05.28.2009 - CSU’s New Campus-wide Impaction Rules and How it will Effect You

May 2009 Newsletter

For the first time in California State University (CSU) history, many of the 23 campuses will not be able to offer admission to eligible California residents. State budget cuts have forced the CSU system to operate for several years with considerably less funding while frosh applications have increased by 20 percent and transfers by 36 percent. So far, only six campuses have declared “Impaction” status: Cal Poly SLO, CSU Fullerton, CSU Long Beach, Cal Poly Pomona, San Diego State, and Sonoma State; however, many others have considered new and more rigorous admissions criteria for the incoming 2009 and 2010 classes.

Most of the six CSU campuses listed above will give priority to high school students who live in the same county as the university as long as they meet eligibility requirements and apply within the appropriate deadlines. Until just a few years ago, this policy, which has always been in place, had not impacted admissions because most CSU campuses were able to accommodate their applicant pools. But now that the CSU’s have more applicants than they can admit, they are enforcing new admission standards.

After the CSU’s admit their regional applicants, they will consider students from other areas within California. Transfers and military veterans will receive special consideration and placement. The out-of-area applicants with the highest GPAs and SAT scores will be admitted in the next wave of reviews.

Even if your preferred CSU campus is not currently impacted, some of their majors may be. Students whose majors are impacted may be admitted in a “pre-major” status, which allows them to take lower division courses in their major before they apply to the impacted major. Students who attend colleges that don’t offer “pre-major” status may not be permitted to take lower division courses in that major, which will delay their graduation date. By keeping their GPA’s as high as possible, these students can increase their odds of getting into their preferred majors.

Students who are set on attending a particular CSU can enroll in a community college nearby the University campus. By doing so, they establish residency in the area and have the opportunity to improve their grades at the college level. This is one of the easiest ways to get into any of the impacted CSUs.

For more information about individual CSUs, call their admissions offices to get the latest news about their 2009-2010 application season. Apply early to improve your chances of getting in to your top colleges!

Can student projects help solve our economic crisis? College advisor has a solution: ProjectMERIT!

While President Obama has inherited an economic disaster, everyone from nonprofits to corporations are pressuring him to finance their programs. Americans are hopeful that he will lead us out of this recession and they’re sitting tight waiting for him to solve our problems. When Americans think that the problem is too big to for them to fix, and they put blame on others, they become complacent. Our founding fathers developed this great nation with people who worked together to create a better place to live. With thousands of issues that need to be fixed, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and stop complaining. And more importantly, it’s time for our youth to step up to the plate and go to bat for their future.

By giving students the opportunity to take on special projects, they can fix many of the problems without spending the billions of dollars proposed by the current administration. When these students reach out to their communities for support and volunteer their time, they can raise funds to finance just about any endeavor. This is exactly what Susan Tatsui-D’Arcy, a college advisor and author of Beat the College Admissions Game: Do a Project!, is doing. She guides college-bound students to do a project to improve their chances of getting into top universities in the country. Here’s how she’s doing it.

With so many students with 4.0 GPAs and perfect SAT scores not getting into their first choice colleges, Tatsui-D’Arcy recommends that they do projects. Students who do independent projects dazzle admissions officers with their leadership skills, passion, and drive. When these high school seniors write their personal statements and application essays, they can enthusiastically describe how they started their project and what obstacles they overcame to achieve their goals. That’s much more impressive than simply discussing dreams of doing something important someday or volunteering at a non-profit organization.

Students select projects and work closely with Tatsui-D’Arcy. Peter Livingston engineered a brake-lighting system to warn drivers that the car in front of them is slamming on its brake, not just tapping on it. Jaclyn D’Arcy founded Kids 4 Hydrogen to promote hydrogen fuel cells. Rebecca Kassel successfully passed a law in California (SB966) to reduce the amount of prescription drugs that enter our water systems. In an effort to end gang violence, Harry Weston organized a Tru-School Hip Hop Concert and entertained at-risk students at juvenile halls. The students complete their projects during 9th through 12th grade, and many continue on in college.

Tatsui-D’Arcy says that the projects not only help the students get into their top colleges, it also makes the students more confident and responsible. They realize that their efforts accomplished something that needed to be fixed, and they learned that with good organization and tenacity, they could do anything. So, Tatsui-D’Arcy helps students select their projects based on their personal interests and desire to make a difference. She has lists of special projects and brainstorms with the students until they find the perfect fit. By working with students online across the United States and in her Santa Cruz office, Tatsui-D’Arcy’s think-tank program: ProjectMERIT, is changing America --- one project at a time!

