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KVOS Special: The Key To The College Door
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- There are many reasons why students
- do come to college these days.
- Some come, of course, to get married,
- to find a husband or even a wife.
- Some come, many come, to improve their status,
- to find a better job, to prepare themselves for a professional
- or high vocational position, perhaps
- to improve thereby, almost certainly to improve thereby,
- their earning power.
- Some of course, come because it's the thing to do,
- because these days people do tend to go on to college.
- Sometimes students will go on in the manner of a drift
- into the college of their choice having nothing better
- to do at the time.
- However, if one asks, what is the best reason for going
- to college, one has to think, because there
- are many good reasons.
- I think I would give my reason as this,
- to help fulfill one's human potentiality, to repair
- one's major deficiencies as one interprets them,
- let's say, upon high school graduation.
- I think that students should come to college
- in a sense of humility.
- It was Socrates after all who pointed out,
- I think truly, that unless one understands his own ignorance,
- he is in no position to learn.
- With that understanding, one can come to college hopeful
- that he will learn and that he will grow in wisdom.
- When should a student start planning for college?
- Actually, a student should start planning at the beginning
- of the ninth grade year.
- That soon?
- Yes.
- The colleges base their entrance requirements
- upon four years of high school.
- I see.
- So the ninth grade is really a very important part
- of the high school program.
- --the schools begin getting information
- to students that soon?
- Yes, we start preparing in the eighth grade.
- At the end of the eighth grade year, each student
- is given one of our B books, a little booklet
- that will explain the entire high school program to them.
- It also explains all of our courses,
- and we have prepared in this booklet a college preparatory
- course.
- So a student can check very carefully
- and make his preparations before he starts high school.
- One of the things it would seem that a student and a parent
- would have to determine is what are the alternatives
- to going to college.
- What are they?
- Actually, a student will have several possibilities
- facing him.
- There are technical schools.
- Upon leaving high school, many of the boys
- are concerned with military service.
- Some students are interested in apprenticing in the trades,
- also going right to work from high school.
- How does a student determine whether he should go to college
- or whether he should go to a technical school
- or what have you?
- Very often, his academic success in high school
- will be a determining factor.
- A student's own planning, the interest of parents,
- there are many, many factors involved in this,
- and we try to work on an individual basis
- with each student in the high school.
- Are there various kinds of tests which can be taken?
- Yes, we have complete records in the high school
- on each student.
- We keep a complete record of all the tests
- they have taken from elementary clear through high school.
- We also have tests that they take in high school that
- are all recorded.
- We use this.
- We also have teachers recommendations, various types
- of information available for our use.
- Dean McDonald, you're part of the team that
- goes out to the joint high school college
- visitations and talks with high school students about college.
- Most other colleges do this as well.
- What do you find to be the major concern of high school students
- these days with regard to asking you questions about college?
- It's interesting that you should mention this, Al,
- because there has been a switch in the last four or five years.
- At one time, this was back in the late '40s, primarily
- the kids were interested in what kind of social life there was.
- I find a real concerted effort on the part of students
- to find out two or three things.
- One, about the academic life.
- Of course, they're all concerned about
- whether they can be admitted to college.
- And thirdly, they're concerned about the social life,
- in other words, what goes on at your institution
- in the extracurricular hours, or the hours beyond classes.
- But in their interests, social life
- is taking a secondary position now?
- I would say so.
- And I think we're finding is true on our campus as well
- as many other campuses.
- It's axiomatic that the first quarter
- requires some pretty severe adjustments
- on the part of a student.
- What do these adjustments involve?
- Well primarily, I think, in living.
- In our particular institution now, we
- have graduated from a commuters' college
- to a residential college.
- And the business of living in dormitories
- or living groups where there are more than yourself
- living in a room, as you do at home--
- I'm talking about the students now.
- They find that there is a real adjustment,
- a give and take that they haven't had to have up to now,
- unless they've had to fight their way with their brothers
- and sisters along the way.
