Patricia Hawke asked:


After six months of interviewing applicants nationwide, San Francisco Schools district has filled its top position. Carlos Garcia, Vice President of Urban Markets for McGraw-Hill (educational publishers), has been selected as the next Superintendent of San Francisco Schools. Board members have been seeking a replacement since January after interim Superintendent Gwen Chan announced that she would not return to the post in the fall.

Garcia was voted in due to his experience in San Francisco Schools, strong results as Superintendent of other districts, and good reputation as a fiscal manager. Garcia served both Fresno, California and Clark County, Nevada as Superintendent. From 1988-91 Garcia was principal of San Francisco Schools Horace Mann Middle School. During his tenure the school improved its achievement scores and received recognition for its accomplishments.

According to Board President of San Francisco Schools, Mark Sanchez, “ We chose Mr. Garcia because of his past experience with San Francisco, his strong track record as a superintendent and his understanding of the challenges that our district faces.” The San Francisco Schools have dealt with issues like declining enrollment over the past few years, as families leave for better districts and private schools. Initiatives like the small schools program are one of many that the San Francisco Schools are implementing to reverse this trend. This change in leadership may bring some of these programs into question, although the school board seems confident that Garcia is in line with their priorities.

Thirty applicants were interviewed since January in an attempt to find a new leader for the San Francisco Schools. Garcia’s credentials includes a B.A. from Claremont Men’s College in political science, a M.A. in education from Claremont Graduate school, and an administrative degree from California State University at Fullerton. Parents in San Francisco Schools provided input to the hiring process in the form of both community meetings, and over a thousand surveys, to determine the criteria for their next leader.

Leadership of the San Francisco Schools will have a strong impact on financial spending and program funding. Given pressure to meet national No Child Left Behind standards, administrators in San Francisco Schools are constantly making decisions about how best to allocate funds. California’s poor reputation on educational priorities and spending was recently highlighted by a think tank study that claimed that the state’s educational priorities are in such disarray that the whole system needs an overhaul. While San Francisco Schools leaders may agree with the study, they still need state funding to run their districts.

The fact that Garcia led one of the nation’s largest districts, Clark County, gives the San Francisco Schools reasons to hope that he will use the same financial wisdom in this district. Six of the seven board members voted for Mr. Garcia’s appointment, with the seventh asking for more time to decide. Garcia will begin serving San Francisco Schools on July 16th, 2007.



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tech30 asked:


-I’ve heard that many graduate schools, even the not so good ones, require the student maintain a minimum GPA of a 3.0 throughout graduate school, while undergraduate students need a minimum GPA of a 2.0. what’s the deal?
- Also, why do they require the student to have a B- or better?

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GLSigma3 asked:


I’m applying to several schools for Graduate Studies in Religion. About how long does it take to make a decision? I submitted all the information on time, and most of the deadlines were in early December/January. I’m just wondering how much longer I have to wait. I hate waiting. lol.

I’m waiting on UVA, USC (carolina), FSU, Duke, UNC.

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Byron asked:


I finished graduate school in 2008 earning dual masters’ degrees in engineering and business, which took 3 years.  I was awarded a prestigious NASA graduate fellowship, sponsored by UNCFSP to help fund my studies.  There are many awards out there for graduate students, even more for women and minorities who are underrepresented in their fields.  As an African American, I would like to see more minorities earn graduate degrees which will make us more competitive in the work force, vital in this current tough economy.  According the U.S. Census Bureau, only 4% of Hispanics and 6% of African Americans over the age of 25 have advanced degrees.  With the emergence of online universities and colleges and with this competitive economy, a bachelor’s degree is becoming easier to attain and needless to say, anybody can grab one.  I’m writing this article to help those out there apply for and win these graduate scholarship and fellowship awards, based on my experiences. Some of these esteemed awards can come from NASA, NSF, AAUW, minority organizations, and the U.S. government branches like the DOD.  For more information and an easy-to-use searchable database of graduate school funding sources, check out my website: http://www.MinorityGradStudent.com.  The website is for anyone to use, and you can search for programs that are for anybody as well as those tailored to specific minority groups. Also, I will admit that this article may be somewhat biased towards the science, engineering, and technology fields since I have my BS and MS in technology areas, and my graduate fellowship was for my engineering studies and research. 