What should college-bound students be doing during this recession?

When students see news flashes about college grads working at McDonalds because they can’t get jobs, high school students may begin to rethink their own goals. Unemployment just hit an all-time high since the Great Depression. In this unpredictable economy, many high school students are wondering how their parents will finance their college education. Nobody knows when this recession will end, or if we’ve actually hit bottom yet.

Many California state colleges have reduced the number of students they can admit, and they’ve slashed the number of courses being offered. Community colleges are unsure whether they can afford to continue their winter and summer sessions.

Even though the future may seem bleak, college grads still earn over $200,000 more than those who didn’t finish college. This recession is not here forever. When we pull ourselves out of it and begin to prosper as a nation once again, it will be those students with college degrees that will be leading the way.

In this tight economy, private colleges are offering more full-ride scholarships to under-represented minorities and to families that make less than $60,000 per year. Which students benefit from this? Those who stand out from their peers.

What these admissions committees want are students who also excel outside of the high school setting, students who demonstrate true creativity, initiative, and leadership, students who show the potential to become the next Bill Gates or Hilary Clinton.

How can you convince colleges that you have this level of talent and potential? The best way to do it is with an independent project—unlike a class project that consists simply of posters and presentations or volunteering at a local soup kitchen, an independent project is an original undertaking outside the classroom that reflects the student’s vision, initiative, tenacity, and leadership.

What could this project be? Ideally the project should reflect a student’s current passions and future aspirations. Students can start businesses, organize non-profits, write publications, produce films, conduct experiments, advocate for change, publish their own books, or build innovative alternative energy models.

When students do projects, they become confident leaders. Their projects not only help them get into top-ranked colleges and receive scholarships, they also make a difference in their community. And, in this economic climate, it may be the students who help bring us out of this recession.

Susan Tatsui-D’Arcy is the college advisor at Merit Educational Consultants, LLC and author of Beat the College Admissions Game: Do a Project!. You can purchase this book at Meritworld and meet with her online or in person. Call (831) 462-5655 to get started now!

Press Release: Working Mother's Guide to Free Child Care

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release!

Working mother shares tips on how she set up free child care for her children in her home!

With an unpredictable economy and announcements about massive layoffs, those of us who are employed don’t want to rock the boat at work or at our children’s day care centers. According to the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (CCR&R) in 2005, child care costs between $3,000 and $9,000 for each child per year, which is approximately 9-40% of family incomes (depending on marital status and state).

Susan Tatsui-D’Arcy, author of The Working Mother’s Guide to FREE Child Care in Your Home!, successfully set up child care for her two daughter and it really didn’t cost one penny. Not only did her daughters receive amazing academic preparation, her caregiver also prepared dinner, folded laundry, and ran errands! She wrote this book to show other working parents how to eliminate their child care fees and turn their homes into ideal preschools.

By inviting just a few children to join yours, their tuition covers all of your expenses (teacher wages, materials). You can create your own curriculum based on your children’s interests or you can use Merit Academy’s curriculum (available at www.meritworld.com). Tatsui-D’Arcy’s daughters started kindergarten top of their classes and went on to Stanford University and Claremont McKenna College. She says the best part about the preschool program was having it focus on her daughters; she didn’t have to abide by a long list of rules and pick-up policies of the day care centers. When she arrived home each night, her daughters greeted her with happy smiles, dinner was sitting on the table, and laundry was folded and put away.

In this uncertain economy, every family could benefit from having their own child care program in their home. Parents can work away from home because the teacher organizes the classes and works with the children. By setting up day care hours to accommodate your schedule; parents reduce their stress as well as their child care bills.

To learn more, check out these links:
Tatsui-D’Arcy’s Story
The Working Mother's Guide to FREE Child Care in Your Home!
Testimonials
Preschool Curriculum

Contact Info:
Kyle Millerick
Ecommerce Director
webadvisor@meritworld.com
(831) 462-5655

Educators

We have enclosed information about our tutorial, college admissions, and college advisory programs to post for teachers and/or parents to see. We offer a unique tutorial program that helps students to become more organized and build academic skills so they become successful in the classroom. Each one of our students is placed with tutors (one-to-one) based on their academic needs and learning styles. The students are either tutored here at Merit (in Soquel) or at the student’s home.