- This is one of the major adjustment problems they have.
- The other is that we get many high school
- leaders that come here who were leaders in their own schools.
- But when they get here, they find
- that it's a real job to get into the social, political,
- and other aspects of college living.
- This is one other aspect of their adjustment.
- And I think third, and primarily the basic one,
- is the adjustment to the types of classes
- they're going to be taking, particularly in our instance
- the humanities class that is organized.
- This is sometimes new to these kids, the idea
- that more than one course would be incorporated
- into a solid course and be presented by several lecturers
- and then broken down into reading sections.
- The biggest difference I found was that in, actually,
- your classes as a whole, because in high school
- I was used to everything just being more or less spoonfed
- to me.
- And now I'm in college, and I find
- myself sitting in a lecture and having to take
- notes for almost a whole hour.
- And professors aren't conscious of that.
- They have these certain facts that they
- want to get across to you, and they
- expect you to be able to pick these that out.
- Well, it's very difficult just coming right straight from high
- school to be able to do this, and I
- think that's one of the biggest problems that I've had.
- Learn to take good notes.
- Right.
- How do you learn to take good notes?
- Well, I feel that you learn to take good notes by outlining
- everything, because the professor has usually prepared
- his talk according to an outline,
- and if you can translate this back into an outline,
- it'll be very easy to study your notes.
- It's also logical.
- In high school, you tend to go to school at 8:00 or 9:00,
- and you get out of 3:15 or so.
- It's not like that on campus.
- Do you find that that causes a problem in the transition
- from high school to college?
- Well, it's a little different.
- You find that you have so much more time.
- You have, say, one hour between a class,
- and you can go and go over your notes for the next class
- or study and read.
- I think this, too, tends to give you more time to waste.
- If you go back to the dorm, then you waste the time in walking
- and maybe chat awhile, and so it's important,
- I think, to take advantage of every minute that you have.
- What about extracurricular activities?
- Well, myself, I've had a chance to be
- an editor in The Collegian and have a lead in Mice and Men
- this quarter.
- And I know I always post an hour in the newspaper office.
- Usually, I have two to three hours a day.
- And then for the play, I assign two or three hours,
- three or four nights of the week.
- And then for my studies, I try to figure out
- each week just how much studying I
- have to do in the different subjects,
- whether there's going to be a test or not,
- and more or less make out a schedule
- and then have it flexible enough so that I can
- change if anything comes up.
- Apparently in your case, the activities
- don't interfere with the academic aspect?
- No.
- You find this generally to be true?
- Quite a few students tend to, as soon as they get up to college,
- to kind of let their hair down and just jump into almost
- every activity they can find.
- This tends to take away from their schoolwork.
- More emphasis is put on who you can know, why you know them,
- what they can do for you, rather than what you can learn.
- You've got to guard against that?
- Sometimes.
- Now, I mean, you can be completely opposed
- to that and just study, whereby you aren't known,
- you don't know anything about the school.
- If you talk to someone about the school,
- the advantages of the school, they
- couldn't tell you about them.
- Oh, I believe that you get an education from both aspects.
- Like Noel and Wes both said, you have to learn from studying,
- and you have to learn from people.
- And I think that you should be able to be
- a well-rounded person, and be that in the sense
- that you can participate in both things and you can compromise.
- You can get the things that are important from your friends,
- from your activities, and from your studying.
- And being able to do them both is very important in college.
- Especially your first year.
- I think that being a freshman is a training period anyway,
- and so I would feel that it would be better
- to join too many clubs and then later find out, because you're
- going to be finding out a lot of things
- that you never knew before.
- And so this is a good time to try it out.
- I think it would be better to join too many than not enough.
- So many that you flunk out the first quarter?
- No, I think you should be able to realize
- before you get to that point that you're in too many.
- On the campus, I do find that there
- is more of a trend towards social activities
- that involve a little cultural aspect, lectures
- and special art exhibits.
- Our Viking Union does a good deal of work in this regard.
