Princeton Review

Bryn Mawr College got high marks in a number of areas this year from the Princeton Review, from its good food to its gay-friendly environment, but in one very important aspect of college life it's tops in the nation. For the second year in a row, the publication has rated the elite women's college on the Main Line No. 1 for "Dorms Like Palaces" - putting its prestigious seal of approval on housing that the Chronicle of Higher Education has labeled "a collegiate Gothic fantasy.

The Cheltenham School District has collaborated with Princeton Review, a national test-preparation organization, in an SAT review program designed to take some of the mystery out of test-taking for high school juniors. The eight-week program, which begins tomorrow, will alternate instructional sessions with full-length practice exams. About 150 students are enrolled. The program is intended to help students feel more comfortable with the material and the structure of the SAT, said Paul Edelblut, assistant vice president of educational partnership for Princeton Review.

This year, the Princeton Review ranked Drexel University's video-game-design curriculum the third best in the country. Not too shabby for the growing program, a collaboration between the computer science department (College of Engineering) and the digital-media program (Westphal College of Media Arts and Design). It should come as no surprise, then, that video-game development companies are popping up all over Philly, many with Drexel connections. Space Whale Studios' five founders have either studied or taught at Drexel, and three of Burst Online Entertainment's employees hail from Drexel.

For many high school students, there is something ominous, mysterious and anxiety-provoking about the Scholastic Aptitude Test - the grueling, three- hour exam that is the gateway to most colleges. Early tomorrow, students in Philadelphia and across the country will sit down - tense and nervous - to grapple with the SAT. The nervousness is easy to understand. After all, the better the score, the better the chance a student has of getting into the college of her or his choice.

With its finance lab that all but transports students to Wall Street, Villanova University this week was named the nation's top "wired" campus by a technology magazine and a test prep company. Other local schools in the top 20 were Swarthmore College at No. 4 and Temple University at No. 15. About 240 colleges and universities responded to a survey by Princeton Review, an educational company known for its college ratings in many areas, and PC Magazine. The winners were chosen based on those responses, said Harriet Brand, a spokeswoman for Princeton Review.

PARENTS at Powel Elementary know where our commitment lies, but with the latest round of budget cuts, we wonder about the commitment of the district to our school. Powel has been a small, quiet gem, with a committed staff, outstanding principal and a parent body that has included many of the city's finest leaders. With declining resources, our students have consistently outperformed the average school on standardized tests and other district measures. We have trusted Powel with our most precious resource, our children.

The National Association for College Admission Counseling does not recommend spending much on SAT prep classes. Its research suggests that increased scores aren't "that much greater than what you could get on your own with practice tests," said research director David Hawkins. The group's report last month on standardized tests said most prep programs result in a 20- to 30-point gain. Larger increases could be due to such factors as familiarity with the test, more time in school or simple maturity, said Derek Briggs, a test expert at the University of Colorado.

On Saturday, some 400,000 students with sharpened No. 2 pencils will take the SATs, the college admission tests that stir the American frenzy over who should get into what college. The debate has been clouded by the pitting of merit against race now that affirmative action is under assault across the country. Tuesday night, the PBS series "Frontline" broadcast "Secrets of the SAT," which drew in part on journalist Nicholas Lemann's new book "The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy.

One night in December, more than a dozen top administrators of the Cheltenham schools went where few had gone before - to Lynnewood Gardens. No one could remember the last time so many district stewards, from the superintendent to the principals or vice principals of all seven schools, had met there. Or if they ever had, even though the apartment complex's sheer mass of children and its seesaw fortunes over the years have profoundly affected the system. Sprawled along Montgomery County's border with Philadelphia, Lynnewood Gardens supplies 20 percent of Cheltenham's 5,100 students.

When Parwin Amruz of Rosemont, a senior at Radnor High School, took the dreaded Scholastic Aptitude Test last year, she did pretty well - a total score of about 1100, far above the U.S. average of 906 and enough to get her into a vast majority of colleges across America. But Amruz, 16, wants better. In fact, she wants just about the best - she wants to go to Swarthmore College or the University of Pennsylvania or Haverford College, all of them among the most highly selective schools in the nation.

