Education Articles from College Matching Service

As one of the top-ranked online colleges in the United States, Westwood College has several solid options for students interested in obtaining an online degree, teaching six in-demand fields of study.

Attending Westwood College Online

Those interested in furthering their education and going to college online can enter The School of Professional Studies, which offers business administration degrees with majors in management, marketing management, fashion merchandising, healthcare management, or accounting and financial management. A Master of Business Administration is also available. More than 250 professors from these fields help students gain the practical knowledge they will need from their online degree programs to expand their skills base.

Westwood College has catered its distance learning experience toward working adults who need a flexible academic schedule that suits a busy lifestyle. Generally speaking, students are able to choose the time they work on their online degree. As is necessary for many online colleges, the school utilizes advanced online technology and other resources to help enhance the students’ learning experience.

The school’s online classrooms are accessible anywhere there is an Internet connection. By attending this college online, students will experience small class sizes, and the opportunity to interact with their fellow classmates. Career counselors, tutors and other advisors are also on hand to help, and financial aid and alumni retraining options are available for qualified individuals.

Accreditation and Ranking Among Online Colleges

Westwood is accredited by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, an affiliate of the North Central Association, and a candidate with The Higher Learning Commission. The school is also a Top 20 Online College.

Many universities and colleges need college entrance essays as a part of the admission applications. The admission officers never accept an application with poorly written essays. If you use simple psychology while writing your college entrance essay, it will become difficult for the administrative officers to reject your application.

Admission essay questions are quite difficult to attempt. Yet, it is essential that you answer all the questions correctly in your essay. The basic question asks students to share their personal information. This allows the selection commission to know a student well – his goals or plans, his philosophy or beliefs, an important incident in his life, his financial condition, etc. Writing college entrance essay allows a student to prove that he is the most deserving candidate.

Things To Remember While College Entrance Essay

• Understand the question clearly. Then list down some appropriate answers to answer the questions.

• Never write a general essay that looks similar to the essays written by other candidates. Any answer you give must uncover something about you to make others think that they know you personally.

• If you face trouble in thinking of new ideas, try to accumulate it from different resources. If anyone has written recommendation letter for you, read it carefully.

• Proofread and check for grammar and spelling mistakes over and over again. Let friends, parents and teachers proofread your college entrance essays.

• Write what you know and understand. Never provide fake information about yourself. You do not need to be a good writer to write down your thoughts.

• Your essay must include concrete examples and specific incidents.

• Never use ambiguous vocabulary just to impress the commission; it will make your college entrance essay look showy and artificial.

• Try to follow the guidelines about things such as essay length and font size. Sometimes, you need to hand-write an essay, and other times you need to type it. Sometimes, your essay is needed in a separate sheet of paper, other times it is needed on application form.

Scholarships have made it a lot easier for multitudes of students to pursue their dreams of attending college. Scholarship money takes care of your education, and you do not even have to pay it back! However, though scholarships are readily available, there aren’t enough of them for every student. So when applying for scholarship, you have to ensure that your application does not get rejected on any ground. Here are some mistakes that students commonly make during the application process.

Applying for only one or two scholarships.

This will severely undermine your chances of getting a good scholarship. There are numerous scholarship schemes available. Apply to as many possible, keeping in mind the criteria match. The more you apply for, the better your chances of getting one.

Not following the directions.

Each scholarship has a set of instructions to be followed while filling out the forms. Fill in the entire form without leaving any blank spaces. Do not send generalized application packets to all the scholarship programs as this would only guarantee failure.

Writing a sloppy application.

Reviewers have hordes of applications to go through. So if they find one which cannot be read or is filled with spelling or grammatical errors, it is most likely to find is way to the bin. To avoid this, read over your application carefully and correct the mistakes, however small they may be. The best way to file your application is to type it out. If you cannot do this, make sure your application is neat, legible and free from errors.

Missing the deadlines.

This is one of the most common mistakes in the scholarship application process. Keep a close check on the submission dates and make sure you do not miss them. Failure to meet the deadlines reflects negatively on your organizational capabilities.

Avoid scholarship scams prevalent in the current scenario.

Keep away from scholarship programs asking for your bank information or advance money.

Be aware of these common mistakes and you will be able to sail through college on the best scholarship.