- One of the problems is always, Al,
- that a kid needs to get adjusted to academic life
- first before he takes on more than he can chew
- as far as social life is concerned, because it can lead
- to some problems of having a great time while you're going
- to college but flunking out because of the amount of time
- you spend.
- Well, but these social activities
- do have a very real place in a college?
- Oh, there's no question about that.
- The old concept of the ivy covered
- walls that are full of academe with the extracurricular
- program as no part of the total college scene
- is gone by the board.
- And of course, this shifts in emphasis as time goes on.
- The point here is you do have to learn to budget your time.
- Is that right?
- So important.
- Budgeting of time is intrinsic for your education
- because if you, like I mentioned before,
- are just mainly concerned with one aspect of college,
- social life or studies, you aren't
- going to be a well-rounded individual.
- And when you do get out into the big wide world,
- you won't know which way to lean.
- The student has to determine whether he
- wants to go to the school near his home
- or whether he wants to go outside
- of town or, for that matter, outside of the state.
- What are the advantages of, well,
- it really gets down to living near ma and pa
- or getting away from ma and pa?
- This is essentially it.
- A kid that goes to a college in his own hometown
- is very often apt to run around with the same kids
- that he ran around with in high school,
- even if they're not in college.
- This can have a very disconcerting effect.
- I think the fact that a good percentage of the kids
- would like to get away from mom and pop
- while they're going to college has its advantages.
- Of course, from a financial standpoint,
- maybe spending a year or two at home
- to find out whether you can do college
- work without the additional expense of room and board away,
- although I could talk quite some time on the fact
- that it doesn't cost a great deal more
- to send a person away to college,
- assuming all other fees are the same,
- than it is to stay at home.
- One last question, and that is the old question
- of large university versus small college.
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of each kind?
- Well, we can spend considerable time on this.
- I don't think there's any question
- that the smaller a college is, the more personal
- they can be to the individual, the better the instructors can
- get to know them, the smaller the classes might be.
- Of course, it depends on the individual institution.
- I know many large institutions that
- have very good contact between faculty and students.
- I know small colleges that don't do very much in this regard.
- But by and large, the smaller classes
- in the small institution, the more personal approach
- from the professors, and the ability
- to get to the professors-- at many of the larger
- universities, for instance, you may see the professor lecturing
- and have to get an appointment that would take you
- two weeks to get in to see him in his classroom
- or in his office.
- There are always advantages to a particular type of institution,
- but it depends primarily upon the individual.
- Some kids can survive in a large university, other kids can't.
- How much does it cost to go to college?
- Well, that's quite a question.
- Actually, the costs for college might
- vary anywhere from about $800 or $900 a year
- for a student going to a public college
- and doing a conservative job of it to perhaps $2,800 or $3,000
- per year for some of the colleges.
- Now, does this include everything, including living
- expenses and the whole works?
- Generally speaking, the answer I've given
- would be yes, that it does cover everything.
- However, there are wide variations
- in the amount that individual students will spend.
- What about loans at colleges?
- Most colleges have a loan program now.
- This is a thing which seems to have
- come upon us a great deal more in the few years than formerly.
- We here at Western, for example, have a loan program
- that involves two different possibilities, one
- a regular student loan that we've
- had for some years and another, the National Defense Education
- Act loans.
- How do those NDEA loans work?
- The procedure for applying for these
- is fairly standard from one college to another.
- Mm-hmm.
- And if a student makes an application
- in the state of Washington on the regular uniform application
- blank, which is used widely by all the colleges,
- this can be applied as an application for a student
- loan or an NDEA loan.
- The amounts that are legal in this particular connection
- are $1,000 maximum, but in fact, the average
- is closer to $475 to $500 a year.
- I see.
- Would it be true to say that generally loans are
- easier to come by and perhaps in larger
- amounts at private colleges than at public colleges?
- I think the answer in general would have to be yes.
