The MUS Lower School Blog

Thinking about college at the University School

If you had a chance to read yesterday's New York Times Education Life supplement section, then your head could still be spinning from the various and worthy discussions presented concerning college admissions. Check it out if you have not yet read it. I spoke with MUS Director of College Advising Brian K. Smith (Briank.Smith@musowls.org) about some of the contents, and he said that he would digest the main subjects and be ready to offer his opinion for those of you who may be understandable anxious about the dynamic world of college admissions.   

The Koreans are coming! The Koreans are coming!

You better watch out. These people want your sons' college space at Elite American U, and these contemporaries of your children on the other side of the globe (who attend school 15 hours a day) are going to take a different approach to impending semester exams than the 82% of our current poll respondents (as of 4/28) who say that they are not going to do much oversight in anticipation for exam week. If your son makes strong grades, don't mess with the system. If he could score better, take heed.

Exams at MUS account for 25% of the semester grade.  Given that we allow for only one exam each day during finals week, given that the material is cumulative...not new information...there really is a good opportunity for the grades to be strong. However, the boys are often tired at semester's end. They are distracted, understandably, by sports, girls in shorts, and the sea shore. I don't fault them. Frankly, many of them deserve some R+R after chopping at the log since mid-August. Yet, they are, we argue, also in need of one last hurrah with regards to settling in for some serious organization and structure as they assemble months of material.

Admittedly, we at school are often the ones who encourage parents to step back from the micro-management of former elementary school habits in order for the middle schooler to gain some healthy proportion as to what is required for self-management at the high school level.

That said, exams are different. These boys are still human becomings in so many ways. Let's not let them devolve to their lesser selves as they potentially fumble through these exams. Too often we have seen good grades, or at least positive trajectory, be negatively affected by the impact of  bad exam grades at semester's end.

During each study hall from now until May 13, the boys have opportunity to study in groups under the Student Council's organization of assembling willing group leaders who are proven to be organized, high-performing students, and, above all, good test takers. These guys are volunteering their time and talent for their peers. We hope all students take some time to join a study review group. 

The Koreans will sure be hard at it, that's for sure.

Colleges and Money

I've had two discussions with parents this year that might be of interest to our readers.

The first discussion was with a pair of Upper School parents at a restaurant.  The meeting was accidental; we just happened to be seated next to one another at the sushi bar.  The father initiated the conversation, and his topic of choice was college placement.  He was aggravated because he felt that MUS College Guidance was pressuring his son to attend a selective private college. 

That may seem like an odd complaint to many blog readers, but hear the man out.  His son, a good student at MUS, has a lot of options for colleges to attend.  Some of those are selective private colleges, prestigious yet expensive.  I know that I had my own shock when I attended a Vanderbilt presentation recently and they mentioned that tuition was $44,000... it took me a while to realize that was per year.  That is more than my family and I paid for my entire 4-year Harvard education (1980-1984, ancient history in terms of college tuition).  In contrast, many public universities are making education very affordable for good MUS students.  These universities are trying to upgrade their academic programs and see MUS students as a good way to accomplish that.  Last year, colleges offered a total of $9.2 million to the 107 graduates of the MUS' Class of 2005.  Schools that led the way included University of Alabama, Ole Miss, and University of Tennessee.

This father told me that his son was undecided on a course of study, so there were no special concerns about sending his son to a school with the best Physics or Political Science departments.  Further, he added that his son thought he might want to go to Medical School and would be facing some large costs associated with Graduate Study. Finally, the father stated that his son probably has the same or better opportunity to go to a top medical school by doing excellently at a state university as he would doing well against tougher competition in a selective school.  To his way of thinking, sending his son to a school that granted a large scholarship was a no-brainer and a way of recouping his tuition investment in MUS while saving for his son's graduate studies.

The other conversation took place with a pair of prospective parents at MUS.  The boy's mother was interested in MUS but was disappointed in the fact that many of our students opted to attend schools like University of Alabama, Ole Miss, and UT instead of choosing more selective schools.  To her way of thinking, their college choices indicated some lack of ambition in our students or some failure in our college counseling here at MUS.  I disagreed with her, partially based on my previous sushi bar conversation and also based upon the scholarship amounts I was aware of.

I find it interesting that two sets of parents can see college placement from such different perspectives.  If you'd like to share your perspective, I'd be interested in hearing from you.