So you’ve finished your bachelor’s degree.  Whether you graduated with honors, or you’re just honored to be graduating.  Whether you are Cum Laude, or “Thank you Lawdy”!  Now what?  Do you get a job, or further your education?  Or maybe you are into your career and want to go back to school for an advanced degree?  There are three things you want to consider when making this decision.

1. Do I really need a graduate degree for what I want to do in life?

2. Do I have the time and dedication to work towards another degree?

3. Do I have the finances to pay for another degree?!

Question 1, varies by individual, but if you answered “yes”, then let’s move forward.   For question two, just look in the mirror and tell yourself “yes I can”!  Now I can help you with question 3.  There are many scholarship and fellowship awards out there for graduate students.  For the remainder of this article, I will use the term “awards” to mean graduate school scholarships, fellowships, and other financial aid grants that are not loans, but simply cash in your pocket.  Many of them are specifically for women and persons from underrepresented groups.  I created MinorityGradStudent.com as a place for minorities to find funding resources for graduate school and to discuss various topics.  I define “minorities” here as the same groups as the U.S. Census Bureau.   The majority of these U.S. awards are for U.S. citizens, but there are several where citizenship is not required.  You can easily filter these results on the search page.  The awards are usually merit based, and some of the award stipends are around $30,000 per year, plus full tuition and fees!  That’s pretty decent, right?  A quick distinction between scholarships and fellowships:  Scholarships usually give you a stipend of a few hundred or thousand dollars, and may or may not cover your tuition and fees.  A fellowship, which is generally for graduate school only, will usually cover your full tuition and fees and give you an additional larger stipend that could be tens of thousands of dollars.  Sometimes there is a requirement such as working for the organization that provides the award for X number of years, attending conferences, or some other stipulation, but it is well worth it in my opinion.  The requirements are generally some combination of:

1. Good grades on your undergraduate transcripts.

2. Strong recommendation letters.

3. Work/research experience in your area of study.

4. Writing a long, zealous, and sagacious essay.

Number 4 is what usually scares everyone away.  But wait, don’t leave!  They want you to run off!  Fight back, make the program committee read your essay!  Look, you can use the same essay for all of your award applications, just tweak it each time to fit the criteria of the award program you are applying for.  Don’t try to write the entire essay in one sitting and then immediately submit it.  Take your time, put some thought into it.  Then let your professors or superiors at your job look over it and provide feedback.   PEER REVIEW IS IMPORTANT! Make sure you address everything that they require in your essay.  If your undergraduate GPA is low but you have valuable work experience and strong recommendations, mention in your essay how you are more of a hands on person and sell yourself and your exposure outside of the classroom.  For the NASA fellowship that I won, one of the keys was to link my engineering research area to a particular NASA center.  I went online and did some NASA.gov research by checking out the projects where my research would be beneficial, and specifically made the connection in my essay.  Not only did I win the award, but I scored an internship with NASA after my first year of grad school.

The essay is most vital portion of your application.  Know exactly what you want to do in graduate school, what you can bring to the program, how the award program will help you, help them.  For example, if you are in the life sciences or medical field, mention you want to study stem cell research, or something else that is an emerging scientific breakthrough, and how it can help a large number of people.   It doesn’t hurt to talk about your entire career plan.  You may want to earn a biomedical masters degree, then go onto medical school and become a surgeon.  Or maybe you want to get your law degree in an area that needs more lawyers to defend or prosecute citizens.  The people who evaluate your applications for these award programs like to know that you have a destination you are planning to go with the money they are giving you.  Now, truth is, most of the time it is acceptable to diverge from your initial career path.  Meaning a slight change in your area of study in some cases won’t have any consequences such as returning the money.  For example, there are some awards that may want minorities to earn a PhD and then go be a professor at a minority institution.  However, if you decide to go into the industry and not teach, they usually do not mind.  Or you may decide to leave the PhD program after only receiving your Masters degree, which is quite common in grad school.  Just make sure you read all the fine print when applying for the award.  It doesn’t hurt to ask about the terms of agreement.  But if I were you, I would call the program office from a phone that is not my own number, rather than email them, if I was going to ask something like, “is it ok if I quit grad school early if I win your award?”  In that case, I wouldn’t use my real name either just to keep anonymity.  If you were to email them this inquiry, they could keep a record of it on file and will probably blacklist your application before any adjudication!

Keep your grades as high as possible, and be an outstanding performer on your jobs, internships, and class projects.  Then when it comes to hunting for recommendation letters, make sure you ask your potential recommenders if they can write you a STRONG recommendation.  Emphasis on the word STRONG.  There are people out there that will write you a recommendation letter, but it may not be in your best interests.  I have heard stories of professors that didn’t quite see eye-to-eye with some of their students, and those professors would still write the letters, but would say things like:

• “John Doe struggled throughout the semester, often seemed uninterested in the material, and did not work too well with other students”

• “Jane Doe was a mediocre performer on the job.  She never went the extra mile and would not take the initiative to help out others.”

This is not what you want in your recommendation letters.  You want to have a favorable relationship with your recommenders.  Make sure they know some things about you.  What I did a few times was provide a short biography and mini-resume to professors that only saw me in class and didn’t know much else about me, so that they had some additional material to use when writing my letter.   

 Well, I hope I was able to shed some helpful insight to someone.  Remember put time and thought into your essays making sure you explain how they can help you help them, have your essay peer reviewed, do your best in the classroom and on the job, and get strong recommendation letters.  And one more thing, apply to as many program as possible!  My senior year of college I applied to 9 different graduate fellowship programs for engineers.  I won only one.  Yes it took a significant amount of time, but the results speak for themselves.  I had 9 copies of the same essay saved; each one just tweaked a slight bit to match the requirements for that fellowship that I was applying too.  Apply to those scholarships and fellowships and best of luck!  And be sure to check out http://www.MinorityGradStudent.com!



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Ian Koch asked:


Both in the traditional education world and also more and more online or on the internet, higher education in business are growing. We all know the benefits of getting access to a reputable and famous business school for preparing your Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree in Business Administration. On the labor market statistics have showed that graduates from the most reputable schools have a benefit compared to those who have graduated from a more ordinary school.

You need to make sure that you get into the best colleges business undergraduate program . It’s the race all best Business colleges get into - to feature among the top few in the coveted ‘Top Business School Rankings’. Across rankings brought out by several publishing houses and agencies, a few business schools that consistently feature at the top are the following: University of Pennsylvania (Wharton School of Business), Northwestern University (Kellogg Graduate School of Management), Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan School of Management) and Duke University (Fuqua School of Business) in random order.

While the criteria considered by ranking authorities are size of the program, teaching style, cost of the program, location, and most importantly the career opportunities it opens up, students often tend to go solely by the reputation or prestige factor associated with the business school. Moreover, in a scenario where further higher studies are not feasible for everyone, extreme caution must be practiced while choosing the right undergraduate business program. It is easy to deduce that when it is at the best colleges, business undergraduate program offered by them would be a certain level of quality that one could surely expect.

Among the important factors that need to be considered before zeroing in on a business undergraduate program is the caliber of peers - in the company of motivated and intelligent classmates, one tends to follow suit without too much effort; real-world oriented core curriculum - the more practical insights one can get while undergoing the program, the more equipped you would be to do well on your first job; good career consultancy services - which you would need to cash in a good job offer and finally, an unflinching focus on ethics - the school plays a vital role in imbibing the quality of choosing everything that is ‘morally correct’ which will take you a long way in achieving success in life. By checking up on the business school rankings you will be able to get a firm grip on these things.

Only business school rankings will help you to choose the best colleges business undergraduate program possible.



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Midnight Runner asked:


I am moving out west for graduate school, which is being covered by other loans and scholarships, but I have absolutely no money. Thus I need to take out a personal loan, probably around two or three thousand dollars, enough money to help pay for initial food and rent before I get my first paychecks (I’ll also have a part time job). How do I go about getting this personal loan? Any warnings or tips? Thanks so much.

