Graduation Speech : College Admissions

UCAN is a program that weekly, visits local high schools providing them college mentorships. As part of college mentorship, we aid students, in college applications, financial aid, college essays and college preparation. The program is efficiently split into three parts, so mentees and mentors can take most from it. The three parts consist mainly of helping seniors in the college application process, teaching and mentoring sophomores and juniors about college preparation, preparing for next year. I first joined the UCAN program in Fall 2016, an aspect that really captivated my attention was that we could aid high schools, this really interested me because this was an opportunity that I did not count with in high school. I wanted provided the aid and support that could not receive when I was growing up.

Hi Ms.Barks, I am not sure if you remember me ( EAP 121,Winter 2015),just want to tell you I am done with ENG 101 and to thank you for the permit!!! It was very interesting expirience ( Bixby was my teacher),however I passed and moving on.This is my last quarter in Edcc , I am taking summer off and will be attending Shoreline community college this fall.Again,I just wanted to thank you for being supportive of me and allowing me to get closer to my goal!!!. I was very fortunate to have you as my teacher!!! Have a great summer!!!

One of the biggest fallacies in my high school was that the people in the top ten rank were the smartest people there. That because we were considered to be the best school in the city(another issue in and of itself), they were the ones that were going to be accepted into the high ranking universities and selective honors programs. But what most of my classmates, and myself at first, failed to see that the truth was actually very different. When one takes a step back and actually looks at the credentials and scores of the people in the top ten rank when compared to the rest of the class, it becomes exceedingly obvious that the numbers don’t support the notion that they are the “elite” scholars of the school. Many of those in the top ten rank were there for one reason only, they knew how to play the system and they picked the easiest teachers for each subject. Now of course there was a couple of students that were indeed hard workers and very intelligent, our valedictorian is a great example of that. But the majority were anything but. Most of their test scores (AP, SAT, ACT, etc.), awards, and community service/extracurricular activities were noticeably less than the students who were deemed less “successful” than them. Now when I first started there I thought that maybe if I tried to do what they did I would have a higher chance of getting into a great university, but I started to notice several little things about the previous classes and their top ten’s experience in

Grades and grading systems in the United States were developed to provide a standard method to evaluate the performance of students. In some cases instead of grades students were seated in order such that it indicated their rank in class (Schneider & Hutt, 2014). The function of testing and grading is a much more private measure. With grades being published for anyone to review, many people and groups have made judgements of the test inferences whether these people have experience and knowledge of evaluating assessments.

These students have built themselves up a reputation that they continue to uphold, therefore creating the same effects for students for years to come. But as I have stated the students have done this, not the school itself. They have molded the reputation of what the school “is capable” of by their actions during their schooling and their actions after they have graduated. They have earned the right to represent these prestigious schools. But what has the schools given them in return? Name recognition? The schools are just a medium for the student to progress though there are institutions, especially ivy league schools and those with name recognition, that can improve someone’s earning and employment potential here future. The students are responsible for achieving a good job after college. The students are responsible to earn a good salary after college. The students are responsible for themselves and their results after college. Not the school, because these highly ranked schools can not guarantee you anything now. They can only prepare you to do everything on your own. These findings have shown that you do not need to attend the most highly ranked school in order to succeed in your future. You can have a very successful career attending a lower ranked school, because employers do not look for the name of the school as much as they look for what you

Although colleges cannot compare different high school students’ class ranks directly, the system does provide comparisons within a school when considering additional factors, including the quality of a student’s educational background. Considering the grading policies variations across the country, a number of colleges have come to the conclusion that GPAs cannot translate in some instances. Often, variance among processes and systems causes confusion as colleges across the country attempt to decode the class ranks submitted by applicants (NACAC). Providing class ranks gives colleges an idea of how well a student has performed in comparison to his or her peers. WUHS, with its different grading weights and scales, falls victim to the issue, but by including class rank and valedictorian systems, the school can help its students with the college admissions process. In addition to smoothing over grading policy differences, the use of class rank as a measurement tool can especially benefit high ranking students by directly comparing them to their peers. Class ranks serve as “a useful data point that can help [colleges] judge a student in the context of his or her school” (Balingit). When colleges look at class rank, they often choose to see it alongside the school size and course rigor of a student’s high school. For advanced students, having colleges look at their accomplishments compared to their peers often helps them receive more attention from the places to which they apply. To aid its advanced students as they apply for college, WUHS should continue to use its system of class rank and valedictorians. When colleges consider a class rank, they often look at the size of the student’s high school, allowing colleges to use percentiles. Translating ranks to percentiles not only puts a