College admission tests measures the ability of the students to work at college level with students coming from different schools. Some college has specific admission requirements in the field of math and science. Some colleges also have certain SAT or ACT score requirements. The college admission test is indeed a key measurement; hence, you must prepare systematically to perform well.

Where you are and where you apply during your academic year will determine which college admission tests you need. Planning for college admission tests is not stressful, and a little preparation will go a long way to help you achieve your goals.

Different Types of College Admission Tests

The most popular and common college admission tests are the ACT, the SAT and TOEFL

• Colleges and universities use SAT exams to measure mathematical and verbal reasoning capabilities of students, and to analyze the candidate’s eagerness for college. This exam is divided into 3 major sections: Writing, Critical Reading and Math, and students take a maximum of 3 hours 35 minutes to complete this test necessary for college admission. The SAT exam includes different question types such as student-produced responses, multiple choice questions and essays.

• The ACT is a standard college admission test which measures the skill and knowledge of the student through several multiple-choice questions. This college admission test covers the following subjects science reasoning, reading, mathematics, English and optional writing.

• The TOEFL test is prepared for foreign-born speakers who plan to complete their study in graduate or undergraduate programs at universities or colleges in the United States. The TOEFL score, required for admission, varies from one school to another. TOEFL iBT, an internet based exam, tests four knowledge skills necessary for effective communication: writing, reading, listening and speaking.

Some colleges use the test scores to reduce the volume of applications for admission. However, some colleges may give very little importance on these tests. Basically, these college admission tests are taken to judge the overall ability of your writing, reading and math skills.

Do you know what you want to do with your life? That’s a tough question but regardless of what you want to do for the rest of your life you should get a university degree now. You will make more money, according to the most recent US Census 51% more, and move ahead faster.

How do you know what college to attend? Here are a few questions to start thinking about to help select the college that is right for you:

1. Is an in-state or out of state college right for you?

2. Do you want to go to a big school or smaller sized school?

3. What financial aid is available?

4. Do you prefer a suburban setting, a school in a big city or studying in the middle of nowhere?

5. What programs are of interest to you? Liberal arts or a more focused program?

6. What school rankings should be important?

7. Is there a career services office? Can you find out the percent of people who get a job after graduation?

8. Are there available programs offered by the school for extracurricular activity?

9. Do they have on campus or off campus housing available?

10. Is there a professor that could potentially mentor you one on one to develop your career interest?

11. Bonus question for today’s world: Do you know how financially secure the school is?

Once you start thinking about the answers to these questions, you can help focus on the college that is best for you!

The author is a consultant in Miami, Florida and currently writes about accredited colleges online for College Matching Service. She is currently helping to build the largest college directory online.

Photo by: Ephemeron1

Why should I consolidate?

I myself have education loans, so I started looking into the possibility of consolidating these loans to lower my interest rate and reduce multiple payments into a single payment, for simplicity.

The purpose of consolidation is to save money and make things easier on yourself. When you first took out the loan for your education, you may have received an unfavorable rate on the loan. With the current economic status, the government is taking strides to help students with their education loans.

In my research, I found out these important facts about consolidation:

• You cannot consolidate a private loan into a federal loan. That is to stay, if you have a loan through a bank institution such as Citibank, you cannot consolidate it into your federal student loan (which almost always has a far lower interest rate and much more favorable payment terms).
• You can consolidate a private loan and a federal loan. Right now there are huge opportunities that the Department of Education has offered to past and current students that will reduce interest rates and limit monthly payments based on income.
• You can only consolidate an education loan during the grade period, which is generally right after graduation for six months, or during repayment.
• Generally to consolidate a loan a minimum loan balance must be met. These generally average around $5,000.

Flexible Repayment Terms

One of the biggest reasons people consolidate their loans is to restructure their payment plan. For any number of reasons a loan holder may be interested in adjusting their payment terms to either extend the length of their payment terms, and thus often lowering their payment. A federal loan typically has a 10 year agreement. By consolidating the loan, that length can be extended for between 12-30 years.

By extending a loan, you often will lower your monthly payment, but by extending the term of the loan, you will pay a significantly more interest on the loan.

It is generally recommended to agree to the lowest number of years because it will save you money.

Does it cost anything to consolidate?

No, generally there is no cost to consolidate besides the chance that the interest rate will be increased, which as discussed, will increase the amount of money that will need to be paid for the loan (as compared to before the consolidation).

