Weekly Update: January 18

BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

CYBER ATTACK SHUTS DOWN SCHOOL DISTRICT

Students in Des Moines, Iowa, received two unexpected days off of school last week. The Des Moines school district canceled classes following a cyber attack. Specific details about the attack have not been released, but the district has been working hard to restore the network. On Thursday, students returned to school, although families were warned that wi-fi would not be available yet.

SEVEN FCPS HIGH SCHOOLS NOW UNDER FIRE IN NATIONAL MERIT CONTROVERSY

The situation has continued to unfold over the past few weeks, and seven different high schools in Fairfax County have now admitted that they did not provide timely notification of National Merit Commendations. I want to share what we do with our own students as a matter of course each year, in case this helps anyone. Instead of waiting for official notification, we just compare the student’s selection index on their 11th grade PSAT with the score cutoffs online. I would never have a student submit an application with this award until they receive official notification, but the selection index should provide an indication as to whether official notification should be imminent. And if it doesn’t come automatically, the student knows to ask! [Note: I find that Compass Prep typically has the best information on cutoffs, but their site appears to be down on the date this post was written!].

VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SUBMITS NEW PLAN FOR HISTORY AND SOCIAL STUDIES STANDARDS

Two months after its revised proposal was rejected, the Virginia Department of Education submitted yet another draft of its K-12 history and social studies standards. Although the practice of updating standards is usually smooth, Virginia’s history and social studies draft came under attack in the fall of 2022. Many believed the standards “diluted” topics related to cultural diversity and racism. The Board of Education is now tasked with reviewing the new 68-page proposal.

LANGUAGE CONTROVERSY AT USC

Last week, USC made headlines when its School of Social Work announced that it will be replacing the term ‘field work’ with ‘practicum’ in its curriculum. The change, which was explained in a letter to the Suzanne Dworak-Peck Practicum Education community, is part of an effort to promote more inclusive language. As the memo noted, “Language can be powerful, and phrases such as ‘going into the field’ or ‘field work’ may have connotations for descendants of slavery and immigrant workers.” The announcement has caused some confusion and outrage for some. In response,  Elizabeth A. Graddy, interim provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, clarified, “The university does not maintain a list of banned or discouraged words. We will continue to use words – including ‘field’ – that accurately encompass and describe our work and research.” 

IDAHO MURDER SUSPECT APPEARS IN COURT

Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of murdering four University of Idaho students, made a brief court appearance last Thursday. He waived his right to a speedy trial and will now await his next court date, scheduled for late June. To date, Kohberger has not spoken publicly about the tragedy or entered a plea. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

Before heading off to college, most teenagers are warned about the dangers of drugs, alcohol, and partying. But there’s another risky behavior that could leave undergrads in jeopardy: gambling. Thirty-six states have legalized sports betting in recent years, according to the American Gaming Commission, and gambling companies often seek out college students as their target customers. Several universities have even made deals with sports gambling companies, leaving young adults vulnerable to addiction and financial ruin. To help students avoid the alluring trap of sports betting, experts insist that parents look out for certain markers of behavior and encourage universities to do their part in providing education and support for this lesser-known danger. 

We’ve got bad news for students who plan to study psychology or marketing in college. Last week Business Insider revealed a list of 12 most useless college majors, according to career experts. With the cost of higher education continuing to rise, the list considers subject areas that won’t have the best return on investment. Perhaps not surprising, the arts- theater, acting, and film- all made the list. Some may be shocked, though, by other subjects in the top ten. Psychology was listed because students often require a graduate degree to forge a career in the field. And English took the number eight spot. Career experts argue that it’s probably more practical to major in business over English, unless you want to be a teacher or writer. What does our office of English majors think about this? A bachelor’s in English might not pave the way for one specific job, but that’s what we love about our degrees–you can do just about anything with it!

For the majority of Americans, the University of Idaho murders are a tragedy. For some however, the night of November 13 is pure entertainment. The increasing popularity of true crime shows and podcasts has led to a surge in amateur investigations of this horrific incident, especially on platforms like TikTok. Thousands of videos have been posted, including some from psychic mediums, who revealed their theories on the mystery murders. Seems harmless, right? Wrong! Many of these videos shared misinformation and accused innocent individuals of involvement in the murders. As a result, members of the University of Idaho community- a professor, victims’ friends and a surviving roommate- have all come under attack. And it’s not just online fury. Some have received real-life death threats. These safety concerns call into question the “wild west”-like nature of social media platforms and ethical concerns over exploitations of true crime and tragedy.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

