech, Tichenor says, they have created a booklet for prospective students called "The Women's Brochure." It describes math, science, and engineering opportunities and how you can use these to better the world and to help people. It also contains photographs of vibrant, successful young women engineers to counteract the stereotypes many people may have of engineering as a predominantly male profession.
While schools of engineering are eager to attract women, companies recruit graduates with equal zeal. "There is a perception now," says Tichenor, "that they need women engineers to be involved in designing products that will appeal to women consumers." Also, the more women engineers they hire, the more woman-friendly their workplaces will be--and changing that larger world of engineering is what today's students will be part of.
Consider these choices As an engineering student, you can attend either a liberal arts and sciences college or university or a school of engineering and applied sciences or technical institute. Columbia University, for example, has Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. You should look at what courses you would take and what you would learn outside your major, in your non-science courses, as these will be different.
Consider also that both science and engineering have a lot of required courses. It's much easier to start out in these fields and change your mind later than to start in something else and change to science or engineering. But don't plan to specialize too much or too fast. Leave your options open while you explore the path that's right for you.
Article by, Deborah Knight and courtesy of www.careersandcolleges.com
Posted by Candice Arnold on August 5, 2008 at 12:14 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
Of the many persistent myths and misconceptions surrounding the college application process, there is perhaps none more pervasive than the myth of the "well-rounded" student. Conventional wisdom, as dispensed by most well-meaning guidance counselors and parents, holds that colleges seek to admit students who have their toes in a little bit of everything. Those who single-mindedly excel in only a few areas will be seen as too focused or unbalanced, the kindly adult advises: "it's better to be well-rounded". Thus the star thespian is advised to go out for track, the music prodigy feels compelled to run for student council, and the phenomenal athlete joins clubs with reckless abandon.
The stereotypical student who seems to have it all: good grades, a sport or two, some volunteer hours, and a long list of clubs, and doubtless earns accolades on the high school level as the ideal student is in fact not going to stand out at all, in a sea of similar college applicants. "Well-rounded with a lump or two" might be a more apt description of the truly ideal college applicant. The basic package does have to be there-academic excellence and some evidence of the ability to interact productively with other students are non-negotiable-but Ivy League and equivalent schools could fill their classes several times over with applicants bringing excellent grades and SAT scores and the standard list of cookie-cutter National Honor Society-type high school activities. The students whose true passions shine through on their applications are those who are likely to be admitted to their top choice schools. Conversely, the admissions committee will see right through and immediately discount a laundry list of clubs that demonstrate no authentic commitment or real initiative for the student. This effect is even more pronounced when the committee is presented with a long list of activities joined only in the junior and senior years.
To put it another way, universities want to build a well-rounded class-that is, a class full of students who avidly pursue a diverse range of interests rather than admit individually well-rounded students. The amateur pianist who ran cross-country and served on the student council might sound like a good applicant, but the musician who performed as a soloist with local orchestras, the athlete who won a state championship in her event, and the young leader who volunteered on half a dozen political campaigns will win out every time, even if their individual profiles are much more unbalanced. In fact, that's quite likely to be the case, as the time commitment required to pursue one or two activities to some degree of excellence probably precludes spending much time on the usual range of extracurriculars. Beware of overload, especially if it might hurt academic achievement: aside from a few recruited athletes, even the best extracurricular activities will never trump a poor academic record and/or low test scores.
None of this is meant to imply that students should quash genuine interests in favor of specializing or appearing more focused. Nothing could be further from the truth. Believe it or not, after reading thousands of applications, admissions officers become quite skilled in teasing apart activities truly pursued out of love from those done "just to look good". Especially early on in a high school student's educational career, it's great to explore a wide range of interests. As you mature, it's only natural that some activities will become better-loved than others, and you will naturally settle into those pursuits. Be aware of this process and seek to grow in responsibility and achievement in the things that you are passionate about. When the time comes to do the applications, try to convey your evolution through high school as a person with deepening interests, and knit together your activities where possible-your unique personality should be the common thread.
In a discussion with another admissions committee member at a top-ten college about his thoughts on extracurricular activities, he thought that it was best for students to follow their own path: "Let your best qualities shine through by doing the things that coincide most closely with what you enjoy. Ignore people who say colleges especially prefer that you express your good personal qualities through specific activities X and Y, for example 'sports and community service.' I promise, they speak nonsense". In the end, we agreed, a student with passionate interests, even if they are somewhat off the beaten path-in fact, especially if they are somewhat off the beaten path-is truly the hot commodity in college admissions.
