If you're crazy about Science you gotta have a look at SciFoo!

Here's an interesting website about the Science Foo Camp (SciFoo). 

About 200 leading scientists, technologists, writers and other thought-leaders gather at the Googleplex for a weekend of unbridled discussion, demonstration and debate.

To know more about the conference and watch lecture/demonstration videos go to: http://www.nature.com/natureconferences/scifoo/index.html

UKCAT prep: tips and preparation

One of the student I work with is interested in studying medicine in the UK. Here's a summary of our discussion on UKCAT we had recently.

UKCAT is an admissions test required by 26 top medical schools in the UK.

Online test prep resources offered by Medify are pretty good. For more information check http://www.medify.co.uk/ukcat

The UKCAT isn't easier than the practice books so practicing as many questions as possible will help a student prepare better.

Important testing information: You can only take the test once in any test cycle. If your application to medical school is not successful and you re-apply the following year, you then have to take the UKCAT again.

Tufts released its supplement essay questions this week.

Students are required to answer three questions.

Source: Tips and prompts mentioned on the Tufts website.

Think outside the box as you answer the following questions.  Take a risk and go somewhere unexpected.  Be serious if the moment calls for it but feel comfortable being playful if that suits you, too. The suggested length for question 3 is 200-250 words. 

. Which aspects of Tufts’ curriculum or undergraduate experience prompt your application? In short: “Why Tufts?” (50–100 words)

. There is a Quaker saying: “Let your life speak.” Describe the environment in which you were raised – your family, home, neighborhood or community – and how it influenced the person you are today. (200–250 words) 

. Now we’d like to know a little bit more about you.  Please respond to one of the following:

A) Doctor Seuss once said, "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter, don't mind." We don’t mind.  Who are you?  Respond in the medium of your choice: prose, video, blog, digital portfolio, slam poetry...  For media other than writing, please share a link (video can be submitted via YouTube but we recommend using a privacy setting) that is easily accessible.

B) What makes you happy?

C) Sports, science and society are filled with rules, theories and laws like the Ninth Commandment, PV=nRT, Occam’s Razor, and The Law of Diminishing Returns. Three strikes and you’re out. “I” before “E” except after “C.” Warm air rises. Pick one and explain its significance to you.

D) Celebrate your nerdy side.

E) If your classmates were to honor you with a “senior superlative” in the yearbook, what would it be and why?

Snippets from today's College Bound talk. The panelists discussed - How to get the best out of academic life at college

Here are my notes of the panel discussion at the College Bound event held at India Habitat Center today afternoon. Errors and omissions are my own. Credit for good stuff is to all the panelists.

Shantanu, CMC - I didn't know how distribution of credits worked so I signed up for courses that were GE requirements. The general ed courses helped me experiment and that is how I discovered my love for PPE which is a multi-disciplinary course involving Philosophy, Political Science and Economics. One more thing, our school system doesn't teach us how to write and I found the Writing Seminar I took challenging but one of the best learning experience.

Kush, Berkeley - The Berkeley event calendar rocks! I learnt so much by attending random events. Once I attended a talk by Johny Depp and sampled a class where mostly 30 year old women discussed their PhD topics.

Nikita, UChicago - At UChic courses are divided in 3 categories - Core, Major and Electives. I was pretty clueless when I got there but my academic counselor was really helpful and helped me pick classes. The argumentative writing and papers that I had to submit were the hardest part in my first semester. Make sure you reach out to tutors at the writing center.

Tanvi, Columbia - Class registrations at Columbia is in order of seniority so first year students get to pick last! This leads to a mad rush and you get to key in your preferences 2 days before the start of your semester. Classes are allotted in a lottery system so one needs to be careful in picking classes. That also means that you have less chances of getting popular classes. I didn't get most of the classes I wanted but it turned out to be okay. I ended up doing classes I picked spontaneously and most were great. Professor ratings for each class is a good way to decide.

Angad, Stanford - Going in with IB credits I took 2 classes in term 1 because I wanted to take it easy in the beginning. This gave me time to sample classes and meet professors during their office hours. It was great to meet people like Prof. David Kelly who heads Stanfords d(design).school. Meeting seniors and peer mentors also helped in many ways. With my free time I did fun things like attending the big games at Stanford. I am a sikh with a free flowing beard. I once painted my beard red for a game night. People saw me on ESPN twice and that was pretty cool.

