Skepticism about the value of a college degree has peaked recently in many media outlets as a seemingly temporary recession turns into a prolonged period of economic stagnation or worse. While economic challenges remain for even the best educated, unemployment and weekly earnings figures paint a vivid picture of the advantages of achieving college and advanced degrees. The following figures bear this out.

Degree , Unemployment Rate in 2009, Median Weekly Earnings in 2009
Doctoral, 2.5%, $1,532
Professional, 2.3%, $1,529
Master’s, 3.9%, $1,257
Bachelor’s, 5.2%, $1,025
Associate, 6.8% , $761
Some College, No Degree, 8.6%, $699
High School Grad, 9.7%, $626
Less than High School Diploma, 14.6%, $454
Average All Workers, 7.9%, $774

Conclusion about the value of school/education:

Degree attainment clearly correlates to job stability and earnings. Gaining access to the best schools is highly competitive.
David Dickson is an admissions counselor with Top Test Prep. Get in touch with Top Test Prep’s private tutoring programs today, to learn more about how you can gain admission to the best schools or call (800) 501-7737.

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US News and World Report’s widely disseminated ranking of American colleges came under assault in a recently released report by the National Association of College Admissions Counselors (NACAC). The report’s critiques of US News and World Report’s ranking formula and the rebuttal follow.

1. Should Standardized Test Scores Be Included in Rankings?
The NACAC report called for the removal of standardized test scores of admitted students from the US News ranking formula, asserting that they are not a complete measure of student quality and that their use discounts other aspects of admissions. US News, which assigns 7.5 percent of its overall rankings to test scores, dismissed this critique with the observation that they would only do so if the schools themselves discounted this measure in the admissions process. A recent survey revealed that 71.7 percent of all four year institutions will continue to require standardized tests for undergraduate applicants.

2. Are Peer Assessments by College Presidents a Valid Appraisal of Institutional Quality?
The NACAC called for reducing the weight of the US News peer assessment index, which counts for 22.5 percent of an institution’s overall score, on the grounds that it is highly subjective and is disproportionately influenced by social factors marginal to institutional quality. In short, college presidents do not understand the undergraduate experience at other institutions and sometimes downgrade other institutions to enhance their own. US News responded that there is no research based evidence that this is the case.

3. Are College Rankings Themselves helpful?
The NACAC report challenged the national rankings themselves arguing that the ranking criteria and the weights assigned to them by US News are arbitrary. Instead, overall rankings should be replaced by rankings customized to the criteria of individual families and students. US News contends that national ratings provide an essential tool for families interested in the relative merits of schools.
Conclusion

US News college rankings also assign importance to student retention rates, faculty resources, and alumni giving rates, among other factors. While the rankings will continue to generate heat from critics, there is little indication that they will be disappearing in the foreseeable future. Nor will the global competition for seats in America’s best colleges be diminishing anytime soon.

David Dickson is a counselor with Top Test Prep. Contact Top Test Prep today @ (800) 501-Prep or fill out our quick contact form.

Top Test Prep provides students with expert private tutoring and admissions counseling.

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Game-Like College Micro-Sites for Recruiting and Alumni Outreach At the Cutting Edge

In the highly competitive world of college recruiting and fund-raising, a few colleges have pioneered new off-beat web-sites to solicit information from prospective students and alumni.

Here are ways a couple colleges are reaching students and college alumni…

The College of St Mary in Omaha’s watchmebloom.com site introduces users to an interactive, animated landscape resembling a video-game app. You take a diagnostic test that offers a series of hypothetical scenarios and recommends a course of study contingent on your response. You mouse over different buildings on the cartoon depiction of campus and watch films of St Mary’s students talking about these places. Visitors can create a profile that includes their name and contact information. The micro-site was created by Phenomblue, a firm that develops game-oriented promotional sites such as “McNuggets Olympic Village.” According to St Mary’s vice-president for enrollment services, web inquiries and phone calls increased exponentially in the aftermath of the micro-site’s debut.

Visitors to Nazareth College’s flightoftheflyers.com site are exposed to cartoon animation and birds swooping to Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” The site urges Nazareth alumni to order stuffed-animals of the college’s winged mascot, the Golden Flyer, take pictures of the bird, and submit them via the web-site along with their locations and personal updates. They are then sent to former class-mates with requests to do the same. Different class years are pitted against one another to see which can achieve the most aggregate miles for their birds.
The micro-sites, which are separate from the college’s official web-site, can be confusing to users and complicate a college’s marketing strategy. Usability can also be diminished if the sites are not properly designed. Nonetheless, the micro-sites with their creativity pose a challenge to the less imaginative mainstream college web-sites. A face-lift may be in order!

David Dickson is a counselor with Top Test Prep which offers private tutoring and test preparation with admissions experts who help you gain admission to your top schools. Call Top Test Prep today to learn about SSAT, ISEE, HSPT, SAT, ACT and more private tutoring and test prep – (800) 501-Prep.

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Top Test Prep Reviews

For a review of Top Test Prep’s programs, check out the image below of a student Top Test Prep was able to successfully improve her scores and get into 8 of her top 10 colleges. We’re proud to continue working with so many students each year as they gain admission to some of the nation’s most prestigious colleges.