Bryn Mawr College got high marks in a number of areas this year from the Princeton Review, from its good food to its gay-friendly environment, but in one very important aspect of college life it's tops in the nation. For the second year in a row, the publication has rated the elite women's college on the Main Line No. 1 for "Dorms Like Palaces" - putting its prestigious seal of approval on housing that the Chronicle of Higher Education has labeled "a collegiate Gothic fantasy.

This year, the Princeton Review ranked Drexel University's video-game-design curriculum the third best in the country. Not too shabby for the growing program, a collaboration between the computer science department (College of Engineering) and the digital-media program (Westphal College of Media Arts and Design). It should come as no surprise, then, that video-game development companies are popping up all over Philly, many with Drexel connections. Space Whale Studios' five founders have either studied or taught at Drexel, and three of Burst Online Entertainment's employees hail from Drexel.

Nicholas Green describes his approach to taking college admission tests as the equivalent of lifting the curtain on an impostor who should fool no one. The 24-year-old Harvard University graduate achieved a series of perfect scores on the SAT while a teenager. Later, in 2003, he founded a test-preparation firm that trades on the mystique of the Ivy League and a skepticism of college entrance exams. His company, Ivy Insiders, based in Cambridge, Mass., is blanketing the Philadelphia area for the first time this summer, taking on the veterans of College Board test preparation.

The National Association for College Admission Counseling does not recommend spending much on SAT prep classes. Its research suggests that increased scores aren't "that much greater than what you could get on your own with practice tests," said research director David Hawkins. The group's report last month on standardized tests said most prep programs result in a 20- to 30-point gain. Larger increases could be due to such factors as familiarity with the test, more time in school or simple maturity, said Derek Briggs, a test expert at the University of Colorado.

With its finance lab that all but transports students to Wall Street, Villanova University this week was named the nation's top "wired" campus by a technology magazine and a test prep company. Other local schools in the top 20 were Swarthmore College at No. 4 and Temple University at No. 15. About 240 colleges and universities responded to a survey by Princeton Review, an educational company known for its college ratings in many areas, and PC Magazine. The winners were chosen based on those responses, said Harriet Brand, a spokeswoman for Princeton Review.

PARENTS at Powel Elementary know where our commitment lies, but with the latest round of budget cuts, we wonder about the commitment of the district to our school. Powel has been a small, quiet gem, with a committed staff, outstanding principal and a parent body that has included many of the city's finest leaders. With declining resources, our students have consistently outperformed the average school on standardized tests and other district measures. We have trusted Powel with our most precious resource, our children.

The Princeton Review, one of the major resources for college-bound kids and their parents, recently issued its "Top Party Schools" list, headed by the University of Colorado at Boulder. Others in the top five included the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Indiana University, Bloomington; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; and Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va. Such designations not only injure the reputations of the colleges, students and the surrounding communities, these "honors" actually help to further alcohol abuse among college students by establishing a powerful perception that substance abuse and excessive behavior are the norm among the student body.

One night in December, more than a dozen top administrators of the Cheltenham schools went where few had gone before - to Lynnewood Gardens. No one could remember the last time so many district stewards, from the superintendent to the principals or vice principals of all seven schools, had met there. Or if they ever had, even though the apartment complex's sheer mass of children and its seesaw fortunes over the years have profoundly affected the system. Sprawled along Montgomery County's border with Philadelphia, Lynnewood Gardens supplies 20 percent of Cheltenham's 5,100 students.

The Cheltenham School District has collaborated with Princeton Review, a national test-preparation organization, in an SAT review program designed to take some of the mystery out of test-taking for high school juniors. The eight-week program, which begins tomorrow, will alternate instructional sessions with full-length practice exams. About 150 students are enrolled. The program is intended to help students feel more comfortable with the material and the structure of the SAT, said Paul Edelblut, assistant vice president of educational partnership for Princeton Review.

On Saturday, some 400,000 students with sharpened No. 2 pencils will take the SATs, the college admission tests that stir the American frenzy over who should get into what college. The debate has been clouded by the pitting of merit against race now that affirmative action is under assault across the country. Tuesday night, the PBS series "Frontline" broadcast "Secrets of the SAT," which drew in part on journalist Nicholas Lemann's new book "The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy.