College Pathways

The Politics of Student Loan Debt By Steve Burleigh The Politics of Student Loan Debt By Steve Burleigh Among the many issues that the Democratic pre

Are private high schools better than public high schools? Are private high schools better than public high schools? In Los Angeles tuition and fees at the mos

I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore! I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore By Steve Burleigh He smirk

Private Lies It’s a familiar stereotype: overcrowded classrooms, lazy, incompetent teachers, a drug-smuggling black market and daily fights. Public school. There’s an equally distorted perception of private school: rich, entitled brats, strict discipline and a more expensive black market. But this isn’t about di...

Life Lessons: Swim Hard, Marry Well
By Steve Burleigh

Two recent events caught my attention and both resonated with the message we send to students regarding their writing, especially application essays. Both incidents exposed hypocrisy in how the written word is valued and evaluated, and both reek of class bias and institutional hypocrisy. One example was immediately exposed, and the other is obscured by a crime so heinous the writing example wasn’t even on the radar.

The Princess Gets a Pass -
On the first night of the Republican National Convention Melania Trump read a heartfelt speech from the teleprompter praising her husband as a kind and caring person, a true American, and a hard worker. Then she went on to talk about her own values and her dreams for America’s children in a section she plagiarized from Michelle Obama’s 2008 convention speech. Plagiarism is the cardinal sin of writing. Fareed Zakaria was suspended from Time and CNN in 2012 for plagiarism, Jayson Blair was fired from the New York Times for it in 2003, and Joe Biden withdrew from his presidential bid in 1988 for it. If schools didn’t feel plagiarism was rampant among students, companies like Turnitin and Grammarly would be out of business.

However, there weren’t any consequences for Mrs. Trump. She smiled confidently and blurted out her stolen text in front of twelve million people, then took a victory lap. Her cheat was exposed within minutes, and she wasted no time barricading herself in silence behind her husband’s wall. The Trump machine and the broadcast pundits immediately exonerated her, saying everything from “don’t believe your lyin’ eyes” (the Trump machine), to “fire the speech writer, the campaign is disorganized” (MSNBC and CNN pundits), even though she had earlier stated publically to Matt Lauer that she had written the speech herself. So of course the pundits concluded that she must be lying about that too; she just couldn’t say publicly she’d received help, so she had to lie. No one was fired for Melania’s plagiarism and she never apologized. She got a pass: a free ride that no seventh grader would have gotten for copying a history report.

Why did Melania get a plagiarism pass? She’s rich, her husband is a mogul presidential candidate who can make and break careers, she’s shy, she means no harm, and she’s unfamiliar with American politics. She’s also pretty and delicate, more Barbie than Barbarella. All of this played into the Melania zeitgeist. She escaped sanction because she’s a member of a special class, a throwback to past decades of sexually objectified princesses; the white, comfortably not smart, protected women of movie stars and captains of industry. And since Trump keeps her locked up in his tower, she is presumably not up to the task of being a good politician’s wife in public. Expectations are low for her and she doesn’t disappoint. She reinforces the image of the dimwitted pageant princess in a bikini and high heels with nothing consequential to say. Anything she does is a plus; even copying someone else’s homework. “Oops, did I say what she said? Is that a bad thing?” MSNBC’s Joy Reid nailed it seconds after the scandal broke commenting on air, “Ask yourself if Michelle Obama would have been given a pass had she done the same thing in 2008?”

But Melania Trump isn’t Michelle Obama; the same standards don’t apply. Melania is in a special class reserved for rich, white, pampered princesses who pose no threat to the status quo. Ethics don’t apply to RWPP’s. But Turnitin wasn’t built to catch RWPP’s. Plagiarism is a serious offense if you’re a kid trying to pass a class, get a job, or get into college. If you’re that kid, and not a Melania Trump, your entire future hangs in the balance every time you think about copying and pasting part of a Wikipedia article. Try explaining the Melania principle to a kid desperately searching for his or her own essay voice.
Melania Trump/Michelle Obama Speech Comparison
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcbiGsDMmCM&feature=youtu.be

Stanford Reprobate Lacks Skills -
We almost never get to read the essays of students admitted to prestigious universities. Each year a few excellent essays are published by media, usually touting the life story and achievements of unique or extraordinary students. But for the most part the essays that worked for the anointed few are never revealed. We assume that anyone admitted to an Ivy or other elite institution must be a brainiac over-achiever and an accomplished writer, perhaps even a deep thinker. In January of this year we saw a writing sample of a privileged Stanford freshman, one of only 5% admitted in 2014, that not only undermines that assumption, but exposes the hypocrisy highly selective institutions engage in to serve their own agenda.

