Yellow Ribbon Program Makes School More Affordable for Vets

The Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008 created a new way to help members of the military pay for school.

Currently the the Post-9/11 GI Bill pays up to the highest public in-state undergraduate tuition and fees. However, if you’re heading to a private college, going to grad school, and/or are not qualified to pay in-state tuition, your expenses may exceed the GI Bill benefit. The Yellow Ribbon Program — taking effect at participating schools on August 1st, 2009 — attempts to close the gap between GI Bill education benefits, and the true cost of many educational opportunities.

As part of the Yellow Ribbon Program, schools can volunteer to contribute up to 50 percent of that gap between their own costs and the highest public in-state undergraduate tuition and fees. The government then matches the school’s

New Podcast: Grad School Financial Aid for Professionals

Photo via the East SA blog

The newest Idealist podcast features Regina Garner, Director of Student Financial Services for the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Idealist.org’s Jung Fitzpatrick talks with Regina who dispels some common myths that working professionals have about qualifying for financial aid and to learn more about the ins and outs of financial aid for graduate education. Listen now!

Whether you’re thinking about graduate school–or are already on your way–this podcast helps answer many questions about the financial aid process. Topics include the basics of how financial aid is determined, the role of The College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 in debt forgiveness and loan repayment as well as other issues for professionals transitioning to graduate school.

If you have more questions about grad school, check out our free Public Service Graduate Education Resource Center, which in addition to articles on financing your graduate education, includes information on preparing for, applying to and alternatives to graduate school. You can also post questions to our Graduate Education Forum! Follow Idealist’s GradResources on Twitter.

Also be sure to check out the upcoming Graduate Degree Fairs for the Public Good this summer in Washington D.C. and New York City and this fall in 16 cities in the United States and Canada.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Combining Grad School and Citizen Service

Programs offer opportunities to ambitious public servants to combine graduate education with national or international service.

Last week I wrote about choosing between grad school and service if you are a rising college senior and facing the worst job market of your lifetime.

Some programs are specially designed to let you participate in both, simultaneously.

Consider the Master’s Community Development Program at SIT Graduate Institute in Brattleboro, VT, to serve as an AmeriCorps*VISTA as partial fulfillment of a graduate degree program. After completing the program’s coursework, students can participate in a VISTA year to fulfill practicum requirements–while paying 50 percent of the usual practicum fees. Students are responsible for ensuring the VISTA placement is relevant to their graduate degree (and an appropriate practicum).

Another prominent grad school – service partnership is that of Peace Corps’ university programs (of which SIT is also a partner). Peace Corps offers the Masters International program that allows incoming Volunteers to study for a year or two at a partner graduate institution, and then to participate for two years in Peace Corps in partial fulfillment of the graduate requirements. To learn more, check out the Peace Corps website, or listen to the Idealist podcast show featuring Peace Corps’ Eileen Conoboy on the topic.

Many teaching corps, such as Mississippi Teacher Corps, Chicago’s Inner City Teaching Corps, and NYC Teaching Fellows offer access to grad school — master’s degrees in education-related fields — to their participants.

If you are weighing your options and decide you truly want it all, go for it! Through these programs (and probably others — let me know) you can have the best of graduate education and service.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

School or Service? In a Down Economy which Way Should You Turn?

For the Class of 2009, job prospects appear grim. As an employment alternative, which is better: heading straight onto grad school, or participating in a term of service?

Is grad school the only safe haven from the nightmarish job market? Absolutely not. For an aspiring public service professional, serving full-time for a year or two with a national or international volunteer organization, or finding a fellowship in your field, may be better solutions.

The Case for and against Grad School

In any economy, both good and bad reasons exist to go to graduate school. Where normally a graduating college senior may be attracted to the structure of campus life, the security of knowing what’s next, and the parental nod of approval that come with a grad school experience, in this dismal job market even more reasons make grad school appealing as an alternate to the job search.

First: If you have a good idea about what direction you want to go in professionally, but fear few job openings in your field, you may be better off going to grad school so that you can work toward your professional goals rather than take a low-paying job that is completely unrelated, and that will take up valuable space on your resume.

Further, grad school also will allow you to defer loans, and may offer more affordable health insurance options than if you worked in a hourly-wage job that didn’t afford you health coverage.

At Idealist.org, we tend to think that grad students fair better after they’ve gotten a few years of work experience. Read more about why most undergrads should wait before going to grad school. Strictly academic fields of discipline (biology, history, literature, language) may be more inviting of undergrads, but professional degree programs (nonprofit management, business, public interest law, social work, public health, etc.) want to see people with real-world skills and professional experience.