Varun, Mudd - At Mudd students learn to burn the candle on both ends. There's so much to do and the core requirements are pretty heavy. The HSA program can be fun too. College offers you uninterrupted time when you can devote to learning so make the best of it. I audited several classes before signing up for one and this helped me understand the width of courses on offer at Mudd and the 5 Claremont colleges. In my first year there was so much to do and I just didn't get enough sleep. This didn't bother me much as I was able to balance the load with fun by participating in extra-curriculars. I learnt skate boarding and ballroom dancing and made random connections with people on campus.

Sid, Brown - Like Columbia at Brown freshmen got to pick classes last but it wasn't bad since there were so many great courses on offer all the time. At Brown you could take a few classes Pass/Fail and not worry about your grades. This allows students to take classes for fun, experiment and develop a love for learning. The humanities seminar topics are great and I loved my courses. Talking to professors during their office hours is another tip. You could end up doing research with them. Brown is known for independent study or independent concentrations it offers its students. This is a great way to specialize in a particular discipline and get fantastic resources to support your area of study.

Srijit, Oberlin - Research classes. Seek peer mentors. Talk to people above you and also to your juniors.

Panel discussion attended by college bound students. Students talk about orientation week and their moving in experiences.

Here are my notes of the panel discussion at the College Bound event held at India Habitat Center today afternoon. Errors and omissions are my own. Credit for good stuff is to all the panelists

Topic discussed: Orientation week and moving in.

Shantanu, CMC - Wilderness trip was great. It helped break the ice and connect with people.

Kush, Berkeley - Reach out to people and you'll realize that they have the common apprehensions. 

Nikita, UChicago - O Week at Chicago was so much fun but then classes begin and we know why UChicago is a place where fun comes to die! The RSO is great and helpful so make use of it. My roommate remembered that my birthday was on moving in day and we celebrated in the dorm with a cake!

Tanvi, Columbia - 90 international students were called early but our pre-orientation activities got cancelled due to a hurricane scare. We didn't venture out of campus and mainly remained indoors. This worked out to be fun as we ended up playing indoor frisbee and board games. When the weather normalized I participated in the Columbia Urban Experience program and met with other students I wouldn't have met.

Angad, Stanford - International O week is a time when every one is willing to make new friends. One thing I noticed was that people found it difficult to remember names and I came up with an idea. I would use interesting word associations to make people remember my name. An(ti) God was a close pronunciation for Angad. College experience in highly selective schools is not like 'American Pie' kids are pretty focussed and super achievers. The best way you can attract people is to be yourself.

Varun, Mudd - Stop thinking too much and keep smiling even if it means your jaw hurts. Be open and friendly and people will start connecting with you. Remember college allows you to get a fresh start. One more tip - people like to value more personal and intellectual space so don't expect your roommate or your new friends to be the same as your high school buddies. You can't jump on top of friends and slap them just for fun!

Sid, Brown. International O week is fun and you meet new people but don't limit your group to the ones you've met… over the years try meeting new people in different settings. 

Srijit, Oberlin - Skype or chat with your roommate if possible.

Where and Why? History of the SAT and ACT, part-2

Where and Why?  History of the SAT and ACT, pt. 2

Welcome back to our history lesson, trying to explain how the SAT and ACT got to be the way they currently are and, even more importantly, trying tell you why we need to take these exams in the first place.  When we last left off, the United States was filled with lots and lots of colleges and universities, but all with different admissions requirements.  Professors, administrators, high school teachers, parents, and of course prospective students were all becoming more and more frustrated with the system.  I mean, imagine if you had to spend hours creating one project for one admissions committee and then spend even more hours on a completely different project for another committee.  This would very quickly get tiring and annoying and pointless, and perhaps would dissuade you from this whole college thing.

