Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra feature stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write a 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Fewer Schools Accept Early Admissions, 12/13/06
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec06/admissions_12-13.html

Initiating Questions:

1. When does the college application process start?

2. Do you think your school puts the right amount of pressure on students to apply to college? Too little? Too much?

3. How important is diversity to education? What are different kinds of diversity?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What policy change did Harvard and Princeton make in September?

In September, Harvard and Princeton reignited the "early admissions" debate by announcing an end to the decades-long practice of offering positions to select high school students who apply to colleges in the fall.

2. How many U.S. colleges have early admissions programs?

About half of the 400 U.S. colleges with early admissions programs...

3. What is the difference between "early action" and "early decision?"

..."early decision" policy, which binds students to college from which they get an acceptance letter.

The other half have an "early action" policy: students may get an acceptance letter early, but they don't have to commit to the school until later in the spring -- after they've heard back from colleges in the regular application cycle.

4. Why did the presidents of Harvard and Princeton change their admissions process?

The presidents of Harvard and Princeton said canceling the programs helps disadvantaged students and reduces college application anxiety.

5. What decision did selective liberal arts college make in June?

At a June meeting, presidents of selective liberal arts colleges debated whether to change their policies, but could not make a decision, according to the Times. They opted to stick with early decision.

6. What is "single-choice early action?"

At Yale and Stanford, a "single-choice early action" policy permits students to apply early but exclusively to their school, though their decision can be made later in the spring, like other early action colleges.

7. Name two statistics that are relevant to college administrators. How are they calculated?

Colleges with early admissions programs benefit because they can increase their "yield" -- the ratio of admitted students to accepted students -- which simplifies their admissions process.

And though statistics like yield and "selectivity" -- the percentage of students admitted -- are used in rankings such as U.S. News and World Report rankings,...

8. How will Harvard decide whether to return to early action or not?

Harvard's dean of admissions William Fitzsimmons said the university will look very carefully at the incoming classes and take note of any changes.

"If after several years with a single admissions deadline, we find ourselves needing to reinstate early admission to preserve the quality of our student body, we will return to early action," he said in a news release.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. How diverse is your school? How has this affected your education? How has this affected your social life?

2. Why would colleges want students who don't come from affluent, college-focused high schools? What kind of programs have they created to attract minorities and economically disadvantaged students?

3. Research Harvard and Princeton's endowment and budget (how much money they have to spend every year). Why are they in a better position to end early admissions than other schools? What might happen if all colleges announced today that they would end early admissions programs? Which types of schools would benefit? Which types of schools would be harmed? How would this change affect the college closest to your school?

Write a 300-500 word essay on either of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.