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John asked:


I’m currently in my second year in college and am majoring in biology. However, I got two C’s in chemistry. I heard that graduate schools won’t accept C grades and that they will separate your science course grades from your general education courses and calculate a GPA from there. Also, in addition to GPA, what else do schools look at?

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Muna wa Wanjiru asked:


While going to university is a dream that most people have there are others who dream of taking their education even further. For these people graduate schools provide the answer they need. However while these schools are excellent places to continue studying in a particular subject goal they can be quite expensive. Luckily there are different types of graduate student loans you will be able to apply for.

The main item to remember for applying for graduate student loans is the amount of money that you will need to complete your educational goal. As this is a vital aspect of the application process you should take the time to calculate these costs. You will need to list down all of your expenses for about a month. If you are working by this period of time you should have your income listed in the monthly budget figures too.

Look at your monthly budget figures and try to determine how much of the graduate student loan you will be able to pay back from various assets you may have. The more money that you pay back during this period of time, the less interest you will need to think about at the end of your educational program.

You can talk with the financial aid office in the university you are hoping to enter. Ask them about their financial aid programs too. The benefits of these will also be of help. Make sure that you weigh these items when you are wondering about the choice of graduate school to attend. There is one final note about choosing a graduate school and your finances that you should keep in mind.

While you are thinking of ways and means of spending within your means, this does not mean that you should eliminate any university just because it is more expensive than you originally planned for. The various graduate student loans like the Graduate PLUS Loan, Graduate Stafford Loan, and Graduate loan consolidation as well as the Alternative Loan for Graduate Students are able to provide you with aid.

In addition to these graduate student loans there are other more specialized ones. These loans will help the graduate student who is furthering their education in fields like medicine or even law programs. With these student loans for graduates these graduate students are able to continue their education without having to worry about the fees for the next term.

To receive the best deals in these many graduate student loans you should investigate all of the possibilities. The more help you can get the higher the chances are for you to graduate successfully. All the help you need will come from the graduate student loans that you have applied to.



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Lola asked:


than a graduate school of a university you didn’t go to.

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Dr Michelle Finkel asked:


Getting into medical school has become increasingly difficult, in part, because of the poor economy: Competitive candidates who used to target other graduate schools are turning toward medicine, a less volatile field. Consequently, stronger candidates are now pursuing a medical career, making the medical school interview critical.

But what are medical schools looking for during the interview process?

First, they are seeking someone distinctive. Your goal is to distinguish yourself from all of the other applicants by showcasing your accomplishments. Anyone can say s/he wants to help people or is hard working. Fewer candidates can prove it.

Second, they want to ensure you are committed to medicine and that you have an idea of what you are getting yourself into. Medical school is tough; the institutions are not seeking someone who is ambivalent and might quit. Giving examples of your clinical experience can help.

Third, the schools want to ensure you are reasonable. They want to see that you don’t have a problem personality, aren’t going to harass your colleagues, aren’t going to cause them embarrassment or extra work.

Fourth, they want to hear that you are particularly interested in their institution. You can convince them of your interest by knowing specifics about the school and city.

One would never take the MCAT without practicing first and yet, countless applicants go to interviews without preparing. Consider working with a professional: Because applicants can unknowingly undermine their chances of success with poor interview skills, a qualified, personalized medical school admissions consultant provides a great advantage.

Medical school consulting companies come in a variety of forms. Some are bigger businesses that focus on admissions to several types of graduate programs – not just medicine. Others are smaller and provide a medical focus, but have a pool of consultants of varying quality. Finally, elite companies offer both the medical focus and a highly experienced consultant who works one-on-one with clients. These professionals are ex-admissions officers from highly respected medical institutions. They have the inside knowledge of how medical school admissions work, providing individualized guidance to optimize applicants’ personal statements, applications and interview skills.

When choosing a medical school admissions consulting company, a candidate should verify the company’s references and research its consultants. Elite companies that offer both the medical focus and a highly experienced consultant who works one-on-one with clients offer a large advantage for pre-medical applicants, especially during these competitive times.



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