At some universities, SAT and ACT scores are used to award merit scholarships, in addition to being a metric for admissions. (Merit scholarships are awarded regardless of a student’s family’s financial status and based on an applicant’s qualifications, like GPA and SAT or ACT scores.) Many parents are concerned that their children will miss merit…
In the 2020-21 school year, students, teachers and parents are not learning in pre-COVID ways. Kids commute from bed to desk, parents are deputized teachers, and teachers are now broadcast news anchors without the production team. Educators are seemingly rewriting the rules on how to learn, yet trying to rely on the old rules at…
Every college applicant, whether high school senior or community college transfer student, has now awakened in their own Wonderland, the Alice of their own journey to discover: To write competitive autobiographical college essays, applicants must reflect on their experiences, in order to define “Who they are” as well as their aptitude, so they can best…
The costs of childcare and college have outpaced wage increases in the past 20 years. So, a growing percentage of a family’s budget is spent caring for children, including paying for educational opportunities, like extracurricular activities as well as college tuition, in hopes of propelling kids toward a sustainable economic prosperity. Yet, as more of…
As the number of newly reported COVID cases increases, university officials in an effort to protect the health of students, faculty, as well as the larger community are diminishing their capacity to educate effectively. According to The New York Times, as of September 3, 2020, over 81,000 college students have been infected with COVID-19 since…
For Fall 2021 first year applicants, earning the academic designation, Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) for University of California (UC) admissions, may be more difficult than in past years. Given the Spring 2020 implementation of Pass/No Pass grading systems, thus the loss of a semester’s worth of letter grades for GPA calculations, Class of…
Creative Marbles Consultancy is offering a new advising retainer to help families navigate the current COVID-induced disruption in education. We can assist in the sometimes complicated transition from a teacher centered (pre-COVID) to a now more student directed learning process, the new normal in the 2020-21 COVID-disrupted school year in order to ensure that long…
The middle class, and those aspiring to the middle class, families are incurring ever increasing amounts of debt to pay for consistently rising costs of attending college which many believe essential to achieve economic prosperity. Subsequently, to compensate for stagnating academic achievement in order to compete for college admissions, middle class parents are spending on…
I recently discussed the current disruption in education and the college admisisons process, as well as how as a company we have adjusted our services for clients, with Danielle McKinney of Comstocks Magazine, a local business publication in Sacramento, California. The following is an excerpt: COVID-19 prompted all Ivy League schools to make SAT and…
The Modern College, a place where students guided by mentors, supported by peers, experiment with adult responsibilities, free to discover their life’s purpose, only impersonates its Pre-COVID self. To mitigate health risks of the pandemic, in March and again in Fall 2020, university administrators are restricting students’ freedoms, for which they believe they must, yet,…
When attempting to make one’s reality that is unfolding dynamically, instead static, then promote that delusion of consciousness as permanent, when its not, yet, then while lost in this contemplation accidentally stumble headlong into an icy cold creek, and although in that moment of clarity doubting one’s seemingly stable state, yet one continues almost chaotically…
The 2020-21 virtual K-12 schooling experiment, born of necessity from the wholesale disruption of the modern educational process and haphazardly planned and implemented by an institutional elite that does not have to practice managing entrepreneurially since the educational industry is relatively monopolistic, is failing for a variety of reasons. Although I admit that the sample…
When assessing the health of the labor market, having perspective born of fact versus media hype is essential when defining a plan for weathering the economic storm, especially for those on the cusp of entering the job market for the first time after earning an undergraduate or graduate degree. Or, our current economic situation as…
Caption: Jen Grantham/Getty Images/iStockphoto Although the causes behind the shrinking of the American middle class are complicated, the interdependent, economic relationship with the modern American educational industrial complex is not in doubt. As academic achievements plateau at the average, middle class families are spending more funds to supplement educational experiences, like extracurricular activities. Additionally, greater…
Creative Marbles’ Jill Yoshikawa was a featured guest on Your California Life, a local morning telecast in Sacramento, California, discussing the COVID-related disruption of education on high school and college students, as well as their families. For more information about how Jill Yoshikawa, EdM, a UC San Diego and Harvard alum, helps students and parents…
