Weekly Wisdom

Synopsis:
Synposis: Career Advice & Personality Tests, Applying to Expensive Schools, Know-it-All Essays, Articles about rankings and getting into all colleges, Vocab Words, Rice University

Introduction:
This week we will introduce some interesting new ideas that you might find fun. We are going to talk momentarily about careers, which may sound odd for college talk, but hear us out and check out a few links. You may actually find them fun. Try to guess what personality type you are and then take a standard personality test. Also, be sure to check out this weeks article by Jay Matthews, and visit Rice University. Have fun!
Oh, and to all you students who think that it wouldn’t be cool to forward the newsletter to your friends – give it a shot, they might not think so.

Weekly Wisdom

This week’s wisdom concerns careers. It might seem awfully early for high school students to be thinking about what they ultimately want to do for a living, but the truth is, it’s not. Career choice influences major choice, which influences college choice. If you can get your children to think about what they want to do, that may help them think about where they want to go to college in a more productive and realistic way.
There are several resources that can help a student, or anyone else for that matter, think about a suitable career:

1. Different careers are suited to people with different personality types. This is the basic premise of best-selling books like Do What You Are by Paul Tieger, and there are online tools that do the same thing. A good one is HumanMetrics at

http://www.humanmetrics.com/

which has a test that will assign you a Myers Briggs Personality Type, give descriptions of the type along with lists of celebrities with that type and suitable careers.

2. Aptitude and skills inventories can help match people to suitable jobs. If you’re good at math you might think of being an actuary, that sort of thing. Psychologists and social scientists have done quite a bit of work in this area. Check out the Career Ability Placement Survey at

http://www.career-lifeskills.com/products_services/atpr/copsys/420-12.htm

3. Interests can be another guide to career choice. You may at some point have taken the Strong Interest Inventory to determine what careers are compatible with your interests. A good low-cost interest test is the Self-Directed Search at

http://www.self-directed-search.com/.

4. Values are another good indicator. If you want to really help people, for example, you might want to re-think working as a used car salesman. There are a number of good tools for determining your values. Try the Survey of Interpersonal Values at

http://www.pearsonreidlondonhouse.com/assessments/siv.htm

and the Ohio State Exploration Program at

http://www.usas.ohio-state.edu/exp/exp_values.htm.

Once someone has determined some interesting careers, he or she can explore those careers and find college majors that logically lead to them. Try these websites from the University of North Carolina at Worthington,

http://www.uncwil.edu/stuaff/career/Majors/,

and Miami University in Ohio,

http://www.cas.muohio.edu/~advising/Majors/toc.html.

Upcoming Deadlines

• Sept. 15th – late registration for the October 9th SAT & SAT II
• Sept 25th – ACT Assessment Test
• October 1st – last day to register for Nov 6th SAT & SAT II
• October 9th – SAT & SAT II !

Articles in the News

Another by one of our favorites, Jay Matthews of The Washington Post. This one details a student who got into all of the colleges on his list with a simple method – research and appropriate aims and goals. I think it is an interesting read.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7632-2004Aug17.html?referrer=emailarticle

This one is about a group of liberal arts colleges protesting this year’s US NEWS and World Report rankings. Interesting to watch this process in action. A very good read.

http://www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/spew4th.pl?ascribeid=20040819.052306&time=07

Ask The Experts

asktheexperts@thepreptalk.com

This week’s winning question came from a student (first time)

Q: Should I restrict myself to colleges I know my parents can afford?

A: Mom and dad may yell at us for this – but NO. There is a lot of financial aid available. If you’re admitted to a college that would otherwise be out of your reach, you will likely be eligible for federal aid as well as college-specific aid. You may ultimately decide to go to a less costly school, but if there’s a college you like, don’t restrict your choices prematurely.

Application & Essay Tips

Our tip this month is about writing your essay — don’t try to impress the readers with your knowledge and sophistication. It’s unlikely that you actually know more than the admissions officer about Shakespeare or New Guinea, and if the reader thinks you’re lecturing him, he’s going to be really annoyed. The goal of your essay is to tell the college more about yourself than they’re going to know from your grades and SAT scores. So if you love Shakespeare, by all means write your essay about that. But don’t try to demonstrate how you discovered something in Othello that no one ever realized before; instead, write about how you fell in love with the Bard and how you’ve been affected by him. Keep the focus on you.

Featured College

Rice University
Rice has a beautiful campus, which seems almost too woodsy, considering it is in the middle of the largest city in the South and the 4th largest city in the nation, Houston. Rice is a tough school – a small student body of about 2,500 undergrads and a difficult application process are boundaries, but once in, Rice is a top-no thc education. Some might argue that Rice has only a few equals in the country, and no equal in the South or Southwest. This is almost certainly true for its size. There is a strong school athletic program, a hard but encouraging academic life, and a real sense of community. nine colleges (essentially dorms) split the campus into a very manageable, cozy feel, and there are no frats or sororities. Rice students play and have fun, but at the direction of the University. For those considering smaller schools that have outstanding programs but are looking for a little more “college” activity than small liberal arts schools, Rice should be right at the top of your list. (Assuming you’re willing to venture to Texas, of course)

Vocab of The Week

deduction (noun) A conclusion derived by reasoning from given premises or principles
When the SAT asks about deduction, they’re not talking about subtracting from your taxes. They’re talking about figuring things out in a logical way from premises. The model to think of for deduction is Sherlock Holmes.

peevish (adj) irritable
When she was asked about why her used chewing gum was selling for thousands of dollars, Britney Spears became peevish and snapped back at the reporter.

perturb (verb) to disturb greatly
Watching “The Simple Life” perturbed me; I routinely found myself thinking, “where did those girls’ brains run off to?”

epitaph (noun) An inscription on a tomb or monument in honor or in memory of the dead.
John was so weird that he wanted his epitaph to read, “Here lies John, dead and gone.”

imminent (adj) Dangerous and close at hand.
His eminence the Pope knew that a rebellion against the Vatican was imminent, and sought out a way to protect the church..