We’ve been carefully following the issue of compensatory education for FCPS students during the pandemic period, and I attended the first school board session on the subject last week on January 10. I actually asked a question at the end of the meeting - I wanted to know whether or not private school tuition reimbursement would be allowed, but didn’t get a clear answer. The lack of clear answers seemed to be a pattern…

Interestingly, I found out later that the FY 2024 budget only allocates $2 million towards this ENTIRE compensatory education fund. That makes a little more sense to me in terms of the lack of clarity - there’s just not enough money available to provide adequate compensation. We don’t know exactly how many students were impacted, but if we use the estimated 25,000 number provided by the district (another estimation provided was 26,500, so I am trying to be conservative), we end up with $80/student. If half of those families do not pursue any type of compensation, that leaves us with $160/student.

As a taxpayer as well as a parent of a student impacted, I have mixed feelings on this entire issue, but I do think that every family should know what their rights are. I have personally found the Fairfax County Parents Association to be a great source of information and would recommend them to other families who want to stay in the loop.

On another note, we recently learned about an exciting opportunity for high school STEM students in the greater DC area. If you’ve conducted original STEM research, submit your work to the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium. You might just have the chance to present your work and compete for scholarships. For more information, please visit the JSHS website.

Have a great [short] week!

Trend Watch: The Rise of Metaversities

This week Morehouse College made headlines when it announced its new Black History course, set to launch in Spring 2023. Why all of the hype, you might ask? Well, this isn’t a case of a controversial curriculum. It’s an innovative leap into the future of higher education. 

Students who enroll in “History of the African Diaspora Since 1800” will have the opportunity to attend the March on Washington with Martin Luther King, Jr. and visit soldiers on the civil war battlefields. That’s because the course takes place in the metaverse–an immersive online environment that defies all limits of time and space. With the aid of virtual reality headsets and avatars, students will transport themselves into key historical events, gaining a perspective like never before. 

This is just one of the courses Morehouse offers in the metaverse. There are currently nine others, spanning across several academic departments. And Morehouse isn’t the only college where undergraduates can strap on a headset and experience an entirely new kind of learning. Currently ten schools across the country are experimenting with metaverse courses, and many are predicting that such classes- and even “metaversitites”- will be the future of higher education.

Understanding the metaverse

Last year when Facebook rebranded itself as Meta, the term “metaverse” began popping up all over the internet. If you conduct a quick Google search, you’ll find that there is no standard definition of the term. In fact, most admit that we don’t know exactly what the metaverse entails just yet; there are still many unknown possibilities. But in simple terms, the metaverse is a network of 3D interactive environments where users can work, socialize, and yes, even go to school. 

The metaverse is still in early stages of experimentation, and colleges like Morehouse are acting as case studies for how the metaverse can enhance students’ educational experiences.

The birth of metaversities 

This past April, virtual reality specialists VictoryXR and EngageXR teamed up to create a virtual university pilot program for ten participating schools, including West Virginia University and University of Maryland Global Campus. These “metaversities” are digital campuses that replicate the exact look and feel of the physical school setting. With the aid of a headset, undergrads can do just about everything they’d do if they were right on campus: walk through the quad; engage in class discussions; work on group projects. But the technology also allows students to experience a type of learning that just wouldn’t be feasible IRL (in real life). For example, students dissecting a heart in a biology lab can shrink their avatars and walk through the ventricles. And those studying astronomy can get up close and personal with the stars. 

potential advantages and drawbacks of metaversities

Not only do metaverse courses eliminate the barriers of time and space; they can also address other educational challenges. The metaverse does away with the traditional classroom structure, creating a more exciting and personalized learning experience for students. Proponents of metaversities believe that such courses will increase student retention, especially for those who struggle in a typical classroom environment.  And for students with learning differences, the metaverse could be a real game-changer. 

Additionally, several have commented on the potential for metaverse classes to improve student engagement. Forget boring lectures! Classes in the metaverse rely on student-centered learning experiences where participants are constantly exploring, creating, and building. And because the metaverse takes students outside the constraints of geography and time, there are endless possibilities for constructing and connecting.

Of course, no new technology is without its critics. Logistical concerns are at the forefront of the metaversity debate. After all, the metaverse can get expensive! Schools not only have to purchase virtual reality headsets for all students, which can cost anywhere from $400-1,500 per pair, but they spend thousands in metaverse platform subscriptions each year. Plus, universities will have to expand their IT departments to maintain the technology and invest in extensive professor training.  Students themselves can accrue unexpected costs as well. Metaverse courses put a big strain on internet services, requiring some to ‘up’ their internet packages. And what about those who don’t have access to high-speed connections? Who knows? 

