Student Loan Blog : graduate school

Business Schools to Suspected GMAT Cheaters: ‘Show Me Your Palms’

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:50:00 GMT

To help prevent students from cheating on the Graduate Management Admission Test —the standardized test that many MBA programs require for admission to graduate school — the nation’s top business schools are going high-tech.

As early as this fall, schools will start scanning the palms of GMAT test-takers to ensure that the person showing up to take the test is who they say they are, according to an article that appeared this week in The Wall Street Journal (“Business Schools Try Palm Scans to Finger Cheats”).

Using a “palm vein” scan, which takes an infrared picture of the blood coursing through a person’s hands, schools will be able to store a student’s vein pattern on a database. Every time a student takes the GMAT, their vein pattern, which is unique to each individual, will be compared against the database.

The biometric technology targets “proxy” test taking, a form of fraud in which a test-taker hires someone who has previously scored well on the test to take the exam in their place. Five years ago, federal authorities broke up a ring of six fraudsters who took more than 590 exams, including GMATs, for customers who paid at least $3,000 per test.

And in a recent GMAT cheating scandal, more than 6,000 MBA students were accused of cheating on the GMAT by using the website Scoretop.com, which illegally provided “live” GMAT test-prep questions to students who paid for the website’s service.

The palm-scanning devices, which cost less than $1,000, will first be used at 16 testing centers in India and Korea. Eventually, the scanners will be used at more than 400 centers in 107 countries, according to a statement released by Fujitsu, the company that manufactures the device.

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U.S. Reinstates 7 Fulbright Grants to Students in Gaza, Future of Other Students Accepted Abroad Uncertain

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 21:45:00 GMT

The U.S. Department of State recently reinstated seven Fulbright Grants awarded to Palestinian students after withdrawing the awards when the students were denied permission to leave Gaza, according to an article in the Jerusalem Post (“State Tells Court It May Allow Study Abroad,” June 2, 2008).

Israel has imposed a travel ban on all Palestinian residents of Gaza for security reasons following attacks by the militant anti-Israeli group Hamas. However, now the U.S. government is assuring the Fulbright scholars that the American Consulate in Jerusalem is working closely with Israeli officials to ensure that the students obtain their proper exit permits.

The ban on Palestinians leaving the region “is part of a policy of closure and collective punishment that is trapping 1.5 million civilians,” said Sari Bashi, director of Gisha, a non-profit organization in Israel that facilitates the free movement of Palestinians.

But just last week, the education committee of Israel’s Parliament met to consider further student movement out of Gaza, with many members commenting that they were horrified by the policy that keeps students from leaving the area. The committee petitioned Israel’s Defense Ministry to revisit its policy and to report back in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, only the seven Fulbright scholars are permitted to travel out of Gaza. Unlike Fulbright recipient Abdulrahman Abdullah, who told the New York Times that he can’t “be truly happy until the 600 or so Gazans with grants to study abroad also get out,” the remaining Gaza students who have been granted acceptance to schools outside the region face an uncertain fate regarding their education (“State Dept. Reinstates Gaza Fulbright Grants,” June 2, 2008).

Bashi said that while her organization supports the decision to let the seven Fulbright recipients leave, “Gisha calls on Israel to allow all Palestinian students accepted to universities abroad to exercise their right to leave Gaza and access education, in order to obtain the tools they need to build a better future in the region.”

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New Senator at the Helm of Higher Education Act Negotiations

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 23:13:00 GMT

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., will “pinch hit” for Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. — the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions who is recovering from surgery to treat a malignant brain tumor — in Senate and House negotiations to overhaul the Higher Education Act (HR 4137 and S 1642).

Mikulski, the third-most senior Democrat on the Senate committee, will handle the member-to-member negotiations between education leaders in the Senate and the House of Representatives, according to an article in CQ Politics (“Doctors Say Kennedy Brain Surgery Successful,” June 2, 2008).

Both sides are working to merge two Higher Education Act versions passed separately by the House and the Senate last year.

In mid-May the two houses had reached a compromise on college cost watch lists, college accreditation, and campus piracy, but that draft of the measure did not include provisions on graduate education, new programs, or private student loans.

It is unclear when Kennedy, who has worked to ensure undergraduates have access to student loans amid instability in the student loan credit market, will return to the Senate.

Kennedy underwent surgery June 2, for a malignant glioma, an aggressive tumor of the central nervous system, and will receive chemotherapy and radiation treatment over the next few weeks.

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Drexel University to Open Graduate Studies Program in California

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:14:00 GMT

Pennsylvania–based Drexel University is planning to establish a graduate studies center and perhaps a “full-blown bi-coastal university” in California after receiving a 1,100-acre land offer just north of Sacramento from a group of real estate developers, according to an article in Inside Higher Ed (“Higher Ed Gold Rush?” May 29, 2008).

Drexel, following a similar move by Pittsburgh–based Carnegie Mellon University to launch software engineering programs in California in 2002, has expressed interest in establishing a west-coast presence due, in part, to the declining number of college students in its home state. By 2025, the state of Pennsylvania will have approximately one million college-aged students, fewer than were there in 1995, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

To establish Drexel’s brand on the west coast and to grow the institution in a state with a booming college population, the school has established a $10 million fellowship fund. The money will be awarded to students based on both need and merit, with the intention of attracting some 650 students in its first five years.

The Drexel University Center for Graduate Studies in Sacramento will offer five master’s programs including business administration, information systems, higher education, engineering management, and library and information sciences beginning in January, 2009, and will add four more in September.

“This idea of starting up a new campus, particularly within an entirely different regional area, that’s certainly something you’re not seeing very much,” said Donald Heller, director of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Pennsylvania State University. “I think it’s something a lot of other institutions are going to be watching.”

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Schools Standardize Graduate Tuition for Ph.D. Programs

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:47:00 GMT

To adapt to the changes in interdisciplinary Ph.D. education, both Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania are standardizing their graduate-level tuition rates across the schools’ individual colleges, according to an article in Inside Higher Ed (“Shifts in Ph.D. Tuition Policy,” May 7, 2008).

Cornell, which operates several state-funded and privately endowed colleges, is changing its tuition policies to be more competitive price-wise with its public university peers.

“Our tuition is just very, very high compared to a lot of the competitor schools,” said Alison Power, dean of the graduate school at Cornell.

Graduate tuition for Cornell’s privately endowed colleges will be reduced by 10.1 percent, or from $32,800 to $29,500, and tuition for the state-supported schools will be frozen at $20,800.

The University of Pennsylvania will standardize tuition for its Ph.D. candidates by leveling it to $24,000 a year for the first five years of the program and then reducing it to $3,000 for subsequent years. The university’s doctoral tuition fees are currently calculated on a course-by-course basis.

Moving from a per–course tuition system to a flat–rate tuition system for the school’s Ph.D. students will not only encourage cross-college collaborations, but will also enable professors to better balance the particulars of their programs, Andrew Binns, the university’s associate provost for education, told Inside Higher Ed.

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Cornell Medical School in Qatar Makes History with Inaugural Class

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 09 May 2008 23:08:00 GMT

Cornell University’s medical school in Qatar graduated its inaugural class on May 8, marking the first time a U.S.-based medical school has awarded degrees outside the United States.

The 15 graduates of the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar will participate in a second commencement ceremony later this month in New York’s Carnegie Hall, along with the rest of Cornell’s graduating medical class, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Cornell Graduates Its Inaugural Class at Its Medical College in Qatar,” May 7, 2008).

Eleven of the 15 graduates will enter medical-residency programs in the United States, one will pursue research in the United States, and three will continue their studies and training in Qatar.

The Qatari branch of Weill Cornell, located in Qatar’s Education City, is one of several U.S. medical schools forming partnerships with hospitals and universities overseas, The Chronicle reports, although none of these partnerships is as extensive as Cornell’s arrangement.

Weill Cornell’s six-year Qatari program includes two years of premedical study and four years of medical education. Students perform clinical rotations at the hospitals and clinics of Hamad Medical Corporation in Qatar’s capital, Doha.

In 2011, the school plans to add a 382-bed medical and research center that will focus on women’s and children’s health.

