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Varsityedge.com August 2003 News - Newsletter Homepage
News on colleges
The University of Washington Men’s basketball team was placed on 2-years probation for recruiting violations. The team will lose one scholarship, and was banned from recruiting at a prominent AAU tournament
The MAAC (Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference) has dropped ice hockey from the league and the 9 schools that offer ice hockey as a varsity sport will form a new league for "Ice Hockey only". The nine Atlantic Hockey members will be American International College, Bentley College, Canisius College, the University of Connecticut, the College of the Holy Cross, Mercyhurst College, Quinnipiac University, Sacred Heart University and the U.S. Military Academy.
Harvard University revoked the acceptance of a student who was supposed to start this fall after it was discovered that she “borrowed” several passages of text from other offers and incorporated them into several articles she wrote for a paper. Most colleges have legal language that allows them to revoke an acceptance at any time for things they deem “morally questionable”
New Jersey Institute of Technology will reclassify its men's soccer program to Division I and play as a member of the Atlantic Soccer Conference beginning in 2005. The school will play in its final season as a member of the Division II Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference in 2003
Yield Dropped From Rankings
U.S. News & World Report has recently decided to drop yield as a factor in their calculations for ranking the top schools in the country. Their seemed to be a belief that many schools were manipulating their Yield number by accepting more students through binding Early-Decision programs and accepting students “more-likely” to attend. By doing this schools could in theory increase their rankings, thus their prestige and popularity.
Yield = the percentage of students enrolling that are accepted at a particular school).
Elite schools (Harvard, Stanford, Princeton) often have yields as high as 50 to 70%, whereas a State school or a less competitive school might only have a yield of 15-20%. As the economy continues to struggle, many families are finding State School more appealing (a.k.a affordable) and State schools are seeing a rise in applications. This is making State schools harder to get into, as students now have to compete with thousands of additional applications.
Financial Aid News
The Federal Government has recently adjusted the Federal Needs Analysis formula by reducing the amount of State and local taxes that families can deduct on their financial aid application. Depending on your income level and what State you live in, this will cause many families to have to pay more money, in some cases $1,000 extra a year for their education. While the raises are relatively small for each family, it represents billions of dollars in lost aid when you factor in the millions of student receiving aid each year. A sign of the times!
The Federal Government has recently (2003) adjusted the Pell Grant formula, and it’s estimated by Congressional Research Service that the Pell Grant programs will be reduced by roughly 270 million dollars and that 84,000 less families will qualify for Pell Grants. It was noted however, that spending on education will eventually rise and that more people will qualify for Pell Grants in the future.
This fall, there will be a new 529 plan called the Independent 529 plan. The plan will allow families to secure today’s tuition rates at over 200 private colleges similar to a pre-paid tuition plan. For more information visit www.independent529plan.org. The website has limited information right now, but you can submit a form to receive a package.
SAT NEWS
The former SAT verbal section will be renamed critical reading. This section will no longer include analogies. Instead, short reading passages will be added to existing long reading passages.
A new section called the SAT writing section will be added. It will contain multiple-choice grammar questions as well as a written essay.
The SAT math section will be expanded to cover three years of high school math. Instead of just covering concepts from Geometry and Algebra I, the new SAT math section will contain concepts from Geometry, Algebra I and Algebra II.
STORY OF THE MONTH
I wish this wasn't true - A recruit goes on a recruiting visit to a prominent school and meets with the coaching staff to express his interest in the school, and the coaching staff expresses their interest in the recruit. The meeting concludes and the next day the recruit finds himself in line at the airport to return home. The recruit strikes up a conversation with a gentleman next to him about his recruiting visit then utters these magic words. "Ya, I am only using basketball to get accepted to the school." Unbeknown to the recruit, standing behind him is none other than one of the assistant coaches with whom he just met with a day earlier - who hears everything. The assistant coach calls the head coach to report what he has just heard. The head coach says. "When you land, call his father and tell them we are no longer pursuing his son and then hang up."
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