One of the biggest myths in my high school was that the people in the top ten rank were the smartest students in the city. That because we were considered to be the best school in the city(another issue in and of itself), they were the ones that were going to be accepted into the high ranking universities and selective honors programs. But what most of my classmates (and myself at first) failed to see, was that the truth was actually very different. When one took a step back and actually looked at the credentials and scores of the people in the top ten rank when compared to the rest of the class, it became exceedingly obvious that the numbers don’t support the notion that they are the “elite” scholars of the school. Many of the “elite” were there for one reason only, they knew how to play the system by picking the easiest teachers for each subject. Now of course there were a couple of students that were indeed hard workers and very intelligent, our valedictorian is a great example of that. But the majority of them were anything but. Most of their test scores (AP, SAT, ACT, etc.), awards, and community service/extracurricular activities were noticeably less than the students who were deemed less “successful” than them. Now when I first started there I thought that maybe if I tried to do what they did, I would have a higher chance of getting into a great university, but I started to notice several little things about the previous classes and their top ten’s experience in

Adults tell us the American Dream is not achieved without our hard work in school. The countless hours slaving over what seems to be pointless work, this must be the meaning of life. Students, once hopeful and brimming with aspirations such as CEO or astronaut, are pitted against each other in this war zone of education. This war zone is not about the importance of garnering knowledge, it is all about class ranking and a GPA. Oh, what a thing this GPA represents. Educators grade our assignments on how much we “understand” and then average them. This average is translated to another number, bonus points if the class preludes with AP or ends with “H”. The GPA coupled with the ACT or SAT, standardized tests that students take to measure their

To base one student's potential solely based on one standardized test is both wrong and lazy. Colleges should be willing to examine applicants closely. They need to understand that if a high school senior has a 4.0 GPA and happened to get a 1050 on their SAT, they're not necessarily incapable of learning. Looking at both class rank and GPA provides a more balanced picture, hence it would increase the diversity of students entering college.

Class rank affects students in various ways one of the most detrimental is the fact that students lose self-confidence in the learning process when they're aware of the fact their grades will not reach a point of one that a valedictorian would have. Though this can motivate some

I submitted the graduate application to the one stop department on Friday. The department informed me that it should take up to 3 to 5 business days to be processed.

top. The educational system can easily be defined by our social rankings; such a ranking can

Imagine that every high school senior in the United States was tested and then upon graduation assigned to a career based off of their score. Wouldn’t that be horrible? The world would be filled with people who hate their jobs. This is just a quick example of how a single test doesn’t define our future or who we are. Standardized tests like the SAT and ACT are extremely useful for college admissions officers but the tests are way too emphasized in the college process; this is why the exam makers should improve the exams so that the emphasis put on these exams matches the results it gives back.

Attending college can be one of the biggest decisions in a person’s life. Admittedly, one of the biggest factors in attending college is typically finances. All student must consider where the money for tuition will come from and any debt that may be incurred in relation to his or her schooling. Some student’s families pay their tuition, while others need to pay for school themselves. Sure, there are grants and scholarships that a person can receive but they usually do not cover all the cost of attending college. Because of this, some self-paying students will need to finance at least part of their education. Students who need to finance their own education will also generally need to work while pursuing a degree. Besides the financial worries, a student needs to also consider the challenges in balancing the demands of work, family life and the course work in classes.

During the past several decades, “ranking system” became an important factor of the way to measure people’s success or failure in the United States of America. This ranking system is applied to sports teams and companies in the world. This system makes them competitive, so teams and companies are able to gain more profits from those competitions. And it does make sense when ranking system is applied to sports teams or companies because their purposes are earning more money or being famous using competitions. However, this ranking system can be cruel to people who got lower ranking. According to the author Frank Bruni, problem is that this system is also applied to education system and this ranking system seems cruel. Therefore, high school students and their parents should keep away from the conventional belief that their success or failure in the future is already determined by their college rankings because test scores are not going to help you anymore in the real world.