So, as the world was approaching the 20^th Century, things needed to change to allow students to more uniformly get past the guardians at the gates of college.  And it is here that we continue our story…

1893 – Ten top private colleges come together to standardise their admissions criteria and recommend to area high schools a common curriculum to help prepare students for the process

1899 – These same colleges create the North Central Accreditation, the first organisation charged with enforcing uniformity in high school curricula and college education standards

1900 – Fourteen leading private colleges from the Northeast form the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB), which later becomes the College Board, to standardise admissions processes and encourage New England boarding schools to prepare their students properly

1901 – The first of the College Board Exams is conducted at 69 locations and tests 973 students in essay formats for the subjects of English, French, German, Latin, Greek, History, Mathematics, Chemistry, and Physics; you can see sample questions here

1905 – Alfred Binet creates the first IQ test, which is used to identify slow learners by matching them to their “mental age”

World War I – Robert Yerkes, a Harvard Professor, conducts the Alpha and Beta tests to check the IQs of two million military recruits in order to build up statistical evidence for the IQ test

1923 – Carl C. Brigham, who was one of Yerke’s assistants, administers his own version of the Alpha test to freshmen at Princeton University and Cooper Union

1925 – The CEEB asks Brigham to develop an exam based on the Alpha test that would supplement the College Board Exams

1926 – Brigham’s creation, the Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT), is conducted at 300 locations and tests over 8000 students in definitions, arithmetic, classification, antonyms, artificial language, analogies, reading, inference, and number series; you can see sample questions here:

1933 – James Conant, the new President of Harvard, asks an assistant dean, Henry Chauncey, to find a way to test public school students for a scholarship program that looks at how much they have achieved in their school career; Chauncey finds the SAT

1933 – IBM machines start being used to score state-wide exams, like the New York Regents

1934 – Harvard gives the SAT for the first time for scholarship purposes

1935 – Harvard requires the SAT for all potential students

1936 – Brigham starts to question whether a single test can really measure innate intelligence and thus starts to oppose efforts to spread the SAT to other schools

1937 – The College Board introduces the Achievement Tests, which check student knowledge in a variety of subject areas

1938 – Chauncey convinces all members of the College Board, which represented all the Ivy League schools, to use the SAT mainly for scholarship applicants

1938 – Stanley Kaplan starts a small company in his Brooklyn basement to help aspiring college students improve their chances of admissions, the first of its kind anywhere

1939 – The College Board starts using bubble sheets and electronic scoring

1941 – The Scholastic Achievement Test changes to the Scholastic Aptitude Test to signify the shift away from what students have learned in school (which inherently reflects the quality of the education) and toward the ability of students to demonstrate different forms of non-academic intelligence

1942 – The College Board Exam is abolished and all member schools start using the SAT for all students, not just for scholarship aspirants

1942 – Traditional mathematics topics, through geometry, start to be tested in a multiple-choice format on the SAT

1943 – Brigham, the father and greatest opponent of the standardised college admissions test, dies, thus paving the way for rapid expansion

1944 – The SAT is given en masse to over 300,000 students at one time as the Army-Navy College Qualifying Test, thus proving that multiple choice exams can be simultaneously given to a large group

1948 – Educational Testing Service (ETS) is created with Chauncey as President and Contant as Chairman of Board

1948 – ETS opens an office at Berkeley, California, with hopes of convincing the University of California system to start requiring the SAT

1952 – The structure of the Verbal Section is set to Reading Comprehension, Analogies, Sentence Completions, and Antonyms with formats that remain for the next 40-50 years (though the number of questions changes over time)

1959 – Ted McCarrel and E.F. Lindquist start American College Testing (ACT) to provide testing options in regions not reached by SAT (essentially, everywhere but the Northeast USA) and to be an indicator of academic achievement, not just reasoning abilities; over 75,000 students are tested with the ACT in the first administration on the topics of English, math, social studies, and natural sciences

1959 – Data Sufficiency, a math question type that currently appears on the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT), starts being tested on the SAT along with multiple-choice problem solving

1959 – The Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT) is administered for the first time

1960 – The University of California system signs on to require the SAT, thus becoming ETS’s greatest client

1972 – The College Board releases a report that shows that coaching can significantly improve results in the math section of the exam

