Home » Archives for December 2012

Smarter Colleges vs. Best Colleges

Posted by Rey Renolds Wednesday, December 26, 2012 0 comments
A new study by Luminosity found what they believe are the 20 top colleges/universities in the U.S.  They tested students' abilities to solve problems and use critical thinking skills. I agree with most of the schools on their list - take a look for yourself and see how they arrived at their findings. I think some schools will be surprised they didn't make the list!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Source:  Business Insider   



The 20 Smartest Colleges In America



Think there's a difference between the most selective colleges and those with the smartest students?
That's what Lumosity, a cognitive training site run by Lumos Labs, sought to find out with a series of games designed to test America's leading higher education institutions.
After realizing that national and global rankings for colleges each year were based almost solely on standardized test performances and information about the school's resources (including endowment per student, student-faculty ratio, and graduation rates), Dr. Daniel Sternberg at Lumosity took it upon himself to discover which institution really had the smartest individuals.
He and his team tested 60,000 students at over 400 colleges and universities to play games that measured various cognitive skills including attention, memory, speed of processing, problem solving, and flexibility.
The study even broke down the college rankings by cognitive area, finding that Dartmouth College performed the highest on attention, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology was the best with memory, Harvard students ranked highest at speed of processing, and that Yale students performed best on flexibility.
The overall winner was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the school with the best problem solvers. MIT has consistently ranked highly on best-of-schools lists, and was recently named the top university in the world by the QS World University Rankings list, beating last year's winner the University of Cambridge as well as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton for the title.
The top 20 schools are below. Click here to view the complete Lumosity study.
  1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  6. Washington University in St Louis
  7. Dartmouth College
  8. Wellesley College
  9. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
  10. Duke University
  11. College of William and Mary
  13. University of Portland
  14. University of California-Berkeley
  15. Vanderbilt University
  17. Carnegie Mellon University
  18. Macalester College
  19. Worcester Polytechnic Institute
  20. University of California-Los Angeles


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-20-smartest-colleges-in-america-2012-11#ixzz2GDbxAyeK

Take the SAT or ACT for admission to U.S. Colleges?

Posted by Rey Renolds Wednesday, December 5, 2012 0 comments


Please like this facebook page if you are viewing this blog.




The SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) is the most common college admission test that international students take before they apply to U.S. colleges and universities. However, the ACT (American College Testing) is another option. 

picture from scadmissions.com
They both test for college preparedness in academics, but they go about doing so very differently.

According to the ACT website (http://www.actstudent.org/faq/actsat.html) here are the differences between the two tests:

"The ACT is an achievement test, measuring what a student has learned in school. The SAT is more of an aptitude test, testing reasoning and verbal abilities.
The ACT has up to 5 components: English, Mathematics, Reading, Science, and an optional Writing Test. The SAT has only 3 components: Critical Reasoning, Mathematics, and a required Writing Test.
The College Board introduced a new version of the SAT in 2005, with a mandatory writing test. ACT continues to offer its well-established test, plus an optional writing test. You take the ACT Writing Test only if required by the college(s) you're applying to.
The SAT has a correction for guessing. That is, they take off for wrong answers. The ACT is scored based on the number of correct answers with no penalty for guessing.
The ACT has an Interest Inventory that allows students to evaluate their interests in various career options."


A recent article in U.S. News discusses the differences as well:

"When it comes to preparing to apply to U.S. colleges, many international students take the SAT, a standardized test that gauges college readiness.

But the SAT is not the only option prospective college students have. Another test, the ACT, is accepted by all U.S. colleges as well. 

The ACT surveys knowledge learned, whereas the SAT focuses in part on critical thinking and reasoning. And it's an increasingly popular test choice: For the first time last year, more graduating seniors in the United States had taken the ACT than the SAT. 

While the number of international students choosing the ACT is rising, students from abroad still represent a much smaller portion of testers than their domestic peers, says Jon Erickson, president of ACT's education division. Despite having more than 400 testing centers worldwide, the organization hasn't traditionally focused its marketing efforts abroad, he says. 

That's likely the reason Chinese students aren't usually aware the ACT is a U.S. college prep option, according to Sam Hwang, founder and CEO of New Pathway Education and Technology Group, a company based in Beijing that offers SAT and ACT tutoring. 

"No one's really taking it, but only because they don't know what it is," Hwang says. 

The two tests have different formats. The SAT has three sections—critical reading, math, and writing—while the ACT has four components: English, math, science, and reading. Each section on the ACT tests a student's learnings from high school courses; the science portion, for instance, requires knowledge of either Earth science or a physical science, as well as biology, according to the ACT's website. 
"The structure of the ACT is conducive to international education," Erickson says. "It's tied very much to subject level [and] I think the science part is also attractive to international students. A lot of international students who are looking to U.S. colleges tend to be in STEM fields, so I think that's attractive."

But the science portion also presents an additional challenge, notes Jose Toro, an American student in a Florida high school who took both the ACT and SAT. "The first time I took it, I was rushing for time—I felt so pressured," he says, adding that the SAT felt like a "more laid back" option. "Especially because there is a science portion in the ACT, you really have to analyze the science, and it takes time." 
The format might be a good choice for students who are stronger in quantitative subjects than in English reading and writing. While two thirds of an SAT score comes from English sections (reading and writing), only half of the ACT sections are purely language-based, Hwang notes. And although a writing portion is required in the SAT, it's an optional add-on for ACT test takers. 
Still, the ACT demands a mastery of the language, Erickson says. 
"The whole test is in English," he notes. "Every section has some correlation with a student's ability to speak or translate English."
International students preparing for the ACT should study up on idioms, which have both literal and figurative meanings, recommends Carolyn Kidd, a high school student from Maryland who took both the ACT and SAT. "Since the English section is made up of a ton of idioms, be sure to know only the most common ones, as they tend to show up frequently. 
"Other than that, know, and be sure to review, trigonometry and basic science skills, especially chemistry," she adds. 
For help studying for either exam, both the SAT website and ACT website offer practice questions (sometimes for a fee), as well as lists of testing centers and registration requirements to guide students through their preparation."

Source: http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2012/11/20/should-international-students-take-the-act

Copyright © 2012 International Student's Abroad. All rights reserved.

Super SEO created by Blogger Tuts | Published by GalleryBloggerTemplates.com