Microlectures

The attention span for students is shrinking, so colleges are starting to shorten lectures. Boston colleges is launching the one minute lecture. I wish they had this for my 3 hour Nutrition class at UCSD.

Honesty is the Best Policy for the UC

The application process encourages you to put your best foot forward and that includes making sure you are honest within your application. I have been asked many times-Do they check? Yes, they do check. A recent article in the L.A. times demonstrates that honesty is the best policy.

The gray-and-green warehouse in suburban Concord seems an unlikely headquarters for a statewide detective operation, and the fact checkers at work there insist they are not mercilessly probing the lives of California’s teenagers.

Still, there is an element of hard-boiled sleuthing in the University of California’s unusual attempt to ensure that its 98,000 freshman applicants tell the truth about themselves and their extracurricular activities. The stakes are high; UC enrollments may be canceled if students are found to be evasive or lying.

Each year, a small number of UC applicants – fewer than 1% – are caught fibbing about such claims as performing a lead role in a school play, volunteering as a tutor for poor children or starring on the soccer field.

But UC officials say there is a broader purpose beyond the relatively few “gotchas”: to scare everyone else straight.

“We take the admissions process very seriously and we want to uphold the integrity of the whole process,” explained Han Mi Yoon-Wu, a coordinator in UC’s central admissions operations.