- What about scholarships and work grants,
- are these fairly readily available at colleges?
- Again, this varies widely from one college to another.
- Most of the private colleges I think,
- and from my standpoint somewhat unfortunately,
- are able to offer a greater amount of money
- in scholarships than would be true in the public colleges.
- However, almost all colleges do have some sort
- of scholarship program.
- This oftentimes is weighted rather heavily toward freshmen,
- and it tapers off pretty markedly
- toward the junior and senior year.
- This is something that a potential college student who
- wants to know about scholarships and work grants,
- he should find that information out
- from the specific institution that he's interested in?
- Yes, very definitely.
- What about personal expenses, what part
- do they play in the overall college expense program?
- Well, this is probably the tackiest point
- in the whole bundle, really.
- We can predict pretty closely what
- a student is going to spend for standard costs, room
- and board, tuition, fees, even some incidental expenses,
- the cost of books and that sort of thing.
- But when it comes to the individual,
- his personal tastes in what he does after hours
- is going to determine the total cost.
- And this, of course, is a highly individual matter.
- And to this point of personal expenses,
- that's where a budgeted college financial setup
- with family and student could really go awry?
- Very definitely, and frequently does.
- And what about budgeting money?
- Have any thoughts on that?
- Well, I think that a college student should have a checking
- account, and it's a good experience for him
- to handle money so in later life he'll be able to--
- You find there's a problem in the transition?
- Did you handle a lot of money regularly
- day to day in high school?
- I've never handled a lot of money.
- But no, I didn't handle very much money in high school.
- But up here I think that most students get along with it.
- I don't think many of them go into the hole.
- I've found the easiest way is I have my money in a banking
- account back home.
- I have my parents send up a check each week for $5.00,
- and $5.00 a week is more than enough if I budget my money.
- For your personal expenses?
- But if I don't budget my money, I'm
- borrowing and paying off when I get my next check.
- Would you all agree that it's nice to have a parent sending
- a check every month?
- I haven't.
- You don't think so?
- I like to be able to be on my own.
- In a sense, it's kind of like being grown up.
- And you are, you're becoming a young adult,
- and just part of budgeting your money and your time
- goes along with it.
- And it's a challenge to me, and I
- want to be able to prove that I can do it.
- Here is a booklet called The Cost
- of Four Years of College, which can be
- made available to our viewers.
- Is that a fairly accurate statement
- of the expenses of almost all of the colleges in the United
- States?
- Yes, I've looked this booklet over before,
- and I think that it is really quite an adequate summary
- of the total cost picture from one college to another
- and will give a student a basis for determining generally
- what the expenses would be at a given institution.
- I like particularly the part that's
- on page four, in which they give the student an opportunity
- to sketch out very briefly what his estimate would
- be of his total budget for a given year.
- Are these figures up to date?
- There are some problems in that connection.
- Most booklets of this kind run about a year behind, in that it
- takes nearly that long to get the figures
- collected initially.
- Well, you mentioned that parents were an important factor.
- Could you expand on that just a moment?
- Yes, indeed.
- We really welcome parents coming in.
- Those of us in the counseling department are available.
- Appointments can be made.
- We certainly welcome them in here.
- We would like to sit down and discuss the student's
- possibilities and help in their planning and anything
- that we can do.
- Does the attitude of a parent with regard to his child going
- to college make a difference?
- Oh, yes.
- I think so.
- Very much so.
- Parental encouragement at home, parental interest
- is a very major factor in helping a young person decide
- what ultimately he should do.
- I notice this large book here.
- I assume this is some of the material you
- have available to help students with college.
- What kind of materials do you have?
- Oh, actually we have a great mass of material available.
- We have bulletins and catalogs from dozens of colleges
- in the department here.
- We keep files on the colleges in the state
- and also many of the colleges out of the state.
- And what is this book here?
- This is a new service that we subscribed to a few years ago.
- It's a college admissions data service.
- This book is renewed twice each year for us
- to keep it very current, and--
- It contains what kind of information?