Furthermore, many are concerned about the psychological and social ramifications of virtual education. This is our biggest concern, too. Will students have difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy? How will they develop healthy relationship-building habits and socialization skills? How will they .. have fun? And how will the metaverse prepare them to succeed in real life? What impact could this shift have upon future generations and the world as we know it? Only time will tell. 

Looking into the future

Given that metaversities are in their infancy, it is difficult to predict where these worlds will ultimately steer higher education. For now colleges experimenting with metaversities can continue collecting and assessing data. The numbers on course enrollments, student attendance, and assessments will hopefully start to tell us more about the risks and rewards and the world of possibilities for the future. 

Should I Disclose My Student's Learning Profile or Evaluation to Colleges?

After getting this question from a parent this week, we thought that other families might be wondering the same thing. It isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer, but we wanted to offer some considerations for students and parents who may also be wondering about how much to disclose.

As a general rule, we recommend against disclosing your student’s learning profile during the application process. The reason for this is that admissions officers do not typically have the training or experience to read this type of document.

This is important - without an understanding of the way these evaluations typically read, or how learning differences present themselves, the admissions officer may conclude that the student isn’t able to handle the transition to college - even when this isn’t the case at all! Parents whose children have evaluations will know that these are written in a specific way to try to make the student eligible for accommodations - they emphasize the “differences” and to an untrained eye, they can sound extreme.

Especially for selective schools with large applicant pools, they are essentially looking for reasons to say “no” - and there are many unconscious biases. While no admissions officer would intentionally discriminate against a student with a disability, there is no point in providing information that could be perceived in a negative way.

And one note here - admissions officers CANNOT ask you to disclose your student’s learning profile! This is against the law and you do not need to disclose unless you want to do so.

That said, there are some cases where you may have a reason to disclose something specific about your student’s learning differences. We recommend doing this in an essay, additional statement, or counselor recommendation letter, rather than sending a learning profile, testing report, or other more involved document.

For instance, if your student had undiagnosed dyslexia that caused his grades to plummet during ninth and tenth grade, but received a diagnosis and saw rapid improvement in eleventh grade, that would be a reason to disclose the diagnosis. 

In short, it is helpful to disclose only if the disclosure will help to explain something in the student’s transcript (like a drop in grades) or an issue elsewhere in the application.

You may also want to discuss with your student’s school counselor whether they feel that there is something specific they need to disclose in their counselor letter in order to give context for the student’s performance in high school. This is an area where it’s very important to trust the counselor’s judgment. If they believe that they need to make a disclosure in order to say something positive, there’s probably a good reason for that.

If you do decide to offer an additional statement that touches on learning differences, it is important to include the strategies that your student has used to improve or maintain classroom performance. The disclosure will be so much more compelling if your student can point to ways in which they’ve worked hard and improved. This will also increase the confidence of that admissions officer, who may not have a full understanding of the student’s abilities. Overcoming a challenge can be a really positive thing to mention in an application!

Once your student is admitted, however, you should absolutely talk with the college’s learning center about what kind of support they can expect. Every college has a learning center (Shannon came to us from the one at Boston College!) and they will all provide similar services. The most popular ones are usually notetaking assistance, extra time on tests, and distraction-reduced testing environments. Generally, learning centers are much more likely to take the time to meet with admitted students than prospective ones, so you should absolutely reach out as you try to make your final college decision! 

And if your student is currently struggling with a learning difficulty, including ADHD, academic anxiety, and executive functioning challenges, we can also provide some extra assistance through academic coaching! If you are interested in learning more about academic coaching, you can book a Meet & Greet here.

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Scandal Aftermath: Students with Disabilities

I have a regular twice-weekly conference call with a long-time client, and we were on the phone Tuesday morning when the news hit. We were speaking on my landline, so I was able to notice when my phone started lighting up over and over again with each email I received about the situation. We sort of digested the news together before getting back to to our issues at hand. “Back to doing it the old-fashioned way!” she joked.

As the day progressed, and particularly when I came back home that night and read the entire 204-page criminal complaint, I became more disgusted by the minute. I still can’t wrap my head around how these people thought they would possibly get away with this kind of behavior. However, the entire situation has raised a number of issues in my mind that I’d like to address in the coming days. We’ll loop back to reader questions soon!