Students who have completed projects in the past have positively impacted the community, while significantly increasing their chances of college admissions. Our students have captured the attention of local publications, and discovered innovative ways to market themselves to the colleges of their dreams. Merit’s College Advisory offers a personalized service to support students prepare for college admissions.

Some of the unique benefits that the students receive at Merit are learning time management and organizational skills, and how to study for exams. All tutorial sessions begin with the tutor reviewing the student’s planner. To remain organized we ask students to enter all classes, all assignment due dates, AND when they plan to complete school work in their planners. By helping the student to learn how to plan the various stages of their research for papers or projects, we hope to instill good study skills. Often times, the student’s primary problem is disorganization.

Our tutors specialize in specific areas in order to be able to help the student with difficult concepts, homework and test preparation. After our Diagnostic Initial Session with our Educational Consultant, an Individual Tutorial Program is designed to build a strong academic foundation and to help the student with homework and to prepare for tests. We work with the classroom teachers to make sure assignments are turned in on time and that long-term projects are carefully scheduled in the students’ planners. Our goal is to help get the students back on track as soon as possible.

High School Guidance Counselors

Are you planning to offer a college advisory seminar for college-bound students and their parents? It's an ideal way to answer all of their questions and organize the students' college application process in one setting. As the author of Beat the College Admissions Game: Do a Project!, I am available to speak about college admissions requirements and tips on how to get into selective colleges by doing a project. As you know, students who do projects stand out and their essays are more interesting than those who don't.

If you would like to learn more about our seminars and how we can help to educate your students and parents about the college admissions process, please call me at (831) 462-5655 or email me at info@meritworld.com. We can also email you a free ebook version of our book Beat the College Admissions Game: Do a Project!.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Get your child organized!

Get your children off to a new, organized start this year by using Merit’s Planner to help your children decide when they’ll complete their homework and chores, and learn how to monitor their progress.

When your children know that you are actively aware of their day-to-day responsibilities, they’ll be more prone to completing their tasks and being honest. Ask your children to enter in their planners, all classes, after-school activities, appointments, and other scheduled meetings. With all seven days displayed in equal columns and each day divided into 15-minute increments, the Merit Planner gives students the opportunity to plan when they’ll do homework, study for tests, and hang out with friends. Most kids are unrealistic about how long it will take to complete homework assignments or to study for tests. Typically, they underestimate by 50%. By asking your child to block off time in his planner to complete each assignment, he’ll begin to see how much overall time is needed to get everything done by the end of the night.

The biggest problem for most students is planning how to do a large project. Most kids wait until the eleventh hour and cram to finish it way past their bedtimes. Besides causing unnecessary stress for the entire family, your child isn’t learning how to produce quality work – he’s just throwing it together to get it done. By using the Merit Planner, students can plan ahead. Simply enter the project due date in the planner and work your way backwards. Assign short tasks to do each day and then show your child when he actually needs to get started in order to finish it on time. This gives the students the opportunity to schedule tasks for big projects around regular homework, practices, and social events.

After your children have entered in their Merit Planners scheduled activities and blocked off time to get work done, all they need to do is that day’s tasks. Because it’s all blocked off at the actual time they’re supposed to be doing it, you can help monitor their progress. As they complete each task, they will highlight it to indicate that the job is done. They’ll enjoy this wonderful feeling of highlighting tasks as they get things done throughout the day. Unlike a homework or chores list, the Merit Planner allows the students to designate time to do each task. That way if there is too much going on in one day, your child can cross off the task and move it to another day.

Have Family Meetings once a week to motivate your children to use and follow their planners. By reviewing their progress and making sure that they’ve completed homework, studied for exams, and finished chores, you can reward them with privileges. When they ask if they can play or go out with friends, simply ask to see their planners. If everything for that day is highlighted, then they’re free to go. If not, just tell them to ask again after they are done. To make sure that they don’t erase tasks to hide them from you, check their planners often so you are aware of what’s going on in their lives.

You’ll find that your children will become better students and more responsible when they use the Merit Planner. If you would like guidance in teaching your child how to use the planner, set up an appointment with Merit’s Advisors. You can purchase the Merit Planner at www.meritworld.com