The circumstances under which we saw his writing sample were horrific. In January, 2015 he was caught attempting to r**e an unconscious woman on the Stanford campus behind a dumpster at 1:00 am. He was a Stanford swimmer, an Olympic hopeful. He was highly recruited in high school and and was reported to be a top student. In March, 2016 he was convicted of three felonies including assault with intent to commit r**e. After his conviction the Stanford defendant wrote a letter to the court explaining in his own words what happened and expressing his remorse. His remorse was mostly over excessive drinking and making the poor decision to follow his teammates to a party where everyone was drunk and dancing on tables. He said he was sorry for any harm that came to the woman, who though unconscious and injured, had consented to his actions. He just really wished he hadn’t had so much to drink. He never admitted to, or expressed any remorse for the r**e that two good Samaritans stopped in progress.

The Stanford swimmer received a six month sentence which was six years less than the prosecution asked for and thirteen years less than the maximum sentence. The judge says he was influenced by the swimmer’s statement in awarding such a light sentence. When I read this I thought the defendant’s statement must have been a doozy. A jury convicted him of three felonies including attempted r**e, for which the judge (a Stanford alum) gave him only six months jail time, so the letter had to be a Pulitzer caliber mea culpa. And then I read it.

The letter reveals a complete lack of remorse for the life altering physical, emotional, and psychological damage he did to the victim, coupled with an insipid, self serving statement about how much he had suffered since getting caught ra**ng an unconscious woman. It reads like a middle school essay on the level of, how I spent my summer vacation. The theme is something like, “What a bummer, man.” There’s a paucity of critical thinking skills. It’s riddled with grammar and awkward syntax that panders to some preconceived notion of what the reader wants to hear. It is inauthentic, wrong headed, misses the point of the exercise, and exemplifies his superficial values.

My first reaction was shock at how clueless the guy is; he really doesn’t get that he committed a violent sexual assault on an innocent woman. Then it hit me that he been admitted to Stanford just nine months before. He writes like an average, or below average, high school freshman, yet he was one of the five percent of applicants Stanford admitted in 2015. But it didn’t matter to the institution because – he swims fast. Stanford received 42,877 applications in his year and admitted 2,144. They couldn’t have known that he was a moral reprobate, but surely his college essays revealed that he had weak critical thinking and writing skills: far, far below what one would expect of a Stanford student. He couldn’t even execute a meaningful, authentic, well written statement designed to save himself some jail time when he had days and days with nothing else to do. If Stanford put a sample of this guy’s writing on their admission website and said, “Hey, do this. This is what we’re looking for,” they’d get a million applications. It’s just one more example of the shameful hypocrisy in selective college admissions. They adjusted their standards down for a guy who’s obviously not the sharpest blade in the drawer, but a guy who might bring the institution some swimming pool glory. The message to all those aspiring to the most selective colleges might as well be, forget about critical thinking and writing well, just do your laps and get your heat times down.

Of course colleges always have, and always will, lower admission standards for athletes; and society will always make excuses for rich pampered princesses. In the meantime, the rest of us will actually have to learn how to think critically and express ourselves in clearly articulated language without plagiarizing. The next time I sit down with a kid who wants to apply to a selective college my first two questions will be, “How fast are you?” and “Who’s your sugar daddy?”
Brock Turner Written Statement to Court
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/07/brock-turner-statement-stanford-r**e-case-campus-culture

THE NEW SAT

In last month’s IECA Insights magazine, Jed Applerouth, founder of Applerouth Tutoring Services, wrote a straight forward assessment of the new SAT. He says it will be “the hardest SAT we’ve ever seen and significantly harder than the ACT.” The new SAT is designed to coordinate with the Common Core curriculum, and according to Applerouth, it “may intimidate certain students and drive them toward alternative assessments.” One thing is for sure; it will require educators and students to rethink the test prep timeline.