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Commencement Speakers to Remain Upbeat Despite Slowed Economy

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 01 May 2008 21:36:00 GMT

This year’s MBA graduates will be seeing a sluggish economy and perhaps even bleak job prospects. Yet many high-profile business leaders returning to their alma maters as commencement speakers are expected to remain upbeat in their remarks to students, writes Kelly Bronk of BusinessWeek (“Graduation Talks Accentuate the Positive,” April 24, 2008).

Top business schools that have landed Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, or Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric for their commencement ceremonies, tend to want their speakers to keep things positive, yet realistic when addressing students this year.

Graduation “is all about the kids,” James Ellis, dean of the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, told Bronk. Holli Budd, associate dean for MBA administration and external affairs at the University of Rochester Simon Graduate School of Business commented, “It’s a time to celebrate their success and their future.”

In an effort to do just that, J. Peter Simon, son of Rochester business school's late benefactor William E. Simon, will tend toward optimistic remarks as opposed to focusing on the doom and gloom of a potential U.S. recession.

Robert Rodriguez, CEO of First Pacific Advisors and alumnus of USC’s Marshall School, may convey similar sentiments to students. Dean Ellis expects Rodriguez to empathize with students regarding the difficult economy, but also tackle what students can do to conquer the challenges ahead.

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MBAs Want to “Make a Difference,” but Say Pay Is More Important

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:46:00 GMT

Today’s MBA students aren’t just out for money — 25 percent of them claim they’re looking for a job that will allow them to impact or contribute to society, writes Kelly Bronk of BusinessWeek about a recent survey by The Aspen Institute (“The Do-Good Disconnect,” April 21, 2008).

"It doesn't mean that material success and financial success are not important to them, but there is another goal in there now that needs to be balanced with those," Daniel Diermeier, a Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management professor, told BusinessWeek.

The “Where Will They Lead?” survey asked 1,943 MBA students at 15 of the highest-rated business schools across the United States, Canada and England about their attitudes toward business and society. This year, students who said they wanted to make a difference in the world increased 10 percent, compared to the results of a similar survey conducted in 2002.

However, in spite of the growing number of self-proclaimed do-gooders, 49 percent of these students still ranked pay was an important factor when looking for a desirable job and 63 percent said that finding a position that challenged them was a key issue.

When questioned about business ethics issues, 83 percent of MBA students surveyed said they anticipated being asked to do something on the job that conflicted with their values, writes Katherine Mangan of The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Business Students Say Their Idealism Is Blunted by Corporate Recruiters,” April 21, 2008).

Yet, less than half said they would object to what was being asked of them. Instead, most indicated they would either look for another solution or leave the company.

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Not Your Cookie-Baking Grandma, 94-Year-Old Aussie Gets Master’s Degree

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 01:29:00 GMT

Australian Phyllis Turner is not one to sit back and kick up her Easy Spirits. The 94-year-old great-great-grandmother—the world’s oldest recipient of a master’s degree—has officially put many working professionals to shame.

In the face of this sweet, cane-toting granny’s accomplishments, who can offer up any excuse for not pursuing a graduate degree? Turner, who’s practically guaranteed the title of oldest Master’s recipient in the Guinness Book of World Records (although she has yet to apply), began her graduate studies at the age of 90.

This fearless rule-breaker is proof that you’re never “too cool for school,” or anything else for that matter.

Granny Rocks Academia, Not Her Front Porch

The silver-haired Turner received her master’s degree in medical science from the University of Adelaide in Australia last week, and her professors think she could more than handle the mental rigors of a doctorate degree. But she thinks it’s time to get out of the fast lane.

“I feel very, very happy after five years of study, but sorry that I am just a little bit immobilized," Turner told Australian media in an article by Rob Taylor picked up by Reuters (“Australian Granny, 94, Becomes World’s Oldest Master,” Aug. 1, 2007).

“Mentally she was like any other student. You couldn’t tell her thinking, her enthusiasm and her interests apart from somebody who was 25. She has a lively mind,” her degree supervisor, professor Maciej Henneberg, is quoted as saying. “She used to wake up at five in the morning and think about something, and then ring to say she wanted to check on it.”

