Anum Khan, a student at Whitney High School in Cerritos, writes:
If anything can be called a double-edged sword, it’s this: College Confidential.
It’s esentially the be-all and end-all for high school students to everything college. Discussions are organized into forums ranging from specific colleges, to testing, to transfer students, to dorm living, etc.
And though all this information can be helpful, it undoubtedly causes a lot of stress to high school students reading the site as well. I recently stumbled across one of the all too commonplace "chance" threads, where students ranging from seniors to seventh-graders list all of their accomplishments/statistics (we’re talking down to each class they took and what percent they got), every ballet award since preschool, and their exact GPA and SAT scores), asking if they have a chance at XYZ college.
One poster recently listed an SAT score of 2300 (out of 2400), and had the guts to ask if they should re-take it.
HELLO?!
It is people like this that make me -- and other “average” students -- feel less than competent.
Another person listed 12 languages that she was fluent in, asking if that would help her get into her dream school, Columbia University. As for the replies she got, almost all were skeptical about how she could truly be fluent in so many languages.
Read more College Confidential seeds student anxiety »
Seventeen students from the Long Beach district learned Wednesday they are receiving a total of $125,000 in Broad Prize scholarships, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation announced. The Long Beach Unified School District was selected as a 2007 finalist for the $1-million Broad Prize for Urban Education.
Broad Prize scholarships are awarded to graduating high school seniors who have a demonstrated record of improving their grades over the course of their high school career and have financial need.
Since the Broad Prize was first awarded in 2002, 86 Long Beach students have received college scholarships.
Read more Long Beach students get scholarships »
Is there a college student who would not benefit from knowing how to make hunter's chicken or crepes with pastry cream and chocolate sauce? Talk about a break from cafeteria food!
But for the students who made these dishes -- from memory in two hours -- at a recent competition, it was bank accounts, not bellies, that reaped the benefit.
Twenty-eight aspiring chefs from L.A. public schools were awarded more than $600,000 in scholarships to culinary schools by C-CAP founder and President Richard Grausman on Monday at a ceremony at the Four Seasons Hotel. C-CAP stands for Careers through Culinary Arts Program.
 Given the circumstances, you might guess the students and judges didn't just call the dishes hunter's chicken and crepes. Students prepared poulet chasseur avec pommes de terre chateau and crepes sucrees with crème patissiere and sauce au chocolat.
The judges included some accomplished chefs: Neal Fraser from Grace and BLD; Douglas Dodd, Hotel Bel-Air; Aaron Robins, Boneyard Bistro; and C-CAP graduates Raymond Alvarez of the Border Grill; and Rigo Salas and Bobby Valdovinos, Four Seasons Hotel.
Read more Culinary scholarships go to California students »
Four years ago, 10 disadvantaged L.A. high school grads headed for Grinnell College in Iowa with full scholarships and the support of one another. Now nine of them have graduated, and The Times' Duke Helfand was at the ceremony.
Steven Johnson, center, 21, enjoys graduation at Grinnell College.
 Nikisha Glenn, 21, stands out among her classmates on graduation day on May 19.
The group was supported by the New York-based Posse Foundation, which recruits students from six cities — including Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C. — to create "posses" at colleges around the country.
The idea is to provide support networks for diverse groups of students who are chosen for their leadership talents, strong communication skills, ability to work as team players and their desire to succeed.
So the posse doesn't just get funding, its members get ready-made shoulders to cry on, classmates to rely on.
Over 19 years, 2,200 students have gone to college with tuition paid by the foundation. According to the foundation, 90% of posse students graduate within five years, exceeding national averages.
For more information about the foundation, click here.
-- Mary MacVean
Photos by Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times
Read more The posse graduates from Grinnell »
The National Alliance for Hispanic Health today announced a scholarship program in science, technology, engineering and math. During the next five years, 50 Hispanic high school students from Los Angeles, Elizabeth, N.J., and Brownsville, Texas, will be awarded $42,500 in college scholarships and internship support.
In addition, 125 Hispanic college students nationwide will receive $2,000 scholarships.
The program was made possible through a $4-million grant from the Merck Co. Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the pharmaceutical company.
“Building on a distinguished history of Hispanic pioneers in science, a new generation of discovery begins today with this landmark investment of $4 million in Hispanic students,” Jane L. Delgado, president and chief executive of the alliance, said today in announcing the Alliance/Merck Ciencia Hispanic Scholars Program.
“We must encourage our youth to enter the math, technology and science fields that are critical in our global economy,” said U.S. Rep. Hilda L. Solis, chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Task Force on Health and Environment.
Interested students and their families are invited to call 1-866-783‐2645 or visit the alliance’s website. Applications will be available Sept. 16, with a deadline of Jan. 16, 2009.
-- Mary MacVean
Anum Khan, a student at Whitney High School in Cerritos, writes:
I used to not hate junk mail. At least it meant someone was thinking about me, even if it was just the PennySaver, or the Limited Too catalog that I spent hours poring over in fifth grade.
