Test 2

Scratch that. Let me SHOW YOU...
Each year we try to do a team "thing" for Halloween. For example, last year we went as a set of dominoes. So this year my good pal Wendy thought that superlatives would be a cool idea.

From left to right:

• Joanne was "Most Likely To Eat Your Chocolate"
• Sam was "Most Likely To Run A Marathon"
• Audrey was the "Class Nerd"
• Liz was "Most Artistic"
• Wendy was "Most Likely To Be Cold"
• I went with "Most Athletic" (which was done completely in irony)

While there were a couple of other folks that dressed up, I was somewhat disappointed with the overall turnout. Who wants to pass-up an opportunity to "dress down" at work?!

First of all, AWESOME.

Secondly, lots of folks are picking apart the trailer and looking at some serious nuance. But you don't have to dive too deeply for the good stuff:

The first live-action Star Wars series will take place a few years after Return of the Jedi. Whoever the Mandalorian is under his mask, he’s no friend of the Empire. The trailer shows the Mandalorian methodically making his way through former Imperial soldiers. He also has an on-board carbon freezing chamber to deal with his targets. That makes things a lot easier when turning them in for bounties.

All accounts are that the writers are keeping this series after Episode IV (Return of the Jedi) - when the Empire fell - but prior to the rise of the First Order.

I cannot WAIT for November 12th! How about you?

Last month at the 2019 National Conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling (aka, "NACAC"), the body voted to amend its Code of Ethics and Principles of Practice (CEPP) in response to the Department of Justice's investigation (I previously teed'up the topic here).

So, what does it all mean?

Here's the background. The CEPP formerly stated:

• Colleges must not offer incentives exclusive to students applying or admitted under an early decision application plan. Examples of incentives include the promise of special housing, enhanced financial aid packages, and special scholarships for early decision admits. Colleges may, however, disclose how admission rates for early decision differ from those for other admission plans.
• College choices should be informed, well-considered, and free from coercion. Students require a reasonable amount of time to identify their college choices; complete applications for admission, financial aid, and scholarships; and decide which offer of admission to accept. Once students have committed themselves to a college, other colleges must respect that choice and cease recruiting them.
• Colleges will not knowingly recruit or offer enrollment incentives to students who are already enrolled, registered, have declared their intent, or submitted contractual deposits to other institutions. May 1 is the point at which commitments to enroll become final, and colleges must respect that. The recognized exceptions are when students are admitted from a wait list, students initiate inquiries themselves, or cooperation is sought by institutions that provide transfer programs.
• Colleges must not solicit transfer applications from a previous year’s applicant or prospect pool unless the students have themselves initiated a transfer inquiry or the college has verified prior to contacting the students that they are either enrolled at a college that allows transfer recruitment from other colleges or are not currently enrolled in a college.

My emphases.

So, all of that sounds reasonable, right? Well, not according to the United States Department of Justice. The DOJ went through the CEPP and picked it apart pretty good:

Colleges must not offer incentives exclusive to students applying or admitted under an early decision application plan.

The Department of Justice believes this prohibits colleges from offering incentives exclusive to students applying or admitted under an Early Decision application plan. Department of Justice staff claims that this prohibits competition among colleges for Early Decision applicants.

Once students have committed themselves to a college, other colleges must respect that choice and cease recruiting them.

The Department of Justice staff suggests that this prevents colleges from competing to continue to recruit students who may be able to lower their college costs if they remain subject to competition among colleges.

Colleges will not knowingly recruit or offer enrollment incentives to students who are already enrolled, registered, have declared their intent, or submitted contractual deposits to other institutions.

The Department of Justice staff believes that these provisions restrain competition among colleges for students and students may lower their college costs if schools remain free to solicit even students who have committed elsewhere.

Colleges must not solicit transfer applications from a previous year’s applicant or prospect pool.

According to the Department of Justice staff, this severely hampers the ability of colleges to compete for transfer students.

Okay, okay, DOJ. We get it. You want students to be able to get the best deal possible. And that certainly has the potential to be a good thing.

So why are institutions of higher education freaking out about these changes? Simple: the original language in the CEPP helped to level the proverbial playing field - from the institutional perspective.

Prior to the removal of the CEPP provisions, colleges and universities respected a student's decision to commit to another institution. Based on the data available to them (e.g. cost of the institution, the financial aid package that the institution offered the student, academic fit, social fit, etc.), the student was expected to make an informed decision about their plans for their own higher education.

Then, once College X became aware that Sally was going to attend College Y, College X would remove Sally from their mailing lists, email campaigns, and other recruitment activities. Sally had made an informed decision (again, based on the data available), and College X would back away. Students typically made their decision around May 1st each year (aka, "National Decision Day").