1974 – Quantitative Comparisons, which is currently tested on the Graduate Record Exam (GRE), replaces the Data Sufficiency question type

1979 – The Federal Trade Commission releases a report that says that coaching can lead to an average score increase of 50 points

1981 – John Katzman, after graduating from Princeton University, starts a coaching company known as the Princeton Review

1984 – Stanley Kaplan sells his business to the Washington Post Company, which helps to rapidly expand his company, Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions to become the largest company of its kind in the world

1989 – The ACT changes by replacing the Social Studies and Natural Science sections with Reading and Science Reasoning

1993 – The name is changed from Scholastic Aptitude Test to SAT I: Reasoning Test; the letters S, A, and T no longer mean anything (though many people call them the Scholastic Assessment Tests)

1994 – Based on recommendations from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Student-Produced Response questions (known as Grid-Ins) are introduced to the SAT Math section, and calculators are now permitted for use on the exam; topics of probability, slope, basic statistics, and other ‘real world’ questions are added

1994 – Antonyms are removed from the SAT and the focus becomes more heavily on reading comprehension (there was even consideration of making the Verbal section entirely based on RC)

1994 – The Achievement Tests are renamed to become the SAT II: Subject Tests

1995 – The scoring medians for the SAT, which had been slowly dropping as the number of test-takers had increased, are realigned to 500 each for Verbal and Math

1996 – The American College Testing permanently changes its name to the ACT, and calculators are now allowed on the exam

2001 – The President of the University of California system considers dropping the SAT as a key criterion of the admissions process because he feels that it’s not a good indicator of college success; there is also growing dissatisfaction with the abstract topics of analogies and quantitative comparison questions

2004 – The names ‘SAT I’ and ‘SAT II” drop the Roman numerals and become the SAT Reasoning Test and SAT Subject Tests, respectively

2005 –The SAT Reasoning Test undergoes drastic changes that include: Dropping Analogies and Quantitative Comparisons, merging the SAT II English exam to form the Writing and Essay sections, raising the maximum scaled score from 1600 to 2400, changing the name of the Verbal section to Critical Reading, and making the content of the exam slightly harder

2005 – The ACT adds the optional Writing section

2007 – With the acceptance of Harvey Mudd, every college in the USA now accepts the ACT, while numerous colleges still do not accept the SAT

2010 – The number of ACT test-takers finally exceeds the number of SAT test-takers, with 1.57 million compared to 1.55 million

Okay…so this was probably a lot more history than you wanted to know.  But I found it interesting, and I hope you did too.  What’s fascinating to me is that, based on this history, I took a radically different SAT exam than you probably will take.  My SAT exam included Analogies and Quantitative Comparisons.  I had to write my essay and answer grammar questions in the SAT II Subject Test.  And my ACT only JUST started allowing calculators.  (Can you guess when I took the exams??)

And despite how annoying it was to prepare for these exams, now that I look at the history, I realize that these tests allow colleges to compare each of us based on common information.  While that information may not be represent our abilities (as many argue that the SAT and ACT do not), they still allow colleges to be more objective, something you will indubitably appreciate once you are admitted.

So stop feeling bad about having to take these exams.  Just get to work, knowing that lots of history and research and trial and error got you to this point.  So buck up, study hard, and move past the guardians at the gate.

A brief history of SAT, part-1

Where and Why?  History of the SAT and ACT, pt. 1

You are here, at this blog, for a specific reason.  No, not time pass.  Please let it not be time pass.  No, you are here because you want to know about the SAT or ACT.  You want to learn little tips and tidbits and hints and ideas etcetera etcetera to help you master the standardised entrance exam, this one guardian at the gate of college that determines whether you are worthy of passing through.  You sigh deeply and perhaps a bit unhappily at the prospects of having to devote your time to preparing for this exam.  Maybe you feel particularly irritated or annoyed that such an exam could determine so much, that it could have such control over your future.

As you sit there, reading these words on your computer screen or smart phone or pad or whatever, you perhaps wonder, with a great deal of frustration, ‘Why do I have to bother?’  And of course ‘Who decided this anyway?’  So, today I’m going to take a day off from the hints and tips and such, and give you a crash course in the history of the standardised entrance exam.  Hopefully, by the time you walk away or close your laptop or turn off your pad, you’ll have a better understanding of how we got to this moment and how the test became…well…the test.  And in order to do that, we need to step back to the beginning.  The very beginning…….