Getting an Education Not Just Business, It’s Personal

People usually expect women Turner’s age to spend their time crocheting doilies or playing bridge and bingo with other seniors, not studying alongside college students 60 to 70 years her junior. But for Turner, getting an education was about taking care of unfinished business.

As a 12-year-old, she was forced to quit school to help her mother take care of her siblings after her father abandoned them. Then she raised seven children of her own and two stepchildren.

But once her children were grown, she enrolled in night school because, as she told a local radio station in The Associated Press coverage of her story, “I love study,” (“94-Year-Old Woman Gets Degree,” Aug. 3, 2007).

She means it too. “At 70, she enrolled at the University of Adelaide and at 72, she won a 12-month scholarship to study at the University of California,” the AP reports.

After studying in the Golden State, Turner enrolled at the Australian National University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology. Then following the death of her husband five years ago, she decided to go for her master’s.

And if her family or her body didn’t have a say in it, she feels she could keep going and get her Ph.D. “The only trouble is, I'm short of years,” she tells the AP.

So common excuses like “I don’t have time,” “I’m too old,” or “I’m just too busy,” won’t fly anymore for all those slackers who have yet to make good on their goal of a graduate degree.

Are you willing to let a grandma from the Land Down Under show you up? Explore the financial aid options and loans available to you and make it happen.

Talk to the education finance advisors at NextStudent. They have all the information and advice you need on student loans. Check out www.nextstudent.com.

Student Loan Girl

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Listen up, M.B.A.s: Omarosa = Bad, People Skills = Good. So Why Are “Soft Skills” Such a Hard Sell?

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 06:09:00 GMT

Maybe Donald Trump was onto something with The Apprentice, his reality TV show that brought together M.B.A.-wielding execs-in-the-making and street-smart entrepreneurs without a formal education to compete for a $250,000 job running one of his companies.

Trump pitted teams of contestants against each other in offbeat challenges like grooming dogs, running a carwash and renovating a motel, that allowed viewers (occasional eye-rolling aside) to observe, along with the judges, which candidates possessed more than just business savvy and truly had the leadership skills needed to get the job done and motivate their team to victory.

Being a personable leader and a strong communicator are qualities that corporate recruiters want to see in their new M.B.A. hires. But a report out of DePaul University shows business students don’t believe these “soft skills” will help them get jobs, according to an article by Katherine Mangan that appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Companies and Business Students Differ on What Skills M.B.A. Programs Should Teach,” Aug. 2, 2007).

M.B.A. Students Sabotaging Themselves

Didn’t The Apprentice teach us anything? Remember Omarosa? Just seeing her name may bring on an involuntary cringe. Obviously intelligent, not only did she not get the Trump job, but she was on the receiving end of the infamous “You’re fired!” pretty early in the game.

In booting her off the show, Trump saw the same thing Omarosa’s teammates and the audience at home did: She had horrendous people skills and failed miserably at team-building. In fact, some of the contestants on her teams would stop trying to do well in their challenges—they would have rather lost as a team and risked one of them being sent home than seen Omarosa be successful.

Despite the snippets of real-life lessons imparted to us by reality TV, the two assistant professors of management who conducted the DePaul study say students want no part in acquiring people skills.

“Research shows that students increasingly harbor negative attitudes toward” courses that teach or accommodate people-oriented skills because students don’t believe these types of soft skills will make them more marketable, the two DePaul professors say. But their study also found that these abilities that M.B.A. students are dismissing are exactly what recruiters are looking for.

Study Reveals Disconnect Between Students and Recruiters

The DePaul professors, Robert Rubin and Erich Dierdorff, took their information from a U.S. Department of Labor database compiled from the interviews of 8,600 managers in 2006. “The managers, who represented 52 occupations, including funeral-home directors and corporate chief executives, were asked what skills they valued most in their new employees,” Mangan writes.

“The researchers then compared those answers with the results of their own study of 373 M.B.A. programs and responses from 118 business-school administrators,” Mangan elaborates.

Rubin and Dierdoff’s study, “How Relevant is the M.B.A? Assessing the Alignment of M.B.A. Curricula and Managerial Competencies,” found that most business school administrators agreed that people skills were important but noticeably absent in graduate school curricula—conceivably, because students don’t want courses that emphasize those skills.