- It contains all the information concerning
- entrance requirements, the test needed, the admission
- procedures, expenses of college.
- Every bit of information--
- Every bit of information in this book is on two pages.
- It's very rapid to work with, and--
- Does it contain scholarship information?
- Yes, it also contains-- each school
- has a complete section on financial aids available.
- And you have complete information here
- to help students going after scholarships and work grants?
- Yes.
- The types of help that you can give a student in planning
- for college, most high schools provide
- these kinds of counseling--
- I think so, today.
- We feel fortunate here in the staff
- that we have and the information available,
- but we have considerable amounts of information in this office
- on many of the schools.
- We have it in all of the schools in the state
- and many of the schools in other states.
- If we do not have it, we have information
- that we can give parents or students as
- to where they can very easily receive information
- of this type.
- With regard to admission requirements,
- I think that colleges generally throughout the nation
- are stiffening these to some degree.
- How do they go about it, and what
- problems does this pose for a potential college student?
- Well, first of all, I can tell you
- that it proposes a problem for colleges because--
- I think this is true at Washington State and most
- of the colleges in this area that with the increase
- in admission requirements, it seems that our freshman
- classes are becoming more and more predominantly women.
- This is one aspect of it.
- But essentially, when a college looks
- for the establishment of admission standards, what
- they're primarily concerned with are several aspects.
- I don't think any college uses one criteria.
- But they're looking for great achievement in high school,
- and this, incidentally, is the best single indicator
- of success in college.
- They're looking for test information,
- and practically every school in this state
- looks to the Washington Pre- College Differential Battery.
- Then they're looking for, to a certain extent,
- recommendations from the counselors and the like.
- These are essentially what most colleges look to for admission.
- What is the purpose of stiffening these requirements?
- Well, I think it basically came up in most colleges because
- of the attrition rate at the end of the first year,
- and this was reaching amazing proportions.
- About 50% of the freshman classes of many colleges
- were not around for the second year.
- Flunked out?
- Not necessarily all flunked out, but a good percentage of them
- had not achieved what we would call academic success,
- or had, at our particular institution, a 2.0 grade
- average at the end of the first year.
- Marriage, and many of these other things,
- and financial problems caused people to leave school,
- but we were very concerned, as are most colleges.
- Then of course, you have to look at it from the standpoint
- that if you have difficulty in determining
- who is going to be admitted, certainly the ones that
- have proven themselves.
- One hears these days a great deal about closing of college
- doors, about the lessening of opportunity to go to college,
- and nearly everything that one hears is true.
- We know, for instance, that in many, many colleges
- before this decade is out, enrollments will double.
- We know that there will be new colleges starting,
- as there have recently been new colleges and universities begun
- over the nation.
- In spite of these growing enrollments and the institution
- of new colleges and universities,
- there are going to be many difficulties
- in the way of students getting into the college
- that they particularly choose.
- The colleges themselves are facing
- a number of difficulties.
- They are finding it hard to recruit the able
- staff that they all want.
- They are finding it hard to keep up with their building
- program, to get enough dormitory rooms and classrooms
- and all of the other kind of specialized space
- which is necessary in the modern college.
- Private colleges are having their difficulties
- in boosting their endowments.
- Publicly-supported colleges are having their troubles
- in getting enough money from their state legislatures
- to continue their growth in quality and quantity.
- What should the student do, we hear the question asked,
- in order the best to prepare himself
- for college, if indeed he is thinking of going to college?
- The answer to this is complex.
- If I had to give one answer, I think it would be,
- work on your language.
- Improve your language skills.
- Become a good reader, an avid reader.
- Practice your writing of the English language.
- A great number of the students who come to college
- but don't make the grade fail because their English is not
- up to mark.
- Different colleges suit different needs.
- I think that the choice of a college
- is a serious one, one that deserves a student's best
- attention.
- It is necessary, I think, both to know oneself
- and to know one's college to make the best possible choice.