1636 – Harvard College is the first institution of higher education started in the land that would later become the United States of America

1693 – The College of William and Mary, the university that educated Thomas Jefferson, is opened as the second school of higher learning in the USA

1701-1776 – Eleven more colleges are started before the American Revolutionary War, including colleges that would later become Yale, Princeton, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, Brown, Rutgers, and Dartmouth

1837 – Doors open for the first colleges devoted entirely to woman and to Blacks (Mount Holyoke and the African Institute – now Cheyney University)

1830-1860 – The building of colleges and universities boom as 133 of those still around today are founded, mainly due to expansion westward towards the Pacific Ocean

1861 – There are over 200 colleges and universities in existence when the American Civil War starts

1862 – Congress passed the First Morrill Act, which donates public land to states to set up educational institutions; this law led to the founding of many state and public universities throughout the country

1867 – Two years after the Civil War ends, the southern colleges are still in a state of ruin and the Department of Education is created to help restore order to all academic institutions

1870 – The so-called ‘Age of the University,’ which would last for forty years, begins as an increasing number of philanthropists encourages the concept of the ‘well-endowed university’

1890 – The Second Morrill Act expands the public land that can be used for colleges, thus allowing a surge in the number of academic institutions

1891 – Stanford University is founded in California

By the end of the 1800s, there are hundreds of colleges and universities throughout the United States.  All of them had their own admissions processes that gauged the success of prospective students through some similar and some very different criteria.  For example, from 1600 to 1800, the main foci of admissions were: knowledge of classical languages, specific readings, and my personal favourite, moral character.  Moral Character…this is not necessarily something that can be objectively tested, particularly in a country with such varying religious practices.

Through the 1800s, professors started to conduct the admissions processes rather than the university presidents, and thus accepted or rejected people as they saw fit.  This created a bit of chaos in the admissions process as not only did each college have different criteria, but also each DEPARTMENT within each college had its own criteria.  This made it impossible for high schools to properly prepare their students for the arduous journey to college.  Some kids would get in, while others wouldn’t.  Some colleges liked them, and others didn’t.  This became confusing and annoying and frustrating and made students and parents and colleges disillusioned with the whole process.  A change needed to occur, and fast.

And this is where our story continues…… in the next post.

Identifying right-fit med schools in the UK

I met with a very smart IB student in Mumbai today. She is determined to study medicine and is only considering applying to schools in the UK. She has a stellar academic record and is pretty confident about her UKCAT and BMAT prep. Given her solid profile I was certain that she would wish to apply to the most selectives schools like Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, and Imperial. However as we discussed college choices I noticed that she was hesitant to add her 'dream' schools to the list because of the 5 college application limitation set by UCAS. She wanted to play it safe and pick 'less selective schools' in her list.

She is obviously being cautious with her list. One part of me wishes to push her to take up the challenge of adding back her dream schools to the list. But I've heard that med schools in the UK have limited space for international students and that justifies her caution. More on this later. I'll keep adding comments to this post.

Resume Tips - Explain key responsibilities and achievements in an activity.

Resume writing is a craft where you need to be brief yet give all the important information. Very often students assume that the reader knows what a position or activity signifies. 

For example you could be the all important Deputy Charge d ‘Affaires for your school's Model United Nation Conference but not all admissions officers will know what this post holds. Please give details of your key responsibilities and achievements in bullet points below the activity title.

Finding a good personal essay topic: Avoid making your essay a 'laundry list'

While brainstorming with a student in Mumbai there was a moment when he said, "How about I describe my room and all the interesting things in it? Wouldn't that be a good essay topic to write on?" He went on to describe the objects, memorabilia, view from his balcony, favorite 'thinking spot' and such that. "My room is the window to my life, wouldn't that be interesting for an admissions officer to read?"

This could be a great essay if written well. However it runs the risk of a cliched 'laundry list' essay where he forces a mishmash of unrelated thoughts and expects the reader to discover his uniqueness!