But in this New World without the aforementioned CEPP provisions, college and universities can continue to recruit - and incentivise - students beyond May 1st. That means that recruiting students could potentially continue right up until the start of the fall term in August or September, or beyond.

Now College X no longer has to respectfully bow-out when Sally has made and communicated her decision to attend College Y. Instead, College X is able to do a lot of, "Are you sure Sally?" and "Here's another five thousand dollars to sweeten the deal for you to attend College X Sally. What do you say to that?"

Yikes.

Recently, at an event where we invite high school counselors to come visit the University Park campus, I had a frank conversation with a counselor from eastern Pennsylvania. In it, the counselor questioned "How can this be a bad thing? These changes will only serve to benefit the student!" And that counselor is not wrong. Honestly, this is something that I do grapple with because in the end, many students can and will benefit from opportunities presented to them. But, the question that always reels me back in is (somewhat ironically), but at what cost? 

I worry that college and universities will be forced into operating like a used car dealership does. When a family says, "Well, Institution X is giving Little Johnny $5,000 more than you are - what can you do for Johnny?" the admissions representative will be forced to reply, "Well, let me go talk to my manager..."

Bottom line: I don't think that most institutions of higher education want to be likened to used car dealers.

And then there is the view from a different angle: those in the financial planning sector. This makes my skin crawl:

Now middle and upper-income investment clients who would usually pay full-price for college will think you’re a genius when you show them how to negotiate $5,000-$10,000 a year off their cost!

Or...

Every financial advisor can now capture new clients by merely showing families how to NEGOTIATE price reductions from colleges!

The bottom line is colleges can now “poach” good students from other colleges ANYTIME using “money incentives”. Financial advisors can clean house showing new investment clients how to get these money incentives from colleges.

This new change creates a free market for colleges to lure good students away from other colleges at any time by only offering more money. This will create tremendous price competition between colleges. In other words, college recruiting just got more competitive!

Or...

These new regulations create an opportunity of a lifetime for financial advisors!
Most state schools are priced at $35,000 and up. Private college prices range from $50,000 to almost $80,000. It’s not that high-income investment clients cannot afford to pay that full price, THEY JUST DON’T WANT TO!

As a Certified College Funding Specialists (CCFS®), you will be trained in appealing college financial award letters and showing families how to negotiate the price of college. The only difference is now high net-worth families are in the driver’s seat for these price incentives because they have the money to pay the balance of the tuition bill.

If you are not using “college” in your current investment practice, you should be. The result of this change by NACAC is an opportunity of a lifetime for financial advisors. I encourage you to learn more about becoming a Certified College Funding Specialist® and help these families take advantage of the changing landscape in college planning.

All quotes taken from the same industry blog post by a gent named Ron Them. And I think fear that this type of attitude will continue to invade the higher education landscape, much to the chagrin of almost everyone.

In the end, at least right now, it appears that NACAC is hoping that colleges and universities will take the proverbial high-road:

David Hawkins, executive director for educational content and policy at NACAC, said, "We are aware that colleges are taking advantage of the new space created by the elimination of the three ethical/professional practice standards at the heart of the Department of Justice investigation. We are also aware that there are institutions taking advantage of the moratorium on enforcement of our ethical principles. We encourage institutions to consider the best interests of students, and protect their ability to make informed enrollment decisions without being subjected to undue pressure. We also encourage colleges to consider the equity implications for their admission policies, given the significant gaps in college access for underserved populations."

We'll just have to wait and see. I think that we'll have a much clearer picture of how this plays out come May 2020...

So, I woke up with aches and a sore throat. I haven't taken a sick day from work in probably two years. Rarely do I get the opportunity to just kick it on the couch with nobody else except for the doggo. Today, that's just what I'm doing.

In addition to playing around on the Series of Tubes, I decided to play some Fortnite and, lo and behold!, I set some new personal records. Here's a grab of me at 16 kills:


Previously, my record was 10!

And on the 17th frag, I got the victory:


I'm telling you, the advent of skill-based matchmaking has really benefited my game! That, or I'm actually getting kind of good? Maybe I should become a streamer...

Nevermind that I love Adam Driver's work - this Amazon Prime film looks excellent:

FBI agent Daniel Jones performs an exhaustive investigation into the CIA's use of torture on suspected terrorists. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the CIA adopted new interrogation techniques.

The political drama debuts on November 15th.

With Disney Plus starting a couple of days before this, and my birthday a few days after, November is shaping up to be a pretty awesome month!

