My A.T. Still University Experience : admissions

Admissions Counselors on Commission

SteveFoerster — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:28:00 GMT

“At a car dealership, the person who sells the car is the hero, and also gets the commission. But if the mechanics don't service that car well, the customer won't return.” — Roger Staubach

No one likes to admit being wrong, and I'm certainly no exception. But recently over on the forum I was discussing the University of Phoenix with Donald11. He insisted that they pay their admissions people on commission. I believed that federal student loan regulations prohibit this. But ultimately I was wrong and he was right, as the rule is only that commissions cannot be the only factor in how admissions people are paid, and he found a reference where the University of Phoenix say that they do use commissions as a factor in admissions compensation.

This raises an interesting discussion of its own, though. Surely the University of Phoenix isn't the only school that has this policy. What are the ramifications of admissions people being paid on commission, even just partly? Is it a problem? Some might argue that schools that have this policy will encourage their admissions people to enrol as many students as possible, whether the school is a good fit for those students or not. But then the schools have the incentive to do that anyway, especially since the amount available to each student from guaranteed federal student loans is so high. And that's true whether the schools is for profit or not. At the same time, there's not much point bringing in students if the school doesn't do a good job of giving them a reason to stay.

Perhaps the thing for all prospective students to remember is that admissions people, however friendly or even well-meaning, are there to represent the school's interests, not yours. Yes, they can be a good source of information, and for some questions one might have about a school they're the best place to get definitive answers. But whatever their title may be, they're not counselors or advisors; they're salespeople.

As a final note, comments are always welcome here, but this issue is interesting enough that I created a thread on the forum to discuss it, in case anyone's interested.

Next up, does the University of California at Berkeley really need a bailout from federal taxpayers? Their executives seem to think so.

Image courtesy of Cosmic Kitty

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The Claw Decides!

SteveFoerster — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 23:45:00 GMT

“Law school taught me one thing: how to take two situations that are exactly the same and show how they are different.” — Hart Pomerantz

So we heard back from The Claw and the verdict is that my wife was accepted to Nottingham Trent University's distance law degree program! I had told her not to worry, that she had a strong application. It was probably a good thing that she ended up speaking with the ultimate decision maker, though. Evidently there was some question whether she'd be evaluated as a university age student or as a mature student. The latter had a flexibility she needed when it came to things like A-levels, so it was in her favor that she got to explain the situation carefully. In the end she was evaluated as a mature student, and that made all the difference.

So now we have other things to worry about, such as buying the absurdly expensive law books she needs and, of course, paying tuition. As a U.S. permanent resident she's eligible for federal financial aid, which would be helpful were she actually going there to attend school (even though it's foreign), but is not because she's staying here and attending by distance. Now, I'm not sure what the rationale is for the difference, I mean, by staying here she's contributing more to the U.S. economy than the British one, so one would think that would be an American policy maker's preference, but alas this is not the case.

Anyway, by next month she needs to have sent in a deposit, after which she'll receive her books list for the first term. The way her program works, she'll study one subject intensively at a time, three subjects per year, for four years. She's glad for this sort of format, as it allows her to be single minded about each thing during its time.

Now that the stress of getting the application in and the response back is over, it's also finally sunk in that she's really just signed up for four years of something pretty intense. She's confident about her ability to succeed, but fortunately she's not overconfident. She's asking me whether I really think she can do it. Yes, I do — in fact I think I'd be more worried if she were saying things like, "Yah man, no problem, this will be easy."

Next up, multimedia and the future of education.

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My Wife the Law School Student... We Hope!

SteveFoerster — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 23:59:00 GMT

“The Claw chooses who will go and who will stay.” — Alien #2, Toy Story

For many years my wife Adella has talked about how she wants to go to law school. This is an interesting situation, because we're in the U.S. for now but ultimately we plan to return permanently to Dominica, in the Caribbean. That means she needs to do a law program that would allow her to practice law there, but it also has to allow her to practice law here at least for a while.

The problem is that because of our family schedule, distance learning is one of her requirements, and if you want to practice law in the U.S., your distance learning options are very limited. The American Bar Association has a death grip on accreditation of law schools, and squeezes tightly to ensure that distance learning options aren't available. And it's understandable that they do — they last thing need is for it to be convenient for people to go to law school, why, then there would be more lawyers out there, and that would mean more competition to drive down legal fees!

