Admissions professionals are often asked by anxious parents about summer activities and how these will be viewed by college admissions offices. I recently had a conversation with a mother who, checklist in hand, wanted to know if her son needs to practice tennis five or seven times a week in order to look attractive to colleges. Her son likes tennis, but she is worried that he won’t look as committed to the sport if he only practices five days a week. After all, he has to practice after dinner because, if tennis is just for ‘fun’, he needs to put his SAT prep course, his summer course in statistics, his internship at Southwest Medical Center, his piano lessons, college visits, and an immersion trip to Spain into his summer programming. She is only slightly concerned that he will not have much time for fun and relaxation before school starts again, since he can have fun after college.

The other end of the spectrum is the parent who suddenly realizes that his children are no longer getting on the bus everyday to school, that it’s warm outside, and his kids seem to sleeping until mid morning. Now what? Those kids need to do something, and what will the colleges think if Sam just lists “Video Games” under “extra-curricular activities” on the application?

Over-programming and under-programming are both problems, not just for college admission purposes, but because of simple child development reasons. But lets focus on thecollege admissions issue here.

College admissions offices very much like to admit an interesting student, as opposed to a formulaic statistic comprised of SAT or ACT scores and a GPA. Summer activities can, just like admission essays, recommendations, school activities, and interviews, highlight what makes a young person “tick” and will personalize the admission process. The more personalized the process (within reason, of course), the more the college will be able to see this young person as a valuable member of their student body who will positively impact those around him or her. Campuses are comprised of students, but those students are also contributors to student life, whether their contribution is athletics, writing for the school paper, acting in student productions, playing for the marching band, leading the school government, or working in the library.

Summer activities, therefore, can be opportunities to explore something to a greater extent than would be possible during the busy school year. A summer activity ideally is something the student wants to do. In fact, she should be excited for the opportunity to learn, explore, and experience whatever it is. Activities should not be just a way to ‘pad the resume’ in the admissions process. If an applicant is the vice president of 15 school clubs, most of which meet less than one hour a month, the applicant’s seriousness of purpose and commitment is in question. While well-roundedness is nice, seriousness of purpose, commitment, and a high level of accomplishment is attractive. Traveling through Europe is nice. Spending eight weeks in a total immersion program is better. Tennis, piano, prep courses, statistics, and travel is nice. Getting a by-line on a research project as part aMedical Center internship is better, even if some other activities are curtailed. Community service projects are nice. Being elevated to the one student position on the local women’s shelter board of directors is attractive.

So where do you find these opportunities? There’s a camp for just about anything these days, but I wouldn’t stop, or even begin, there. The first step to a finding a meaningful and fulfilling activity is a conversation with your student. What is it that she enjoys doing, and where is she talented? If you allow a real conversation to happen you may be surprised by the answer your student gives. That answer, however, may be an excellent summer activity and an opportunity for her to grow intellectually and emotionally while having a great time doing something she otherwise would have missed. Just because everyone else’s kid is in summer soccer camp doesn’t mean yours should be. Anything can be a true, college-worthy activity if it is pursued with seriousness of purpose. We always hear that in your career you should love what you do, but not many of us pull that off very well. We do what we’re supposed to do, or what others tell us we have to do. Summer activities are the same for teens. Look beyond the usual camps and activities for something truly worthwhile for your student. The serious pursuit of a genuine interest is a wonderful opportunity for a young person, and if a student can communicate and demonstrate that interest the college admission process will take care of itself.

The future of a company or institution depends on the performance of their employees and students. Education professionals always come up with new ideas to improve overall performance of students and institutions. These ideas are implemented in the form of new techniques and learning aids in teaching. This information given to the student not only helps them, but also helps the institution to maintain a good track record.

What Is Six Sigma?

A technique to achieve strategic business results, 6 Sigma is a customer-based approach, which shows that neglecting defects can turn out very expensive for the company or institution. The fewer risks a company is exposed to, the lesser the possibilities of losing customers.