I’d like to start with the the impact of this situation on students with disabilities. I am often approached by media outlets to serve as an expert resource on matters relating to the admissions process; today, I discuss this very issue in U.S. News. I served as an SSD Coordinator for a number of years at an independent school as one of my duties as their Director of College Counseling, so I am pretty well-versed in this process. I also help a number of my own clients go through the extended time process each year, and I have a child at a Fairfax County Public School with a 504 Plan. So, I have done this as a school administrator, an outside consultant, and a parent.

I would assume that anyone reading this post is aware of the ways in which Rick Singer manipulated the SSD process, but I’ll recap just in case: he worked with families to fake disabilities during psycho-educational evaluations order to get incorrect diagnoses, then pushed the kids through the system (including repeated appeals in some cases) until they were granted extended time through their schools and testing agencies. At that point, he was able to use the relaxed regulations for students with legitimate disabilities (individual proctors, private testing environments, and so forth) to cheat the system through fraud.

This is going to make the system so. much. harder. for all the kids out there with legitimate disabilities. It honestly makes me sick to my stomach to think about. School systems in our area, as well as the College Board and ACT, are already concerned about parents “working the system” and they already make it needlessly difficult in many cases. So this will, in effect, take a broken situation and make it worse. This is going to be crushing for the students who need these accommodations and are entitled to them under federal law.

In recent years, the College Board has relaxed their standards a little bit by agreeing to give students the same level of accommodations that their school system provides them in a school-based setting. This is where kids at independent schools have an advantage, because those schools will generally give them what they need without a fight. On the other hand, I have found Fairfax County to become more and more difficult in recent years. The longer parents wait, the harder the accommodations are to get, especially for a bright child without behavioral issues. This is why I made sure that my daughter had them on record now, even though she doesn’t actually need them at the moment (she has a diagnosis to support them so this is completely on the up-and-up). I don’t want to find us in a position later where she needs them and can’t get them because she has good grades without a history of accommodations… and I see this happen ALL THE TIME!

Fortunately, from my experience as a parent, the process was very easy. Her school counselor was amazing and really advocated for her. The reason for this, I would imagine, is that most parents of first-graders aren’t out there falsifying diagnoses (give it another ten years!). However, this is not the case on the high school side. Counselors in our area see overzealous parents pushing for unnecessary accommodations, and now the kids who actually need them can’t get them as a result.

I can think of two clients in particular this year who tried to get accommodations and were turned down, and I genuinely believe that the decisions were wrong. It makes me so sad to watch them struggle when I don’t think that they have an equal playing field. I also have two separate seniors right now who had to appeal the process repeatedly - over and over again - until they were finally approved. It cost their families so much money and time. Talk about inequity - how many families have the resources to keep filing these appeals? Most Americans would not have been able to pursue it. Both of these students’ ACT scores skyrocketed once they finally got the time that they deserved, which has now had a major impact on their college choices and merit scholarship offers.

It’s not a coincidence that each of my examples above relate to female students. This didn’t make it into the story, but I actually told this reporter that I actually think that high-achieving girls are going to be the hardest hit if we see even more crack-downs because of this scandal. I referenced this recent article from the New York Times (a must read for any parent with a daughter) - as the author states, girls are “relentless” and “hyper-conscientious". Not all of them, of course, but by and large, most girls learn to over-compensate for any difficulties that they face in the classroom. The end result leads to sleepless nights, anxiety, and a feeling of never being good enough.

At the same time, they manage to squeak by with decent grades as a result of so much hard work. Their parents usually don’t realize that there is a problem until they are in tenth or eleventh grade when they simply cannot keep up anymore, or when their standardized test scores show major discrepancies when compared to their high levels of academic achievement. It’s usually too late, though, because they have already established a pattern of long-term academic success and it’s next to impossible to get the accommodations after that. Now you see why I made sure my daughter had her accommodations in place as a first-grader! I am not going to find myself in this situation if I can help it, after watching so many girls suffer needlessly.

Why so much focus on girls? Well, boys tend to react differently in a situation without needed accommodations. They are much less likely to over-compensate from an academic perspective and tend to act out behaviorally. So, teachers and parents notice at an early age and it’s just a lot less common for them to make it to tenth or eleventh grade without the help they need. It happens, just not all that often.

All in all, I sincerely hope that College Board, ACT and the school systems will take time to consider what has happened here in the context of the bigger picture before rushing to judgment. There are so many capable students who need these accommodations and rely on them for the equal opportunities they deserve.

If you would like to learn more about standardized testing, extended time, or any of these issues as they relate to your own child’s individual situation, feel free to come in for a one-time strategy session.