Waiting to go to grad school gives you a chance to explore your professional talents and interests, offers you a basis for understanding what you’ll learn in school, and helps you to sharpen your career goals.

In addition to these normal arguments to postpone grad studies, this economic climate poses funding challenges for potential grad students.

• First, federal loans may not cover 100 percent of your need. Usually students can use private loans to supplement federal funds. But this year, private loans are limited because of the credit crisis.
• Second, competition will be stiffer for scholarships. School- and foundation-based scholarships are tied to endowments, which are weaker now due to recent stock market declines and fluctuations.
• Finally, state-funded schools face big declines in funding, due to state budget shortfalls caused by unemployment and lost income tax revenue, so graduate assistantships may also be harder to get.

If you do go directly onto grad school this fall, take advantage of your time in school to get as much field experience as possible, including internships, part-time jobs, and volunteer opportunities. Also take advantage of your school’s alumni and career services to to explore and network in your areas of interest. Your experience and networks add to the value of your education in the eyes of employers.

Service Corps as a Temporary Alternative to Grad School, or Not

Participating in a term of service may be a great alternative for you for a year or two. You’ll be on the front lines of helping the people who are hardest hit by the economic crisis —communities already living on the financial edge. You’ll likely take on meaty service projects—in a team setting or on your own—and get more responsibility than you’d get in a entry-level job anyway.

Most service corps offer basic health coverage, and make it possible for you to defer student loan payments for the length of the term. Check with individual programs for details; you can see a list of Corps and Coalitions in the right-hand side bar of this blog. In the best of economies, service allows you to jumpstart your career with connections and responsibility you’d be hard-pressed to gain in an entry level position. And it offers the essential benefits like a living stipend, student loan deferment, and health insurance that grad school also does — without the burden of morestudent loan debt. To read about the value of service as a launching-off point for a social-impact career, read Why Service?

The bottom line is that service opportunities may be more plentiful than jobs, and more plentiful than ever if President-Elect Obama’s stimulus plan calls for the expansion of national service. The Change/Wire blog has had great reporting of why service should be included in the package, and it is a raison d’etre of the Service Nation movement to increase support of national service. Even if the stimulus package overlooks national service, Congress may still choose to increase support of national service programs which leverage private funds and volunteers, to make them very cost-effective investments.

Good reasons exist not to do a term of service. If you can’t afford to live on less than $1000 a month because of other financial burdens, service may not be feasible. My friend Jen is supporting her husband who is still in school, for example.

You may know yourself well enough to know that you’ll be miserable living “simply.” My cousin Meagen, who will soon graduate from George Washington University, says she hated being a camp counselor last summer because of the primitive accommodations — so she knows that serving out some Peace Corps assignments would be disastrous for her.

You might also consider finding a fellowship opportunity. Idealist.org has a list of fellowships in public service, and a discussion forum with even more opportunities listed.

Keeping Your Options Open

Julie Harrold, Director of Admissions and Recruitment at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at University of Minnesota, says the most important things are to keep your options open and to put yourself in a position to learn and network with leaders.

While she agrees that grad school is more valuable after a few years of professional experience, Julie advises this year’s rising grads to apply for service corps, jobs, fellowships, and grad school—and see what comes up. She says most grad schools should be willing to defer enrollment for a year if an admitted student wants to use that time for AmeriCorps or another enriching opportunity. (You can also combine the two experiences.)

She goes onto say that developing a relationship with a leader who will mentor you is very valuable—as is putting yourself in a position to really learn something new. She also cautions young people from turning down a great opportunity in, say, community development, simply because their ultimate goal is in education policy. What you learn in one discipline will offer you broader insights as you move onto other disciplines, so community development may in fact help prepare you in unique ways for a career in education policy.

Finally, Julie Harrold is willing to answer questions about admissions and can be reached via email, jharrold[at]umn.edu.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Meaty Internships with Mississippi Teacher Corps

Teacher corps offers interns a chance to serve and learn in substantial ways next summer.

Mississippi Teacher Corps (which I also wrote about here) is recruiting summer 2009 interns. While the positions are unpaid, rising college seniors, juniors, and sophomores may be able to find funding through their college career centers. The corps is looking for 4-8 interns in 2009.

MTC interns offer substantial help with the program’s summer school where new corps members practice teaching, and interns take on meaty projects in MTC’s main office.

Interns are also expected to take on a research project for the summer that they present on before leaving; past interns have tackled topics like the connection between poverty and wrongful imprisonment; the importance of early childhood education; and the experience of several “Lost Boys of Sudan” here in Mississippi.

MTC offers its interns other learning opportunities: a regular speaker series, field trips, and  a two-day visit to the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, where they work on a project of the Institute’s choosing.