For more information on Top Test Prep’s private tutoring or admissions counseling, call (800) 501-7737.

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Here’s our latest video on “How to Get into the Best Schools” with Top Test Prep’s private tutoring and admissions counseling programs.

Top Test Prep helps hundreds of families each year get into top private schools, colleges and grad schools, with admissions and test preparation.

For more information, call (800) 501-Prep or visit Top Test Prep today.

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We’re excited to announce our newest location, offering private tutoring and test prep courses in the Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia area.

The Top Test Prep office is located next door to Sidwell Friends School - a wonderful private school in Washington DC.

Here’s our location:

Top Test Prep
3615 Wisconsin Ave, NW
Washington D.C. 20016

Top Test Prep’s phone number is (800) 501-7737, or locally in DC, MD, VA – (202) 618-4473.

Private Tutoring and Test Prep in DC, MD, VA

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Here’s our new updated tutoring and test prep guide. We hope you enjoy it, and look forward to helping you improve your test scores.

For more information on Top Test Prep’s private tutoring or admissions counseling, call (800) 501-Prep.

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For the students out there taking SAT Exam, I would like to give a few key tips to prepare for this standardized test.  As you probably know, the SAT exam is broken down into three parts: Writing, Math, and Reading.

In preparing for this exam, I’ll suggest one simple thing you can do for each section to get prepared.  Though there are many strategies which we use at Top Test Prep to help students, these will give you some quick tips to share with your friends.

For the SAT Writing sections:  Consider reading through the “sentence error” sections of the SAT writing and looking at the whole sentence instead of the sentence in parts.  Instead of stopping each time you read an “incorrect” error in a passage, read the entire sentence first and then assess the answer choices for the right answer.  Often times students taking the SAT exam fail to consider the sentence on the whole and instead fragment it into parts.  Our natural speech pattern recognizes errors, assuming a basic understanding of the English language.  If you do have a basic understanding on nouns, adjectives, possessives, conjunctions, articles, adverbs, etc, you will be able to read a sentence and hear it for its whole part – hopefully hearing what sounded best between the answer choices.

For the SAT Critical Reading sections: Consider looking for the author’s attitude and tone when analyzing and preparing to answer SAT critical reading questions.  Once you have read a reading passage in the SAT, go back through the passage and circle words that suggest how the author feels about a certain thing or issue.  Often times students read SAT critical reading sections and forget to look for the big picture.  Remember:  the SAT writers aren’t trying to test you on your ability to remember minute details, rather they want to make sure you can read a passage and understand the tone, rhetoric (argument), and outline of the main body.

For the SAT Math sections:  If you only have a couple weeks left to prepare for the SAT, spend time on only two key main subjects within the SAT math section like solid Geometry or coordinate Geometry and any algebra that is required to answer these SAT math/geometry questions.  Or if you have more time to prepare for the SAT, take the all-inclusive SAT math formula box, and try to develop your own questions that are applicable for the SAT math section.  After all, they say the way you know a problem or issue best is if you can explain it to others.  Try these questions which you have developed, on your friends and see if your answers and methodology make sense.

I hope these SAT preparation tips help you in preparing for the SAT Exam.  At Top Test Prep, we pride ourselves in provides excellent SAT tutoring and test prep for students.  Top Test Prep also has an excellent ACT prep program as well if you are taking the ACT exam.

My best wishes for you and get in touch if you need more help improving your test scores.

Ross Blankenship

Education Expert, and Chairman

Top Test Prep

(800) 501-PREP

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Here are some last-minute SAT prep tips…

Whether you’re taking the SAT in December for the first time or the umpteenth, you still have about a month left to prepare. Here are some tips for getting the most out of these remaining few weeks.

1) Go over those vocab flash cards one last time. By now you’ll probably be familiar with them – so familiar, in fact, that it takes you far longer to say the definitions than to remember them. Still, it never hurts to review, review, review, and along the way, to remember all the synonyms surrounding a given word.

2) Go over the toughest practice problems, the ugly ones that really gave you trouble. Get a handle on them. Don’t just understand why you got each one wrong: understand the thought process required for solving it, and seek out other problems like it.

3) Get a good night’s sleep … for the two weeks leading up to the test. Studies have shown that sleep deprivation, even for a single night, can affect your performance on tests for over a week afterward, even if you got enough sleep during the nights in between.

4) On test day, wake up early enough to eat a healthy breakfast. Eat whatever works best for you: something filling and nutritious that sits well and will last you through the test. Eating a special meal can help set the day apart, putting you in the zone and revving you up for the day’s challenges.

5) It’s not too late for private SAT tutoring. You still have a whole month to sit down with an SAT tutor and address your weaknesses. An SAT tutor can help motivate you to study and provide you with tips and assignments that will build your mental endurance and efficiency. You can study alone, or you can study with the guidance of an SAT success story … your choice!

This article is on last minute SAT prep tips and was written by education expert, Ross Blankenship.

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If you’re looking for private tutors on any of the following exams:

ISEE, SSAT, PSAT, SAT, ACT, LSAT, GMAT, GRE, MCAT, TOEFL, SAT IIs and AP Exams,

Contact us today at (800) 501-PREP

We have private tutors ready with custom schedules, test prep books and results to help you prepare for all of these standardized exams.

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