As with any sufficiently complex system, though, there are loopholes. The biggest is California, which is unique among U.S. states in that it has an alternate system where programs approved by the state bar association allow one to take the bar exam in that state. Since some of those programs are available by distance, it's possible to do a JD degree online from one of them if one is okay with only being able to practice in California, at least initially.

Unfortunately, we don't live in California so that doesn't work for her. And then there's another wrinkle in that she doesn't have a Bachelor's degree. In most English-speaking countries, law school is a first degree, called a Bachelor of Laws or LLB. In the U.S., it's a similar program, but it requires a Bachelor's to apply, and the degree is a Juris Doctor, or JD.

So what about foreign schools with distance learning programs? This is especially useful for my wife in that those programs are mostly at British schools, and since Dominica inherited its legal system from the British, it's possible to practice there with a British law degree, and many attorneys there do exactly that.

The question, then, is how much use a British law degree is in the U.S. It turns out that the answer depends on in which state you want to practice. We live in Virginia, and it seems that a British law degree doesn't get you very far in this state, but that if one has a British LLB one can practice in either D.C. or Maryland by going on for an extra year to get an American LLM, or Master of Laws degree. We're just fifteen minutes from either of those jurisdictions, so that might be the best option.

So, with it reasonably settled that an LLB from a British school with a distance learning program would meet all her criteria, she then had to find one that would be a good fit. The best known and most prestigious is the University of London External Programme, but it's a notoriously difficult program, and she's concerned it wouldn't be easy to balance with family and work responsbilities. There's the Open University, which is well regarded, but unfortunately they don't admit students who live outside the EU. There's Northumbria University, which requires more visits to campus (i.e., trips to England) than would be convenient for us. But finally there's Nottingham Trent University, where annual visits would do, and where the overall cost of the program is about eighteen thousand dollars.

Then she spoke with a friend who's an attorney in Ireland and now New York who has an LLB from Nottingham Trent and recommends them highly. So she applied to Nottingham Trent a while ago as a first choice. After a while she called them to see whether they'd received all the materials she sent, and ended up speaking with a very nice lady who it turns out is the decision maker on her application. Even though she was so pleasant, Adella couldn't help but later admit to me that she thought of her as The Claw since she's the one who chooses who will go to Nottingham Trent and who will stay out.

Anyway, she's supposed to hear from The Claw next week. Here's hoping that she's selected!

Next up, The Claw decides!

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More Q & A on My First Semester

SteveFoerster — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:26:00 GMT

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” – Matthew 7:7

I recently heard from reader Chris White, who emailed me a number of insightful questions the answers to which expand on my last post, so with his okay I thought I'd edit our conversation and share it here.

I have been reading your blog on your A.T. Still experience. How are the classes and what are the assignments?

I took two courses my first term, the first of two I'll do on Finance in Higher Education, and the first course on Research. Both of these were good. The coursework so far is geared toward two things, first getting you active in your dissertation process literally from Day One, with the rest focusing on developing skills useful for university administration.

In the Research course we decided first thing what our research topic would be for the dissertation. Just like that! That sounds intimidating, but during the admissions process I was sent information about this and what to expect, and it let me know to consider this even before class began. This was also less of a deal for me because I had the topic before I even applied. We then put together a problem statement with subproblems, did an initial review of the literature,
recruited committee members, and did an initial research proposal. It was intense, but not unmanageable.

The Finance course revolved around a series of assignments that culminated in development of a five year budget for a university department. It required competent use of a spreadsheet, but not prior Accounting or Finance coursework.

Both courses required a lot of interaction through discussion boards. As doctoral students, we were expected to be useful enough to comment helpfully on our colleagues' research proposals and department budgets, and I indeed found that my classmates had good ideas that I hadn't considered. Both courses also featured experienced instructors who were supportive and fair graders, and who didn't micromanage their courses the way one might find in an undergraduate course.

The only thing I didn't really understand was that in the Finance course there were two times when we were assigned to write about the first chapter of our dissertations. As a first term student I didn't even know what mine was going to be at that point, so that was a little confusing. Also, while I understand that the idea is to incorporate the dissertation process within the coursework -- and that's part of what attracted me to the program in the first place! -- I didn't find that particular assignment was very confluent with the flow of a Finance course.