“This finding supports recent assertions that students’ general disdain for people-focused course work drives considerable policy decisions regarding curricula,” Rubin and Dierdoff write. But since it’s that very “people-focused course work” that could give M.B.A. graduates the skill set employers are looking for, Rubin and Dierdoff warn, “this finding may suggest that with respect to designing a relevant M.B.A., the customer is not always right.”

People Skills as Crucial as Boardroom Prowess

So business students hate soft skills and corporate recruiters want to see candidates with them. What’s an M.B.A. program to do?

Maybe they should invite past winners of The Apprentice to come speak to business grads about the perils of being unapproachable and so stuck on textbook and technical learning that there’s no room for learning how to interact as part of a team, how to manage conflict, or how to bring disparate people together to problem-solve on the fly.

While reality TV and real life can be vastly different, the underlying truth is that no one likes a jerk, even if that jerk could improve your bottom line.

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Check back here next Friday for my next blog on Campus Life.

Student Loan Girl

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Can the “Personal Potential Index” Measure What Standardized Tests Miss?

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:48:00 GMT

The Educational Testing Service may soon offer hope to students who dream about attending graduate school but have difficulty performing well on current standardized tests. Ironically, ETS is doing so by introducing another standardized measurement tool, the “Personal Potential Index.” But instead of measuring graduate school candidates solely on cognitive skills or factual knowledge like traditional admissions tests, the Personal Potential Index would gauge a candidate’s non-academic strengths and weaknesses.

Developed at the request of the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) advisory board, which was seeking ways “to measure and evaluate non-cognitive abilities,” the Personal Potential Index aims to give graduate schools a broader perspective on applicants, according to a recent article by Scott Jaschik that appeared in Inside Higher Ed (“New Standard for Getting In,” July 6, 2007).

“The development of the index is a significant acknowledgment of the dissatisfaction with traditional admissions measures,” Jaschik writes.

Personal Potential in 6 Dimensions

Supporters of the index, Jaschik says, hope that it will “create a standardized tool that gives credit to strengths that many students … may have that don’t show up on the GRE.”

Intended as a supplement to traditional admissions measures such as test scores and letters of recommendation, the index would be filled out online by three or four people recommending a student for admission. Professors and supervisors would answer four questions for each of the six non-cognitive areas measured, rating applicants on a five-point scale, from “below average” to “truly exceptional”:

knowledge and creativity
communication skills
teamwork
resilience
planning and organization
ethics and integrity

This evaluation could reveal handicaps in people who, for example, don’t play well with others or who collapse like a deck of cards under pressure. A teamwork question may ask whether the candidate is supportive of others’ work, while a resilience question may ask how well an applicant can overcome setbacks and challenges.

In addition to rated answers, the index also allows a candidate’s reviewers to provide written remarks or elaborations in each of the measured categories and to comment on an applicant’s “overall suitability for the programs to which they are applying.” Schools would receive overall average ratings, as well as average scores for each category, and would have access to evaluators’ complete responses for each candidate.

Standardizing the Intangibles

Although ETS hopes that graduate schools may eventually be able to use the index to hone in on which non-cognitive skills will be predictive of a candidate’s success, some critics question if it makes sense for ETS to attempt “to quantify qualities that relate to character and personality in ways that may be unique to individuals and not suited for numbers.”

Some, like Robert Schaeffer, public education director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, say the index simply goes too far. Schaeffer questions, for example, what a 3.8 rating reveals about a candidate’s resilience or organization. “This is overkill,” he’s quoted as saying, “trying to over-qualify everything to a decimal point.” Schaeffer commends the non-cognitive focus of the index, but wonders “why the questions couldn’t be more open-ended with the idea that admissions committees could read what people write, rather than having a score to quickly consider.”

The ultimate value of the index, which is still in the pilot stages, remains to be seen. But for now, at least, ETS is acknowledging that an individual’s academic and testing abilities can’t be the only measures by which to identify educational success. “I think what’s happening is that the largest manufacturer of standardized tests has seen the writing on the wall,” Schaeffer says in Jaschik’s article, “and that the future [of admissions] is not just in testing.”

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Student Loan Girl

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