Yesterday we hosted our semi-annual gathering of high school counselors at Penn State - something that we call the Counselor Advisory Group. The purpose of the organization is to maintain a dialogue with our strong partners and collaborators on the secondary school side of the desk.

We had a great conversation that spanned everything from the "personality" of the Class of 2020 to the recent changes in the NACAC CEPP (and I'll have more on that specific topic soon).

Anyway, the conversations that were had on campus yesterday (and at an informal dinner on Sunday evening) had me reflecting on the role of high school counselors in the life of students - and I was reminded of a simple infographic that I saw recently:


Changing the nomenclature that people use is almost always difficult. However, as the graphic lays out, the change makes sense.

Now, if I could just understand why my kids' school district has decided to call students "learners"...

Dude.

Although, /Film asks some good questions:

As is the case with all new Star Wars movies pre-release, there are more questions than answers about The Rise of Skywalker. Is the Emperor really back? Will this story retcon the details about Rey’s parents that we learned in The Last Jedi? Is Rey going to the Dark Side? Will Rey and Kylo finally stop fighting and start smooching, as so many internet fans want? How does Luke, who technically died in the previous film, figure into things? And just what the hell does that title mean? These answers will presumably be answered this December, but for now, let’s all sit back and enjoy this trailer.

Sit back and enjoy, indeed. While I'm stoked to see the final film in the saga, I don't want to rush things. I've still got Disney+ coming up next month - and by proxy, The Mandalorian!

source: MovieWeb.com

Via Screenrant (who got it from an interview with Empire magazine):

I don’t see them. I tried, you know? But that’s not cinema. Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.

And what the heck is wrong with a theme park?

Recently, while sitting on a panel at the British Film Institute’s London Film Festival, Scorsese expanded on those comments:

The value of a film that’s like a theme park film, for example, the Marvel type pictures where the theaters become amusement parks, that’s a different experience. As I was saying earlier, it's not cinema, it’s something else. Whether you go for that or not, it is something else and we shouldn’t be invaded by it. And so that’s a big issue, and we need the theater owners to step up for that to allow theaters to show films that are narrative films.

I must respectfully disagree with the legendary director and filmmaker. In the MCU movies in particular there are some very complex characters. Oh sure, early on the Tony Stark character was pretty one-dimensional. But in the later movies (I'd say from Captain America: Civil War forward), the depth of the persona was built really well (credit certainly due to the excellent writing and portrayal by Robert Downey, Jr.).

But also, while he knocks MCU movies (and I would assume any movie in the "superhero" genre), he starts by admitting that he doesn't "see them". You should really check some of these films out Marty - you might be surprised by what you see...

A colleague texted me a link to this clip from a recent CBS News story entitled "The Price You Pay: The Spiraling Cost of College". I'm embedding the segment below, starting at the 1:10 mark (but feel free to watch in its entirety). Check it:



I have to take issue with one key thing in this report; the host picked seemingly random spots on College Avenue to "survey" Penn State students.

Sorry to bother you. Hey, I've got a quick question: raise your hand if you're from Pennsylvania.

Nevermind that this statement is a statement and not a question. More importantly, it is also not scientific.

Tony Dokoupil questions (as best as I can tell from the clip) approximately seven students at a CATA bus stop, and only one is from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Quick math: that's 14 percent of the students "surveyed". Ouch. That really looks bad.

But hey, all institutions of higher education have thing cool thing called a Common Data Set. Penn State's is HERE. At the Common Data Set you can find all sorts of interesting... well... data about the institution. Things like the University Factbook that describes in nuanced detail student residency:

source: Penn State Factbook

Well, would'ya look at that! In-state students outnumber out-of-state students by more than 30 percent! And that's if you include Penn State's online World Campus (which you would expect to have a higher out-of-state population - and does not have a tuition differential based on residency). If you take the World Campus out of the equation, then you find that it's a nearly 40 percent difference.

Even at the University Park campus - the largest and arguably most visible nationally - there is a 15 percent difference in in- versus out-of-state students.

[Note: This is only the undergraduate data, as that is what the segment seems to be focused upon. If you're interested in the whole kit and kaboodle, hit that info here.]

But of course this data doesn't support the picture that Mr. Dokoupil is trying to paint: we universities spend SO much money that we have to intentionally focus our efforts on students that will pay a higher tuition rate (i.e. out-of-state and international students). Granted, the appearance of over-indulgence at LSU with the "lazy river" is an on-the-nose example of that.

So what are colleges doing with all of your extra money? Some of it goes to teaching of course. But most does not.

What "extra" money? The students' tuition dollars? How is that "extra"? And where is your data to support the assertion that it's not going to teaching? How much is some? How much is most? The questions go on and on...