Occasionally depending on the type of consolidation, a fee may be incurred. Almost always this fee is added to the loan or deducted from the disbursement check. If you find yourself in a situation where any type of upfront fee is being requested from you, there is a high probability that you are involved in some kind of scam.

Here are a few more consolidation resources to help:

• How To Repay Your Student Loan
• Student Loan Consolidation
• Reduced Student Loan Payments
• Direct Consolidation Loans
• Department of Education

In response to the tough economic times and an even tougher job market (unemployment is almost at 10%), the Department of Education has passed a plan that will help college students, past, present, and future with their federal loan repayment program.

This program essentially allows you to reduce your loan payments based on your income. This program caps the monthly payment you are required to pay based on income and family size.

The loans that qualify for this program are, any Stafford, Grad PLUS or Consolidation loan made under either the Direct Loan or FFEL program is eligible for repayment under IBR, EXCEPT loans that are currently in default, parent PLUS Loans, or consolidation loans that repaid a parent PLUS Loan. The loans can be new or old, and for any type of education (undergraduate, graduate, professional, job training)

For more information on the qualifications for this program, checkout this Department of Education website, Student Aid on the Web.

Also, the interest rate on federal Stafford loans, the most widely used federal student loan, will be reduced from 6% to 5.6%. Furthermore, by 2012, that rate will be decreased to 3.4% by mandate from Congress. That means great things for students who will be using federal student loans to fund their education over the next few years.

Nursing Scholarships

Nursing is a career that is currently in demand and appears to be on the rise for the next few years. Any time a career field is in demand, there are an abundance of scholarships that help to meet this demand. Right now there are hundreds of nursing scholarships that are available to students interested in pursuing nursing.

A trend that has been advancing in the scholarship world is that nursing is now being considered an acceptable criteria for hundreds of medical related scholarships. As you know, many scholarships have strict criteria that the student must meet in order to submit an application for the scholarship. As demand rises, scholarships start to broaden their criteria. This is what is happening for nursing scholarships and grants.

What can nursing scholarships be used for?

As with most scholarships, they can be used for any education related expenses. This includes tuition, room and board, food, books, equipment, and much more.

The purpose of a scholarship is meant to help the student with financial aid so that he/she can afford the things necessary to achieve success with their nursing education and their nursing career. Some scholarships stipulate that the money must be used for specific purposes, but others allow the student to decide what the money is used for.

How do I find nursing scholarships?

The most efficient way of finding scholarships is to have the ability to filter scholarship results based on criteria that you meet. If you are attending a 4 year university full-time with a grade point average of 3.4, an ACT score of 26, and a nursing major, you should be able to see which scholarships you qualify for, rather than having to search for them.

By using our nursing scholarships search, you can see all of the nursing scholarships and filter them by grade point average, education level, enrollment, state of residency, and more.

This allows you to quickly find nursing scholarships that you qualify for.

You can also use Google to search for nursing scholarships. The problem with this is that it forces you to look at scholarships on an individual basis. Not only is this time consuming but it is extremely inefficient. Because scholarships have strict criteria, you most likely will not qualify for the majority of nursing scholarships you find.

This is why having the ability to narrow a scholarship database down by criteria that you meet as an individual can save you a lot of time.

Music Scholarships

If music is your passion, and you plan to pursue it in college, than music scholarships should be of great interest to you. Even if you do not plan to pursue it in college, you can still receive music scholarships. Sometimes receiving a music scholarship is as easy as sending in a demo tape of a performance.

Many forms of music scholarships exist to help students pursue their passion for music. Some scholarships simply require certain criteria be met, for example, playing in your high school band. Others require that your university major be related to music. And some just require that you submit a performance better than anyone else.

Whatever your passion for music may be, there is some sort of music scholarship that you will qualify for.

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Online Colleges - An explosion of accessibility.

Because the Internet has become available almost anywhere, the availability of distance learning has grown tremendously.  A student can now achieve education through the Internet from the comfort of his or her home.

An online college is essentially an online portal, or otherwise known as a website.  Through web 2.0 technology, a student can interact with other students and a professor through online chat rooms, bulletin boards, virtual classrooms, conference calls, webcam conferences, and much more.

This essentially turns their website into an online campus, one that is accessible from any Internet connection in the world.
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