Don't worry about rounding out your facets: they're what make you stand out. So polish and play up all your bulges and angles, because in the high-stakes game of competitive college admissions, outstanding is exactly what you want to be.
Article by, Joe Jewell and provided by PrepMe, a premium online ACT and SAT prep company.
Posted by Candice Arnold on July 30, 2008 at 3:54 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
I hope I am not the first person to inform you how important a visit to a college campus really is during your application process. If it is at all possible to visit, please do so. I cannot imagine why anyone would commit to live four years in a campus he or she had only seen through college infobooks and tiny internet photographs. You have to physically go to a campus and talk to current students to feel what it's like to live there. The only people I know who are unhappy with their college decisions had not visited the campus beforehand. Convinced? Ok, good. At least try to visit the colleges you are really serious about, and definitely do not apply early decision without having visited the school you are binding yourself to.
When should you visit? When you can, is my first answer. Whenever, during your high school career, you have the opportunity to visit a college you are even remotely thinking about applying to, do so. Many people wait until their senior years to visit schools they have already filled out applications for, or are in the process of applying to. This is not always a good idea - visiting colleges can help you by narrowing down your list of schools, or by pointing you in different directions. I recommend most of your visiting be done in your junior year, although sophomore year is definitely not too early to begin your search. When to go? If you can only go during summer, that's fine - most campuses still have tours and information sessions then - just remember that it's summer, and although the campuses will be at their prettiest, you will be inhabiting them in the fall and winter months. If the school you are visiting is in California, you probably won't have to take this into account - but if you are visiting colleges in New England, definitely try to picture them looking dreary on a rainy day - if you still like where you are, that's a good sign.
Continue reading "The College Visit"
Posted by Candice Arnold on July 30, 2008 at 3:47 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
Summertime, and the living is easy . . . time to kick back, relax, and maybe plan a few weeks at the beach to work on your tan, right?
Sorry. If you're thinking about applying to college in the next year or so, summer isn't the time to slack off. In fact, those long sultry days between June and September are the perfect time to boost your application. For some students, that might mean taking a summer course in Shakespearean comedy, enrolling in a French immersion program, or picking up a few extra credits in advanced math. Still others might have the luxury of travel or doing volunteer work full-time.
But if you're like most students, you've got to earn some money to help finance your education. And that means you need a summer job.
Many students worry that working full-time at the local pizza shop or doing clerical work won't impress admissions reps and could even hurt their chance of being admitted to their top-choice school. Good news: a summer job, whether it is volunteer or paid, glamorous or practical, will add a great deal to your college application. Schools are looking for the big picture of who you are--they want clues about your character and insight to predict how successful you'll be in your college career. Any work experience helps illustrate that.
Do put some thought into what type of summer job you're most interested in, and why. But keep in mind that even if you end up with a job you consider less than glamorous, the experience is valuable. For starters, you'll be learning things--about yourself and about the work world--and that's what admissions committees most want to see.
Continue reading "The Truth About Summer Jobs "
Posted by Candice Arnold on July 23, 2008 at 11:20 AM | Leave a Comment (0)
Applying to any of the Military Academies (The Naval Academy, West Point, The Air Force Academy) is unique in the sense that it not only has high standards for academics, but also makes sure the applicants are physically fit and have certain ethical and moral standards. As I attend The Naval Academy, I will discuss this particular academy.
The first thing that is looked at is the academic transcript. The Academy is one of the top engineering schools in the country and makes sure that only qualified applicants are accepted. Unlike other colleges, the Academy does not make exceptions for recruited athletes. They must be academically satisfactory, just like any other applicant.
Just as with any other college it is important to be a part of extra curricular activities. What is stressed, however, is that the applicant has taken on leadership roles where he has assumed responsibility. Often referred to as a leadership laboratory, one of the Academy's main purposes is to develop leaders, so any prior experience is strongly encouraged.
Continue reading "Considering the Military Academies"
Posted by Candice Arnold on July 10, 2008 at 2:46 PM | Leave a Comment (0)