You can read Jed Applerouth’s article here:

Advising Your Students About the New SAT
http://www.college-pathways.com/2015/04/the-new-sat/

The New SAT | College Pathways In last month’s IECA Insights magazine, Jed Applerouth, founder of Applerouth Tutoring Services, wrote a straight forward assessment of the new SAT. He says it will be “the hardest SAT we’ve ever seen and significantly harder than the ACT.” The new SAT is designed to coordinate with the Common Cor…

College Pathways Adds Career & Assessment Expert Emily Pennington By Stephen Burleigh  I’m excited to announce the addition of career and assessment expert Emily Pennington to the College Pathways team.  Emily holds

Mi FAFSA es su FAFSA: When Something is Nothing Steve Burleigh is owner of College Pathways Independent College Counseling in Calabasas. He is also an instructor at UCLA Extension in the Certificate

Mi FAFSA Es Su FAFSA: When Something is Nothing

By Stephen Burleigh

The deadline for submitting the FASFA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) to the UC and Cal State systems is March 2nd. Many private universities have similar deadlines. For those of you who are new to the financial aid maze, the FAFSA is the financial aid application used by colleges to determine eligibility for need based federal financial aid, i.e., grants, low interest loans, and work study. In California the FAFSA must be submitted for the student to be eligible for a Cal Grant and the new California Middle Class Scholarship. The Middle Class Scholarship is for undergraduate students from families with incomes up to $150,000 who attend a University of California or Cal State campus. Grants and scholarships do not have to be repaid. That’s free money for college, folks.

If you’re on the fence about applying because you believe your income is too high and/or you have too many assets here are a few general tips to keep in mind.

Tip #1 – Submit the FAFSA. It’s free. You cannot benefit if you stay on the sidelines. That’s not really a tip, but it’s good advice.

Tip #2 – Income and assets of the student are assessed at a higher rate in the FAFSA formula than parent income and assets. As a general rule save money in the parent’s name, unless it’s in 529K savings account with the student as the beneficiary and parent as custodian.

Tip #3 – When Something is Nothing – The FAFSA does not include home equity at all in its formula. Even if you have millions in equity in your primary residence the FAFSA will not count it. Do not include home equity when you answer the question about the net worth of your investments. Home equity = Zero on the FAFSA.

Tip #4 – When Something is Nothing – If you own or control more than 50% of a small business or farm that employs fewer than 100 employees do not include it when you answer the question about net worth of current business. Small business worth = Zero on the FAFSA.

Tip #5 – When Something is Nothing – Retirement assets are not used in the FAFSA need calculation. This includes 401K plans, pension funds, annuities, non-education IRAs, and Keogh Plans. Retirement assets = Zero on the FAFSA.

Tip #6 – If you are divorced or legally separated and your student does not live with you more than 50% of the time, then you do not report your income and assets on the FASFA. Only income and assets of the custodial parent are used in the FAFSA formula. This does not mean the parent with legal custody, or the parent who claims the child as a dependent on the tax return. Only the parent with whom the child lived more than the half time during the past year must report income and assets.

Tip #7 – Report Adjusted Gross Income. Do not report total income. If you estimate income in order to submit the FAFSA by the deadline, be sure not to overestimate your Adjusted Gross Income.

Tip #8 – File the FAFSA on time.

Tip #9 – Don’t leave answers blank. If the answer is zero or not applicable enter zero in the space.

Tip #10 – To learn more about other tips that may help you in the need based FAFSA formula call College Pathways at 866-769-4944, or see more about paying for college on the College Pathways website. www.college-pathways.com

College Pathways - Independent College Counseling At College Pathways we want to make the college admission process an exhilarating and gratifying transition for you and your family.