In the interview portion with Dr. Renu Khator, the president and chancellor of the University of Houston, he asks why institutions don't scale some things back to keep the cost of tuition down. Given that question, I find it interesting that he didn't report on or even mention the fact that in July the Penn State Board of Trustees APPROVED A TUITION FREEZE FOR PENNSYLVANIA STUDENTS FOR THE SECOND YEAR IN A ROW:

Penn State trustees have approved a 2019-20 budget that would freeze undergraduate tuition rates for Pennsylvania resident students at all campuses for the second straight year, and the third time in the last five years.

The total cost of attendance will still increase about 1 percent due to previously approved housing and dining services increases, but Penn State President Eric Barron called the proposed tuition freeze a key part of his plan to keep Penn State affordable to as many Pennsylvanians as possible.

Sorry. Am I yelling?

Are out-of-state and international students important to the life of an institution? Yes. Do colleges and universities develop strategic recruitment initiatives to target out-of-state and international students? Absolutely. However, that does NOT mean that a land-grant institution like Penn State is only enrolling those higher-paying populations.

I will certainly concede that there are areas in higher education where plenty of criticism is worthy; the rising costs of tuition and the salaries for executives and coaches, to name a couple. But I believe that the part of this segment where he targets Penn State is not one such area that is worthy. Data is fun, perhaps Mr. Dokoupil should have actually included some in his reporting while he was on campus.

So, I got the chance to play for a bit last night and, while I hate the fact that I don't know where I'm going on the new island, the gameplay is MUCH improved. The screenshot above is a couple of minutes before I took a 3rd place with 8 eliminations (for reference, I average two or three per game). After that game I took a silver medal in a match where I had seven kills.

This morning I played a "quick" game (is there such a thing?) while I was on the stationary bike at the gym. Six eliminations and a 2nd place - while maintaining 90-100 RPMs!

Check out the Chapter 2 trailer:



The screenshot that I posted above doesn't really do the new version much justice. The look and feel - while familiar - are quite different. The graphics appear to be more "clean" than in the prior seasons/chapter. The weapons in your cache look different than before, and some even act differently. And, perhaps most noticeable, the map is completely different. More locations, and a lot more space to explore.

And all of this feedback is based on my mobile experience. PC and console versions are bound to be even better.

So, what do you think? Was it worth the wait of the Black Hole?

Dark. Funny. And I think that David Harbour makes a great Oscar The Grouch.

Beginning with tests in September of next year, the ACT has committed to offering three new features:

1. Section re-testing:

ACT Section Retesting helps students focus study efforts on individual subjects that are part of the ACT test (English, math, reading, science, or writing) without having to study for the entire test again. ACT Section Retesting is available to all students who have taken the full ACT test. Students can retake one or more single-section subject tests at approved ACT test centers across the US, to improve their scores.

2. Online testing:

Online ACT Testing will allow ACT’s testing experience to better align with how today’s students often prefer to learn and the mode they prefer for testing. Starting in September 2020, students will be able to choose to take the ACT test online or with paper. Giving students a choice allows them to focus on what’s most important: doing their best on the test. Students who take the test online will get faster test results. In fact, students will receive their multiple-choice test scores and ACT Composite score as early as two business days after the test date. This allows students to make better, more informed, and timely decisions about the schools and scholarships to which they apply.

3. Reporting of super scores:

To support the growing trend of students taking the ACT test multiple times, score report options will now provide the option for students to send their best ACT test results to colleges and include a calculated ACT Superscore. Superscoring allows students to submit their highest scores for college admission and scholarship purposes. The Superscore is a recalculation which shows the highest possible composite score across multiple ACT tests and ACT Section Retests. It reflects the average of the four best subject scores from each of the student's ACT test attempts.

The impacts of this on the evaluation process for students' applications remains to be seen. However, the impact on the admissions process will be immediate.

At Penn State, we do not "superscore" an applicant's SAT or ACT exam scores (the College Board explains superscoring really well here). So if the student requests the superscored exam results to be sent to Penn State, then we aren't getting the data that we want in order to evaluate the application properly. This is just one example of a complication of these new "options" for students. I haven't dug too deeply into it yet, but I'm certain that there will be others.

But my follow-up question is this: now that the ACT will be doing this, how long before the College Board follows suit?

Give me a Guy Ritchie heist film and I'm a happy camper!

Loved Snatch. Loved all of the Robert Downey, Jr. Sherlock Holmes movies. There are few Guy-Ritchie-directed films that I don't like.

Plus, you throw some Matthew McConaughey and Colin Farrell and I'm hooked!