But this mutual feeling of like soon went away when colleges started sending me mail. Every day, there is some new college mailing me a brochure, guide, pamphlet, postcard or other literature to make its campus as appealing as possible.
I have gotten the same brochure from one college three times, as well as from others that specialize in fields I could never study.
But what’s funny is how completely different these colleges are. On Monday, it’s a letter from Yale, on Thursday, it’s a viewbook from an all-girls school in the middle of a forest.
I do realize that I am to blame for this, though. I was, after all, the one who naively chose, time after time, to check the “yes” box on whether I wanted colleges to be able to contact me.
As far as I know, I will be applying to less than 5% of the colleges that send me mail, and as much paper as all of this junk mail is wasting, I still chose to check the “yes” box every time.
Why?
Read more College junk mail has a certain appeal »
A record 10,051 students (8,256 of them for bachelor's degrees) are candidates to receive their diplomas in commencement ceremonies beginning tonight at Cal State Northridge.
Among the dignitaries expected at ceremonies this week are acclaimed conductor and alumnus Richard Kaufman, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hector Tobar of The Times and businessman and alumnus Steven Ow.
Kaufman was a "founding" student of what was then San Fernando Valley State College, but left before finishing his degree to pursue his music career. He finally returned to CSUN in the 1970s and completed his bachelor’s degree in music in 1977. He wrote the music and lyrics for Cal State Northridge’s fight song, "Hail to the Matadors," in 1967.
-- Mary MacVean
The California Institute of the Arts will confer honorary degrees to singer Harry Belafonte, Herbert Blau and composer Terry Riley -- artists who represent the restless innovation and radical creativity nurtured at the institute.
They will be awarded their degrees this evening at the 2008 commencement ceremony at CalArts.
Blau was CalArts' first provost and played a leading role in shaping its radical educational model. He also was co-founder of the Actor's Workshop in San Francisco and co-director of the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center.
Riley launched the minimalist movement in contemporary music with the revolutionary "In C" in 1964.
-- Mary MacVean
The next chancellor of UC Riverside will be Timothy P. White, a physiologist who has been the president of the University of Idaho for four years, the UC Board of Regents announced today.
White, 58, emigrated as a child with his family from Argentina first to Canada and later to California, where he earned degrees at Cal State Fresno and Cal State Hayward and then a doctorate at UC Berkeley. An expert in human bio-dynamics and aging, he taught at UC Berkeley and held high administrative posts at Oregon State University.
White, who will earn $325,000 a year plus benefits, starts work at the 17,000-student campus by September. He succeeds France A. Córdova, who resigned last year to become president of Purdue University. An acting chancellor, Robert D. Grey, has headed the school since then.
In other action today, the regents gave final approval to a controversial 7.4%, or $490, raise in undergraduate fees and larger amounts for graduate students.
-- Larry Gordon
More graduation speakers:
California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks holds its commencement ceremony May 17. Undergraduates will hear from U.S. Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara).
And talk show host, political commentator and author Tavis Smiley will be the keynote speaker at the Cal State Dominguez Hills undergraduate commencement ceremony May 23.
-- Mary MacVean
Photo courtesy of Cal State Dominguez Hills
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is probably the most famous product of California's 109 community colleges, though perhaps an imperfect advertisement for their value.
He was among the speakers Tuesday at a event in Sacramento to mark a $70-million gift from the Bernard Osher Foundation to provide scholarships to the state's community college students.
The governor was introduced as someone who can inspire community college students.
He agreed: "I always say, 'Come to America, go to community college and marry a Kennedy. It's all very simple.'"
He said he went to Santa Monica Community College to learn English -- "not that it is perfect, may I remind you" -- but then took many other classes that prepared him for a university, he said.
(Left, the governor and his wife earlier this year)
On the serious side, the Osher gift will provide $1,000 scholarships to community college students.
-- Mary MacVean
Photo by Al Seib / Los Angeles Times
South Pasadena High School senior Nick Giulioni writes:
Marty and I sat in the dining hall with 175 other prospective Trojans, attentively listening to a speech by a faculty member who was head of admissions. He asked us how many of us played high school sports, were in leadership classes, and then if we played in the band.
At that very moment, “Fight On!” began blaring down the hall as the Trojan Marching Band (the greatest marching band in the history of the universe) entered the room with absolute precision. While I had already committed to the school, it was at that moment that Marty was convinced and that he joined the Trojan Family.
Explore USC was a program open to all admitted students considering attending the university. It started off with a tour led by current students who were energetic, personable and clearly enamored with the campus.
Read more Exploring, discovering my Trojan future »
Oliver Brown, a student in the humanities magnet at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, writes:
In past years, students have watched in horror as their favorite fatty and sugary vices have slowly disappeared from school cafeterias and vending machines. The product of a school board decision imposed in 2004, LAUSD has proceeded to ban soft drinks, trans fat chips, and candy from lunchrooms, attempting to replace them with healthier, smarter options.
At left, students go through the lunch line at Hollywood High School.