Origin Of Six Sigma

In the 1980?s, under threat from its Japanese counterpart, Motorola came up with a concept to counter the situation. The success of this concept is witnessed in the profit and expansion of companies like General Electric (GE) and Allied Signal.

Culture And Techniques Used In Six Sigma

Culture may be very unnecessary, but by merely changing it, companies can be very successful. This culture includes not just the Quality Leaders, Black Belts and Green Belts, but everyone in the company. After following a process of identifying the problem in a process and charting out the course to address it, the process is evaluated and worked upon.

By reducing the number of defects from a process to 3.4 defectives per million, 6 Sigma raises the level of customer satisfaction. In companies, everyone strives to achieve targets by introducing a change in their work environment and way of functioning.

Education And Six Sigma

6 Sigma is the appropriate tool where quality management is concerned. In an educational setting, teachers are the work force and parents are the customers.
The latter tend to pay the fees and expect their wards to get good and qualitative results. By improving teaching techniques, teachers expect a positive change inthe performance of their students. This change is expected to last for a stipulated time for the acquired profit to remain constant.

Six Sigma Implementation

The first step before the implementation is to recognize the problem and define a project to lessen or completely eradicate the problem. These projects are led by the Green Belts and assisted by the Black Belts. Using a DMAIC (Define. Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) theory the following steps are taken

Starting from the senior most level, basic six sigma principles are taught. This creates an environment for innovation and creativity. Thereafter, a module is developed in order to establish a close communication between teachers and students. This module involves preparing a method to obtain and evaluate everyone’s input. In educational settings, teachers help in building a data by conducting a study.

Conclusion

By applying Six Sigma to education, a positive change in teaching methods and a consequential positive result is bound to happen. Proper education paves the way for qualitative learning for everyone. By implementing the right techniques, the road ahead would be smooth enough to reach the desired goals.

Education is a right of every individual. However, in today’s society the youth tends to disregard its essence. They get more inclined to vices rather spend time in school. There are many factors cited regarding this problem but it is very difficult to solve such if the youth are not willing to cooperate.

Several campaigns conducted by the government of every state are aimed at upholding the importance of education in a person’s life. Some of the countries even included the right of education in their constitutions just to oblige people to get into school.

However, in spite of the many hard work of the state, numerous people still do not want to comply on it. Study shows that, most of the people who study their elementary education do not want to pursue their high school degree anymore.

Therefore, illiteracy will prevail if people will continue to ignore the consequences of not being educated. There is a big diversity between a learned man and uneducated man. The former shows competency in most of the aspects of life while the latter has the tendency to get hesitant to perform his role ion the society.

There are times that it is very crucial to determine the exact value of education. It is with emphasis that you should consider education as your greatest edge and asset above all other people. It is an opportunity that you should grab because not on your entire life you will have the interest to study.

Reality checks that when you apply for work, the first thing that the manager will ask you is whether you are able to finish a certain degree or not. If your response is negative, it may manifest by getting the very least chance of being accepted in the job. Therefore, many times, if a person does not hold any degree, he is constrained to fewer employment opportunities.

Educators are always available to support the needs of their students in terms of learning. Their major role is to give them a background on the many aspects and methodologies in education. Learning is a process that requires both the teacher and the student’s cooperation. Nothing will happen if only one of the agents will work since it requires a collaborative effort.

The technology even helps in promoting the essence of education. Recently, you can already surf the net and search for the preferred degree that you want to take up. There are already accessible sites where you can avail the needededucation online.

What is Online Education all about?

Online education is a form of flexible learning where anytime education could be possible. You can do this by just having access to the internet and the specific site that provideseducation online . Courses are categorized depending on the needs of the students. Like a typical school, it offers a much wider-range of learning in different fields.

As technology transforms and the workplace advances, there is a great necessity for more formal education for you to get the job that is best suited for you. Now, theonline education makes things easy for you.

Aside from learning, it will also be an avenue for you to have an access to well-known universities in the different parts of the world. It will be a tool for you to find out, which is the best school for you to study.