Next term I'll be taking two courses again. One will be on proposal writing, which means how to apply for grants, a very useful skill for a university faculty or staff member. The other will be a seven semester-hour Dissertation course, about which I actually don't know very much, and which I think at this point I'm equally excited about and dreading! It's the first of four I'll take throughout the program, and I know it's where I'll do the bulk of the research and writing for my dissertation.

I realize you are also starting the dissertation, is there a lot of writing during the week as well?

There's a pretty good amount of writing, but it's not an overpowering amount. Although, I have an advantage here that I do a lot of writing and when I get going I can write a lot of material pretty quickly. Of course, at this level just writing a lot of stuff isn't enough. One's responses must be researched, at least those on the assignments.

Just curious to how much time you have been spending a week for class.

I'd say I spend about fifteen hours per week on classwork. It was a lot, but not unworkable. I was okay with the two courses, but I wouldn't want to try three at a time. In fact, I could tell that I was at capacity because once or twice I had something happen at work or at home and it meant assignments coming in a few days late as I worked to catch up.

Anyway, the next term will start on Monday, so next up will be a look ahead at what's to come.

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The DHEd Program's Admissions Selectivity and Academic Rigor

SteveFoerster — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:01:00 GMT

I was recently a number of questions about the admissions process and academic rigor of my program, the Doctor of Health Education at A.T. Still University. Since I'm at the end of the first term of my program, so I think I'm in a position to answer.

The program does seem to have pretty open admissions, which I noticed when I was in the application process. When I first wanted information from the school, I contacted the director of the Doctor of Health Education program, and in our correspondence she seemed nothing but encouraging. When I submitted my materials it seemed more to satisfy requirements than actually to be evaluated – I never had much of a hint that I'd be denied admission unless I were actually unqualified.

But then I remembered that competitive admissions makes more sense in a classroom setting than it does online. With distance learning, there aren't physical facilities to use up. And when it comes to faculty members, unless the number of applications is truly unmanageable, there's little reason not to keep hiring to accommodate increasing demand.

And while I'm not in a position to have the real numbers here, I really doubt the number of applications for this program have been unmanageable. As a doctoral program, only those with a Master's are qualified to apply, and right there that's a pretty limited pool of prospects. Moreover, its subject matter may be keenly interesting to me, but I realize that it's not the sort of thing that will interest everyone. In other words, I expect that the selection process is done more by the applicants themselves, who hold off if the program isn't a good fit, leaving the school in a position to accommodate the remainder.

But that's just what I think based on having been through the application process and seeing that my classes aren't overloaded and my instructors don't seem to be too harried to give us the attention we need. If someone's concerned about their admissions process, I think that's a perfectly legitimate question to ask the school itself, such as the director of the program.

My peers in the program seem to bear this out as well. The program has a pretty strong emphasis on peer review of the materials that we develop, and while the comments I've received from classmates have run the gamut, many have been insightful and have contributed to my ability to improve the assignments that I submit. Of the three online programs I've taken, I'd rate my classmates in this one as the most accomplished and professionally experienced.

The other question was whether I felt the program was sufficiently academically rigorous. I'm satisfied with the level of difficulty I've had from the two courses I've taken so far.

One is my first Research course, where we covered a lot of ground quickly, including deciding on the problem statement and subproblems of our projects, discussion and selection of various research methods for our projects, recruitment of our two external reviewers, and so forth. Basically this course begins the dissertation process, something that most doctoral students don't do until two years into their programs. Not bad!

The other was the first of two courses the program requires on Finance in Higher Education. I was in pretty good shape in this course, but mainly because I had previous experience in this area. If I hadn't had experience I think I'd have found it pretty challenging, and even as it was it was critically important for me not to fall behind.

One important thing to add on the subject of rigor is that unlike in some programs my instructors at A.T. Still University understand the difference between rigor and inflexibility. When I've asked in advance for an extension it's been granted, but when I've turned in work that I know could have been a little more thorough, I've lost points. And that's the way it should be – in both regards.

Next up, I reflect on the past semester.

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