This sudden absence of the essential, and by far most prevalent, adolescent drugs did not, however, deter teenagers; instead, it elicited an onslaught of rogue sugar dealers, myself included. Selling from dingy stairwells and dark, deserted hallways, I, alongside my fellow comrades in arms, pushed candy and confectionaries to the students of Hamilton High School: a dollar a doughnut, 50 cents for every crumpled, timeworn bag of hot Cheetos. As our tribe of underground dealers made hundreds in faded, one-dollar bills, school officials remained flummoxed at this new surge of scattered pink boxes and candy wrappers. A cold and calculated war began between these two opposing fronts.
While I watched soldiers falling to fines and two-day suspensions, our seemingly innocuous venture began to reveal itself as a far more insidious crime. Selling the very items I avoided in my own diet, I came to realize that I was peddling obesity to students who were often already overweight or unhealthy. After all, I had proselytized the teachings of “Supersize Me” to everyone I met, and sold Kit Kat bars while wearing my thrift-store “Go Veg” T-shirt.
However, my inner conflict was resolved when my own demise came in the form of a grand sting operation. Stealthily followed by security guards, a vice principal, and the dean of discipline, I was cornered, my product taken, and my parents promptly called.
It is from the hypocrisy of this arrest that I find myself angered and betrayed by the school system. While LAUSD flaunts its new “Cafeteria Improvement Motion,” an attempt to bring nutrition into public schools, we have truly achieved very little. Although the Domino's pizza has disappeared, it has been replaced by an equally unhealthy, and most definitely greasy, alternative. Researching for a school paper, I found that a startling 90% of all materials used in Hamilton lunches are either canned or frozen. Sufficient nutrition and health classes are lacking. As of now, LAUSD food is despairingly unhealthy, sadly under-portioned and, frankly, disgusting.
Until the administration sees fit to change this riddled and unsatisfactory system, Hamilton cannot deem that we, the individuals, with our backpacks stuffed with 99-cent Lays and gym bags filled with doughnuts, are the problem. When my school district truly turns towards healthy, organic and hormone-free alternatives, I will be perfectly happy to relinquish my well-crafted ruse.
Photo: Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times
Ronald and Maxine Linde have established an $18-million endowment for the California Institute of Technology to create the Ronald and Maxine Linde Center for Global Environmental Science.
Edward Stolper, Caltech's provost, said the Linde Center "will provide a central home and focus for researchers and students working on understanding natural variations in and the impact of human activity on the global environment."
Caltech recently established a degree program in environmental science and engineering.
Ronald Linde, a private investor, has been a Caltech trustee since 1989. He received master's and doctorate degrees in materials science from the school. Maxine Linde, also a private investor, was involved in the early U.S. space program as a scientific programmer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
-- Mary MacVean
Let's hear it for rejection! It's that time of year when thousands of teenagers will feel its pain, when those thin envelopes in the mailbox mean a thanks, but no thanks, from a college.
But as Seema Mehta writes in today's edition of The Times, all is not lost. In fact, she found many students who did just fine in a college that was not their first choice. Sound familiar? Tell us your stories of rejection and triumph.
-- Mary MacVean
In a tribute to a team effort, 17 students at San Fernando High School were recognized today by L.A. Unified board member Julie Korenstein and UCLA Chancellor Gene Block.
All 17 have been accepted to UCLA for the fall. And they all are part of Project GRAD, or Graduation Really Achieves Dreams. GRAD is a nonprofit organization dedicated to students in the northeast San Fernando Valley. It facilitates partnerships with teachers, administrators, parents, students, community leaders and businesses to increase the number of students entering and succeeding in college.
The 17 seniors are: Jacqueline E. Arriaga, Cristina Barrera, Daisy Carrillo, Adonay Castillo, Ana Luisa Deleon, Laura M. Galindo, Adriana Lizette Garcia, Melissa Jimenez, Gerson Omar Lam, Ricardo Isaac Leon, Nancy Vanessa Moran, Eduardo Luis Reyes, Leanna Marie Rodriguez, Jimmy Salmeron, Freddy Sevilla, Lucia E. Tin and Rosie Angelica Vasquez.
-- Mary MacVean
The Times' Larry Gordon writes today about USC's decision to drop German as a major. Professor Gerhard Clausing, left, is among those who disagree with the decision.
Read the take on the news from Inside Higher Ed, and the response from USC students in the Daily Trojan.
-- Mary MacVean
Photo by Richard Hartog / Los Angeles Times
Nick Giulioni, a senior at South Pasadena High School, writes:
The college admissions process is nearly complete. Many of the private and public colleges have already sent out their acceptances. I have been accepted to my dream college, USC, for next year, but there are others who anxiously await today’s next round of decisions. With all but one of the UC campuses having sent out their results, students eagerly await Berkeley’s decision.
To many students, Berkeley represents something more than just radical thinking, it represents their last opportunity to go to a top-tier university. While it may not be their top choice, time and schools are running out.
Stanley Hall, UC Berkeley
Read more Thursday, one Cal Bear of a day »
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