Back in March, TechCrunch bloggers reported on a new site, dubbing it the Hulu of education.  It’s called Academic Earth.  On it, you can watch lectures led by professors from Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, UCLA and Yale.  Sounds cool, right?  If that’s not enough, the company has expanded its offerings to include lectures geared toward high school students: AP Biology, AP Calculus AB, AP Chemistry, AP Computer Science A, AP Computer Science AB, AP Physics B, AP Physics C and AP Psychology.  Courses come with a description of each lecture, syllabi, and class downloads.  Want to know what you’ve learned?  The site also supplies exams (complete with answer keys).

The interface is clean; in less than a minute, you can grab a cup of coffee, log on and learn single-variable calculus from an MIT professor—in your pajamas, or outside in the park if you like!  You can log onto the website to watch lectures from the site or you can subscribe to Academic Earth’s RSS feed.

There are other sites out there that also offer free instructional content.  Before I ever heard of Academic Earth, I downloaded most of my intellectual video content from iTunes U in both video and audio formats.  One of the major criticisms of these sites, however, is that there is no interactivity.  Users cannot ask questions at present.  However, the founder of the company plans to work social networking features into its offerings (think comments sections, forums, discussion boards).

Academic Earth calls itself, “an organization founded with the goal of giving everyone on earth access to a world-class education.”  Sound too good to be true?  Go and see for yourself.

Autumn is here.  Falling leaves.  The Harvest Moon.  Apple cider.  Early Decision and Early Action application deadlines!

(A good explanation of the differences between Early Action and Early Decision application requirements can be found here.)

For students applying to an institution under Early Action or Early Decision programs, the November 1st deadline is looming.  If you are considering applying early to Ivy League schools, keep in mind that Harvard and Princeton no longer offer an early option and the remaining schools offer the following types of early programs:

It’s worth noting that Columbia advertises a Nov. 2nd postmark deadline for its Early Decision applications on its site.

Yale is the only Ivy that offers a Single-Choice Early Action option.  Essentially, a student is not required to attend Yale if admitted as an early applicant (admissions offices call this a “non-binding” program since admitted applicants are not obligated to attend), but an applicant is limited to applying to one college under an early program.  For a detailed explanation, visit Yale’s Q&A here.

Other colleges have a range of early programs and deadlines, so it’s important to know which programs your particular schools offer.  Stanford offers what it calls Restrictive Early Action and MIT offers a non-binding Early Action program.  Georgetown also has a traditional Early Action program.  Applicants have until May 1st to accept or decline an offer of admission under both of these programs.

Pomona’s Early Decision applications are due by November 1st, while Amherst College Early Decision applications aren’t due until November 15th; the same is true at Williams.

These are just a few examples of programs and deadlines.  If you have determined that applying early is right for you, make sure to follow your college’s application guidelines and be sure to have, in addition to your application itself, all supporting documentation ready.  This will include items such as: teacher recommendations, an application supplement (if required by your school), a guidance counselor report, the CSS Profile (if required by your school), and testing.  Keep in mind that most colleges require that you send testing prior to the October and November administrations of the ACT and SAT, respectively.  These scores may be accepted as additional testing, but scores from earlier test dates will be needed to consider your application complete.

The online Common Application allows students to create an initial Common Application and then, after it has been submitted, to replicate that version, make changes to it, and save the new copy under a different name. You are allowed to make up to ten different versions (although we hope you don’t need to do that!). To accommodate different test reporting requirements you could create one application named ‘Score Choice’, in which you list your Score Choice colleges on the ‘My Colleges’ page. Then you could create another version as needed for colleges with requirements similar to Yale’s, listing those colleges on a separate ‘My Colleges’ page. (The system allows you to list a particular college on only one application ‘version’.) There are instructions for creating more than one application version in the Common Application Instructions section called ‘Application Versions’.

I’d like to follow up with readers on why I second this particular advice.  While there are various opinions about whether Score Choice is a fair program, it’s here for now and applicants need to make a practical decision about how to report their SAT scores to colleges.  Since you have to sit for these exams, you should ultimately make the choice if you have one.  Completing different versions of your application offers you the flexibility to use Score Choice where possible.  Keep in mind that, while it offers flexibility, it also has the potential for creating confusion with college or guidance counseling offices that also submit their information online.  You should therefore be very clear to communicate your strategy with your counselor.

That being said, if you decide not to use Score Choice at all, it can work in your favor.  In fact, in most cases it makes more sense to report all scores for the SAT I (in particular).  In my experience, colleges and universities that advertise they use the highest sub-scores to render an admissions decision do exactly that.  In order for you to understand how that’s true, it’s important for you to consider how these scores are reported.

Your composite SAT I scores are reported to colleges and universities as three sub-scores: Writing, Mathematics and Critical Reading.  (The Writing section also has two sub-scores, which you can read about here.)  Your scores for each of these sub-sections will fall in the range of 200-800.  To give you an example of how submitting all of your scores can work in your favor, here’s an example.  Let’s say that you sit for the SAT I three times between your junior and senior year.  Your results are as follows:

Your composite scores were 2110 in January, 2140 in May and 2140 in October.  If you opt for Score Choice, you could choose either the May or October sittings to submit your highest composite score.  However, if you chose not to use the Score Choice option, colleges would see all of your scores and render a final decision using the highest sub-scores from all three sittings:

OCTOBER 09: 740 in WRITING

JANUARY 08 or MAY 08: 720 in MATHEMATICS

MAY 08 or OCTOBER 09: 700 in CRITICAL READING

for a composite score of 2160, a score higher than any of your three individual sittings.  Of course, your admission officer will note that your Critical Reading score was 690 in January, but they will also see that it increased over the next two tests.  Though your scores were fairly consistent in Mathematics, they dipped in October; your admission officer will see that, too.  Much of this process is impressionistic and, if there isn’t anything else in your application to suggest that you are having difficulty in Mathematics, there is no reason to fret over this particular data point in your application.

Unlike a lot of folks, I’m not cynical about The College Board’s motivation for providing a Score Choice option.  Proponents of Score Choice believe it is a way for students to lessen the anxiety associated with standardized testing.  Detractors tend to complain that students are induced into more test taking and, therefore, The College Board increases its market share of the testing industry.  Many colleges require these tests and, as such, require applicants to make a decision about how to submit them.  The College Board offers choice.  I tend to think that most selective schools already have good hygiene around how they use tests, so students are not disadvantaged if they opt out of Score Choice.  Score Choice, as I see it, is one more reason for colleges to rethink collectively how and why test scores should be used the selective college admissions process.

Score Choice raises all the familiar concerns that the public and the academic community have about selective college admissions, in general.  Is it fair?  Will it raise anxiety among students?  Lessen anxiety?  What about kids who can’t afford to compete?

These are all acceptable questions, but the first issue in this debate that needs clarification is whether or not one’s test scores represent a fixed mark of ability or an acceptably mutable data point.  For some students, there is a fear that admissions officers will penalize a history of varied test scores.  Yet in my own experience, when it actually comes to rendering a decision, an admissions officer does in fact use the highest sub-scores of a testing record to make the case for admission.  Keep in mind, your admissions officer will have to be persuaded to admit you anyway.

There is, of course, the practical concern over how students who have tested multiple times with varying results should report their scores.  Yale, which does not participate in Score Choice, has a sensible solution for any student wishing to use the Common Application to multiple schools—whether they are applicants to Yale or not.  You can read it here.