Apply here — deadline is March 1, 2009. Check out the video!:

The Mississippi Teacher Corps is a two-year program, designed for non-education majors, recruits college graduates to teach in the Mississippi Delta and other critical-needs areas, and offers a host of benefits, including teacher training and certification, a full scholarship for a master’s degree in education, job placement that includes full pay and benefits and the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of students in one of the poorest areas of the country.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

AmeriCorps*NCCC Members Earn Certification through American Humanics

AmeriCorps’s conservation corps partners with American Humanics to offer corps members certification in nonprofit competency.

Also note that AmeriCorps*NCCC has new deadlines: April 1 (summer class) and July 1 (winter class).

Recognizing that a term of service is a valuable education, American Humanics (AH) offers AmeriCorps*NCCC corps members the opportunity to count service hours towards AH nonprofit certification.

A national organization that offers educational opportunities on nonprofit management topics to undergraduates throughout the United States, AH has been “preparing tomorrow’s nonprofit leaders” since 1948. Around 3,000 students across the country are engaged in AH programs at 70 colleges and universities. Many of these students are working towards AH certification.

(Note that neither AH nor any other nonprofit management certification is required to get a program-management job in the nonprofit sector. Some public service roles do require certification. Read more about professional certification — and how to assess the value employers place on it — on Idealist.org’s Public Service Graduate Education Resource Center.)

The requirements of typical AH certification include 300 hours of approved internship service, general engagement in nonprofit leadership activities, academic coursework, a Bachelor’s degree, and completion of one AH Management Institute (the organization’s annual conference). What this means for NCCC corps members and alumni:

• AmeriCorps*NCCC members serve for 1700 hours which more than achieves the internship and nonprofit leadership objectives of certification.
• NCCC’s extensive training throughout the 10-month term of service counts for most of the academic course work requirements.
• NCCC alumni must attend one AH Management Institute to complete some of the course requirements.
• For the remaining course requirements, NCCC alumni can take courses at AH partner schools. Louisiana State University’s Shreveport campus allows NCCC members and recent alumni to take the needed courses  online—paying in-state tuition. (The Eli Segal AmeriCorps Education Award can apply to the costs of these courses.) LSU Shreveport also waives the GRE requirement for NCCC alumni taking these courses.
• If NCCC corps members haven’t finished their Bachelor’s degree yet, AH gives them seven years to complete it in order to be eligible for certification.

AmeriCorps*NCCC is the branch of AmeriCorps that is a conservation corps, modeled after the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps. NCCC stands for National Civilian Conservation Corps and is pronounced “N-triple-C.” The program is team-based and residential, for people aged 18-24. Teams travel to a variety of work sites throughout the 10-month term of service, exposing the young people to a variety of new service experiences. NCCC has been instrumental in rebuilding New Orleans and Mississippi in the wake of Hurrican Katrina in 2005. Each team is based out of one of the following campuses: Denver, CO; Sacramento, CA; Perry Point, MD; and Vinton, IA

AmeriCorps*NCCC is accepting applications through April 1, 2009, for its summer-start class, and July 1, 2009, for its winter-start class.

Learn more by listening to the Idealist.org podcast with Katrina Mathis on AmeriCorps*NCCC.

AH also has its own AmeriCorps program called AmeriCorps*ProCorps. ProCorps members serve from 450-1700 hours and earn the Eli Segal AmeriCorps Education Award (up To $4,725 for the full 1700-hour term).

NYC Teaching Fellows

New teachers primarily work in Bronx and Brooklyn schools with high demand for faculty, covering subjects that are also desperately needed. Within two to three years, Fellows earn a subsidized Masters degree from university in the area.

NYC Teaching Fellows — as with Teach For America, Inner-City Teaching Corps, Mississippi Teacher Corps, and other education corps we are looking at this week — is designed to bring new talent to schools.

Eligibility

People who enter the program don’t need to have had any formal background in education, but do need to have a 3.0 Grade Point Average in undergraduate course work. Read about other eligibility requirements.

The program recruits both recent college grads as well as career changers.

Training and “placement”

After an intense June seven-week pre-service training, Fellows start teaching. The program assigns each Fellow the New York City borough in which they will teach, and their subject. (Of particular need are math and science teachers.)

Fellows research and apply for the teaching positions themselves, and are granted a provisional state teaching license for their time in the program.

While teaching, Fellows earn the salary and benefits of starting teachers in the city (salary nears $46,000).

Master’s degree

Each semester, Fellows take two courses towards their master’s degree, mostly paid for by the New York City Department of Education. (Over the course of the program, Fellows contribute almost $7,000 towards the cost of the mastser’s degree, and that is deducted from their pay checks.)

The specific universities and degrees vary for each Fellow, depending on the borough where they work, and the subject they teach. More than half attend City University of New York (CUNY) schools. For most Fellows, it takes two to three years to finish the degree. After that, NYC Teaching Fellows encourages graduating Fellows to stay in the city and continue teaching. They cite a statistic I’ve seen elsewhere that it takes about five years for a new teacher to really hit their stride, and they want all their Fellows to reach that point.

Multimedia

Browse profiles and videos of Fellows, including Travis Brown’s. Read the blog of Bill King, third-year Fellow teaching biology and physics.

Also, watch interviews with first-year Fellow Kristen Bloomer and take a look inside Fellow Jeanine Tubiolo’s classroom:

Finally, watch this online presentation about the NYC Teaching Fellows.

Deadlines and application

Upcoming deadlines to apply for a 2009 Fellowship are December 5 and January 5. Read more about the application process.

Resources

For more resources on graduate education, check out the Idealist.org Public Service Graduate Education Resource Center, and if you live in the U.S. South, come out to one of our graduate admissions fairs touring — tonight in New Orleans and Monday in Atlanta.

This week The New Service blog is looking at education service corps. While many service corps programs have application due dates in the spring for a fall start date, most education service corps have deadlines throughout the winter and start in the summer. Check out this list of education-related opprotunities that don’t require an education degree.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Mississippi Teacher Corps

New teachers receive intense summer training, work in critical-needs schools in the Mississippi Delta or in Jackson for two years, and earn teaching degrees.

Aiming to rectify teacher shortages, as well as to develop the untapped teaching talent and leadership of college graduates, the Mississippi Teacher Corps is a program to look at. Designed for people with no formal background in teaching but who are passionate about becoming teachers. Especially for you if you love challenging yourself and want to engage young people and their communities though they may be very different from your own.

Placement and benefits

Corps members work in either Jackson, MS, or in the Mississippi Delta, and are placed in critical needs schools. They receive starting teacher salaries and health benefits in their districts as well as full tuition (including textbooks) from the University of Mississippi School of Education to pay for a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction. Read the full program description.

Training, support, and education

During the summer, first and second year Corps members team-teach classes at Holly Springs High School near Oxford, MS. New teachers are observed and receive feedback and guidance.

Throughout the two school years, Corps members travel back to the university for Saturday classes twice a month towards earning their Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction. Corps members’s training, classes and workshops are tailored to their unique experience and are not open to other students at University of Mississippi.

Multimedia

Reading the blogs of program director Ben Guest, instructor Ann Monroe, and Corps members, you definitely get the feeling that the structure and benefits of the program are tremendous gifts to Corps members, but that the real gift is working with the students.

Watch this interview with Ashley Johnson from the Class of 2006:

Cohort and community

The program also fosters a spirit of community and friendship among its Corps members. Many schools of education boast the cohort model (in which students start together, take all classes together, and graduate together), but require that students attend full-time in order to participate. On the other hand, many students who go to grad school part-time miss out on the cohort experience. Mississippi Teacher Corps engages the Corps as a learning cohort, although members take their education courses only part-time.

Deadlines and eligibility

As with Teach For America and other education service corps, the Mississippi Teacher Corps has a few deadlines throughout the winter. The next deadline is Nov. 25. See the other deadlines and application. Also, you don’t need to have been an education major, though a 3.0 minimum undergraduate Grade Point Average is expected.

Resources

Follow Mississippi Teacher Corps on Twitter.

For more resources on graduate education, check out the Idealist.org Public Service Graduate Education Resource Center, and if you live in the U.S. South, come out to one of our graduate admissions fairs touring New Orleans and Atlanta in the coming days.

This week The New Service blog is looking at education service corps. While many service corps programs have application due dates in the spring for a fall start date, most education service corps have deadlines throughout the winter and start in the summer. Check out this list of education-related opprotunities that don’t require an education degree.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

TFA Alum Michelle Rhee Explained, in the WaPo

Teach For America’s most controversial alum Michelle Rhee has garnered media attention for her iconoclastic, unbureacratic ways as the Washington, DC, chancellor of public schools. The Washington Post published a column by Jay Mathews today tracing Rhee’s basic philosophies about what works and doesn’t work in schools back to her time as a TFA Corps member in Baltimore.

“‘It was a zoo, every day,’ she recalled. Thirty-six children, all poor, suffered under a novice who had no idea what to do. But within months, for Rhee and other influential educators in her age group, the situation changed. She vowed not “to let 8-year-olds run me out of town….

“She found unconventional but effective ways to teach reading and math….Students became calm and engaged. Test scores soared. She kept one group with her for second and third grade. She was convinced that her students, despite their problems, ‘were the most talented kids ever.’”

But Rhee couldn’t teach them forever. According to Mathews, Rhee explained: “‘All of those kids would go on to other teachers and totally lose everything because those teachers were’ lousy. (Rhee used an earthier adjective.)”

The experience of working against convention to get those kids to succeed — and then the crushing disappointment of watching them go on to fail — shaped Rhee’s outlook and mission running DC’s public schools.

Teach For America, the nation’s most famous and elite education service corps, strives to eliminate educational inequities by placing graduates of top universities for two years in critical needs school districts throughout the United States. The program doesn’t aim to develop the teacher work force or address teacher shortages so much as to make it possible for all children to achieve in school, no matter where they are born, or under what circumstances.

It makes sense that Rhee works outside conventions. The two-year program trains its Corps members somewhat differently from a traditional academic program for teacher preparation. Because Corps members receive a couple months of training before becoming full-time teachers for the first time, their training tends to be very concrete, focusing on assessment, planning, and instruction, rather than emphasizing philosophy and content that are detached from the classroom application.

Hired through school district’s alternative certification programs, many Corps members earn certification through credits they earn through out their two years.

Corps members earn a starting salary for teachers in their district; benefits such as student loan deferment and the Eli Segal Education Award come through a partnership with AmeriCorps.

About a third of TFA alums go on to pursue careers in education. Most go on to leadership roles in other fields and sectors, informed by their years in the classroom. (Read about the impact of TFA Corps members and alumni. Read more about TFA’s career transitions support.) TFA has established partnerships with graduate schools who offer scholarships, application fee waivers, admission deferments and other benefits to TFA alums.

In the past year, applications to Teach For America (TFA) soared to over 25,000, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy earlier in the year, while only 6,200 TFA Corps members served last year.

That’s a lot of applicants who are turned away.

Many of these tens of thousands of applicants are drawn to Teach For America’s mission. Other applicants may be drawn to service more generally, and have applied to TFA because it’s hands-down one of the most prestigious, best-known, and best-funded AmeriCorps programs. Other applicants still may be attracted to the honor of serving with such an elite Corps of young people.

This week The New Service blog is going to look at a few other education service corps, including Chicago’s Inner City Teaching Corps and the Mississippi Teacher Corps. While many service corps programs have application due dates in the spring for a fall start date, most education service corps have deadlines throughout the winter and start in the summer.

For graduating college seniors interested in applying to TFA this fall, note that the second for four deadlines is coming up Nov. 7. Read more about TFA admissions.

TFA has been a cosponsor of our Idealist.org graduate admissions fairs for years and this fall financially sponsored two of our grad fairs, including the upcoming event in Atlanta, Nov. 3.

Columnist Jay Mathews hosted a chat online about the column on Michelle Rhee.

Tuesday 10/28, Eli Lilly and Company and Teach For America announced a new networking partnership in Indianapolis that aims to strengthen the TFA Corps members as well as the students they teach.

Career Tip, Document Your Service!

Saving facts and artifacts to share with hiring managers and grad admissions

Among the most important things you can do during your term of service is to keep records of your accomplishments now to share later, during job and admissions applications.

By “records” I mean everything from numbers to writing samples to screen shots of web sites you helped design to photographs of you or your clients in action.

The Facts of Your Service: Numbers

At the very least, keep track of your numbers. What the numbers are will depend on your type of service. Hours of training is a common one.

If you are a teacher, tutor, after-school coordinator, or trainer, keep track of numbers of students or participants; increase in grades and test scores from baseline assessments at the start of year; number of classroom volunteers you recruited and managed, etc.

If you are a project developer, keep track of dollars you raised, community partnerships you developed, clients your program served, meetings you facilitated, volunteers you recruited and managed, etc.

A great way to measure the impact of your service is not only to count your direct clients, but also the indirect clients of your service. Two examples: if you are an AmeriCorps member working with adult learners of English, look at the help you’ve offered the adults, as well as the benefit to their children, and the community. If you are an AmeriCorps*VISTA developing a volunteer program, count your volunteers, as well as the impact of their service.

When you are ready to transition, use at least some of the numbers in your resume and in anecdotes about the impact of your work! Numbers help a hiring manager or admissions committee put your resume into context and understand the impact of your work.

(See these chapters from the Idealist.org Guide to Nonprofit Careers about preparing your resume and for the job interview.)

The Artifacts of Your Service: Portfolios

One way to present the artifacts of your service is to create a portfolio — similar to a professional scrapbook — of your service term, with sections for each skill set you have built or employed.

The portfolio can start off with your position description and/or work plan, your resume, your Description of Service (for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers), constructive performance evaluations, letters of recommendation, workshop evaluations, and thank-you notes or emails that describe the impact of your service from colleagues, community partners, and others.

Skill sets to include may be anything from trail and house building to grant writing, event planning, curricula development and teaching, program development, volunteer management, etc.

Mini-portfolios to leave behind

Rather than taking the whole portfolio to interviews with you, you can photocopy relevant sections and leave them behind at the interview, for the hiring manager or admissions counselor to look at in their own time.

I don’t recommend offering more than a few samples of your work, but I do recommend you wait till you are prompted to offer recommendation letters or reference contacts.

Online portfolios

Alternately, you can create an online portfolio like Beth Kanter — the guru of social media use for nonprofits — has done, through a tool like Wikispaces (public spaces are free). Include the link on your resume and cover letters with the rest of your contact information.

Online portfolios are especially useful if you’ve used multimedia to document your service. Linking to your audio or video podcast on iTunes or Youtube is easier if your portfolio is already online.

And a warning: Keep in mind that if you have designed web pages or developed web content, capturing the image of the web page through a screen shot is still the best route for documentation. Linking to the web pages is too risky. Once you have left your service site, you won’t know if your web pages will be updated, if links will have gone sour, or if your pages will have come down altogether. Because you have no control over the pages after you are gone, it’s best to preserve them visually through a screen shot rather than linking to them.

Writing samples

Writing samples are great to include in your portfolio.  A common question I get is what to use when you are asked for professional writing samples.

Depending on  your position this year, you should have a chance to collect a variety of these. Anything professional you’ve written should work — from grant proposals, brochures and newsletters, formal emails or letters, project descriptions, focus group or survey summary reports, web content, press releases, etc.

If you are in a direct-service role with few opportunities to write, try to create a reason to write tied to your service like a narrative summary of your service or a specific service project.

Hang on to your documentation

The problem many service corps alumni face is that they’ve saved all these documents on the computer at their old service site, and now that they are finished, can’t access them easily to share during the job or school search.

Save yourself the heartache by emailing documents and photographs to your personal email account, or backing them up on a thumb drive. You can also use online tools like Google Docs and Flickr to access documents and photos later on.

Returned Peace Corps Volunteers can request a photocopy of their Document of Service from Peace Corps, to be sent to them directly or to their hiring manager or graduate admissions office. (Peace Corps keeps your DOS for 60 years.)

Other reasons to document

Documenting your service is not just useful for your next steps. Keeping good records helps during your term with grant writing and reporting, monthly reporting for AmeriCorps*VISTAs, communicating with your supervisor, preparing for your mid-term or end-of-service performance evaluations, and creating public relations materials for your program.

This blog post has been adapted from a section of the forthcoming Service Corps Companion to the Idealist.org Guide to Nonprofit Careers, due out this coming spring from Idealist.org.

Applying to U.S. grad schools from abroad

Are you a U.S. citizen working or volunteering abroad? Know someone who is?

Check out the newest article on Idealist.org’s Public Service Graduate Education Resource Center: Applying to a U.S. Grad School as a U.S. Citizen Living Abroad.

The article offers considerations for working with your local mail system, finding test prep materials and taking tests, and finding good alternatives to the campus visit.

Idealist.org grad fairs are not as useful if you can’t participate, however, you can and should check out the list of registered schools at some of the events (for example the 117 schools at this week’s San Francisco fair and or the 107 schools registered for the Los Angeles event).

Also note that Idealist is still looking for bloggers including current or former term-of-service participants (like Peace Corps and VSO volunteers), and people crossing borders to attend grad school.

The Grad School Campus Visit

Top things to know when you are shopping for schools

I don’t travel to as many of our Idealist.org graduate admissions fairs as I used to, but when I do I love to hear from admissions staff who table at the events about their day-to-day activities back at school. Over time I have had quite a few conversations about the Campus Visit and wanted to share some nuggets of wisdom here.

Visiting the admissions office:

One recent discussion was with Emmett Griffin of Georgetown Public Policy Institute about prospective students’s visits to his office. These are his tips:

As with any professional encounter, it’s wise to make an appointment with an admissions officer, a week ahead of time if possible. Admissions staff are busy. You’ll make a much better first impression if you set up a time to meet, and they are expecting you.

Read before you go. Of course you want to ask a lot of questions. But before asking anything of a school’s faculty or staff, read the web site and/or any available print material. Those will likely answer a lot of your questions, and you’ll make a better first impression if you have done your homework (this is, er, school, after all). (Imagine if you had a job where you were constantly asked questions — wouldn’t you answer all the most common questions on your web site and in your brochures?)

What if you happen to be visiting a city for other reasons and decide to drop by campus for an unannounced visit? Still call ahead, even if it’s just an hour ahead — and read as much as you can, even if it’s skimming all you can get your hands on in the admissions office itself, before chatting with an admissions officer.

Visiting classes:

The tips below are from conversations with Idealist’s Graduate Admissions Advisory Board (of which Emmett Griffin is a member):

Consider visiting a class or two while you are on campus.  But do not show up to a class unannounced. Schools love for prospective students to sit in on a class or two and will have different policies about how to set up the class visit.

Contact your target school’s admissions office, or the department. Sometimes you can sign up for a class visit right on the web site, other times the admissions office will direct you to the registrar or individual professor.

Also, professors might want you to have read some course materials ahead of time and expect you to participate in class discussions. Find out about these expectations ahead of time, if possible.

Other activities while you are on campus:

• Talk with someone in the career center about internship and career transitions support (grad schools often have their own career office)
• Meet with a current student to ask what it’s like to be a student there (see this article about informational interviews)
• Participate in a campus tour; many schools offer these a few times per day. The admissions office can let you know the details

Before you go, write a list of questions and/or considerations you’d like to keep in mind on the day of your visit. It might also be a good idea to jot down your top priorities in a school so you can objectively evaluate your experience later on. For example, if you intend to use the athletic facilities, you’d want to make sure you get to see them and find out how much (if anything) it costs to use them. You might be looking for an academically rigorous environment, or a lot of support setting up excellent internships.

Reflection:

When you get home, reflect on your list of questions:

√ What did I learn?
√ How interested am I in exploring this academic program further?
√ What values, skills, and interests of mine fit – or don’t fit – with the degree, department, or student culture?
√ What are my next steps from here?

Thanks:

After you visit, send thank-you notes to the professors, students and staff you met with. You can have the thank-you notes stamped, addressed and ready to go (save for writing the note itself) when you arrive on campus. As your last stop on campus, take a few minutes over coffee or lunch to write the notes, and pop them in the nearest mail box. The important thing is to make  the note meaningful, and to state something specific you learned. If possible, enclose your business card in the envelope.

Read more about grad school choices, admissions, and financial aid.

Find an Idealist.org Graduate Degree Fair for the Public Good in a city near you. (We are only going to 18 cities this year — we are genuinely sorry if we miss yours.) We’re coming to Philadelphia Monday 9/22, then off to the West Coast!

Blog for us (deadline extended).

How to find grad schools

Even the savviest, most passionate grad school seeker may get a crush on one or two famous grad schools, and have a hard time generating a “long list.”

But most admissions professionals will tell you it’s a good idea to apply to several schools (including—eek, I hate to say it—”safety” schools) to be sure you get in somewhere. I am not sure that I agree—you may want to work for a few more years in your field and apply again to your top choice schools when you are more established.

However, in case it’s useful, here are the main ways of fleshing out your list of prospective schools:

1. Attend the Idealist.org Graduate Degree Fair for the Public Good or another graduate admissions fair in a city near you. No, this isn’t a commercial, it really is a good way to find schools. If you go to a fair, I challenge you to approach at least three schools that you haven’t heard of, or you wouldn’t think of applying to. Let the admissions professional know your plans for the future, and see if they surprise you.

This week: Toronto (9/18) and Washington, DC (9/19). Next week, Philadelphia (9/22). See the rest of the season schedule here.

2. Informational interviewing. Talk with professors and professionals in your field, and find out how they got where they are now, if they even went to grad school, and where they would suggest you go.

3. School associations! Many different types of schools, from international affairs to business, are affiliated with an association of similar schools. You can learn about many different programs and the degree itself through the association. We don’t have a list of school associations online that I can link to (I will work on that) but do take a look at our grad fair cosponsors, which include many types. Other school groupings include schools that offer to match the AmeriCorps Ed Award, and schools that partner with Teach For America or Peace Corps to extend benefits to participants.

4. Conversations with graduate admissions personnel, who are well-versed in the characteristics of peer schools. Some schools’s admissions staff even travel and attend recruiting events together regularly. Whenever you have a chance to speak with admissions officers, share with them what you are looking for in your ideal school or degree. They should be able to let you know what other schools to look into, and whether or not their school is a good fit for you. If their school is a good fit, be sure to ask for guidance in navigating the application and admissions process.

5. Research online through sites like Peterson’s, Gradschools.com, and Idealist.org (we hope to launch a directory of public interest grad schools in 2009, but for now, search for “organizations” using key words like “graduate school,” “social work,” “MPA,” etc.)

Best of luck, and read more about grad school on our Public Service Graduate Education Resource Center!

Grad school for social change

This week, the Idealist.org Graduate Degree Fairs for the Public Good kick off the 2008 fall tour on September 10th in New York City!

(Please note that due to the Service Nation Summit’s Presidential Candidates’s Forum on Sept. 11 at Columbia, the venue for the NY fair has changed!)

The fairs bring together graduate schools that focus on positive societal change, and public service professionals– like you? –who want more education to further their careers.

If you are thinking about grad school, it’s one of the best ways we can think of to meet staff from some of the country’s top schools in degrees ranging from nonprofit & business management and social work, to public policy & administration, public interest law, public health, journalism, international affairs and more.

If you don’t live near one of the cities where the fairs will come this year, check out the Idealist.org Public Service Graduate Education Resource Center with lots of resources for going back to school. Read here for information specifically for service corps alumni.

Looking for experience before going to grad school?

Graduate admissions staff recognize service corps programs as a great way to get valuable, practical experience in the field to prepare for grad school.

If you are considering participating in a service program, know that several programs have benefits that await you after you are finished with your term.

Programs funded through AmeriCorps offer the Eli Segal AmeriCorps Education Award; the amount varies depending on the term of service, but a full term typically means $4,725. (The amount hasn’t been increased in a over a decade, though RPCV Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) and others in Congress are working to rectify that with the AmeriCorps Act of 2008.) The ed award is held by the National Service Trust until you are ready to use it, and can go towards tuition at most schools, or for student loans. Dozens of grad schools match the ed award so that your award may be doubled if you enroll at those schools.

Teach For America, an AmeriCorps program, has also fostered partnerships with many top graduate schools around the country that benefit TFA Corps members through application deferments, scholarships and ed award matches, and application fee waivers.

As we have written about before on this blog, Peace Corps also has two programs, Masters International and Fellows USA. The latter is specifically for people who have returned from Peace Corps service already.

A pretty good comparison (including education benefits) of some of the more famous service corps programs can be found in Chapter Five (PDF) of the Idealist.org Guide to Nonprofit Careers. Also check out Equal Justice Works blog about public interest law. Other associations of social-impact grad schools can be found among Idealist’s grad fair cosponsors.

Do you know of other benefits for service corps alumni not mentioned here? We’d love to hear about them!

Also Idealist is still looking for grad school bloggers! Click here to see if blogging for us sounds compelling to you!

Also note that many grad schools offer benefits to service corps alumni that aren’t through official partnerships with the service programs. It’s always a good idea to ask at your target institution.

Service alumni needed to blog about grad school

Bloggers Needed for Idealist.org
School seekers and students write about grad school

Tomorrow’s civic leaders learn about grad school through Idealist’s events and resources.

Soon they can learn from each other.

In fall 2008, Idealist will link its Public Service Graduate Education Resource Center to bloggers who take on grad school.

The resource center is a collection of articles and advice about researching and choosing schools, applying and financing a degree, and more. The resource center will not host the new blogs, but link to blogs elsewhere on the web.

Types of bloggers we are looking for
We aim to look at grad school from 9 different lenses

Current or prospective…
1. Participant in a term-of-service program (Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Teach For America, etc.) who is taking advantage of an educational benefit associated with service2. International student pursuing a graduate degree in the United States who is a resident of the United States and intends to stay (immigrant)
3. International student pursuing a graduate degree in the United States who is a nonresident/alien who plans to leave the United States upon graduation (F1 Visa)
4. U.S. citizen pursuing a degree outside the United States
5. Grad student enrolled in a joint degree program
6. Part-time grad student working full-time
7. Doctoral Candidate
8. Undergraduate applying to grad school, with the aim of enrolling the fall after college graduation
9. Masters degree candidate

To learn more, go to http://tinyurl.com/idealistblogger!

The public sector path to loan forgiveness

When something sounds too good to be true, it’s all right to become suspicious.

Here’s the good news: if you work at a nonprofit, you can make your federal student loan debt go away in ten years as long as you work in the public service sector all that time and make 120 monthly payments on your student loan.

This is awesome news for public sector types with a high student loan debt and low income. There are a number of restrictions worth studying sooner than later. For example, your loans will have to go through the federal direct loan program. If you’re loans aren’t direct loans currently and you want to participate in the program, you’ll need to consolidate. It could well be worth it to you down the road if you are able to shave 15 years off your student loan!

The finaid.org article covers the process of consolidating your loans into direct loans as well as some words of caution for holders of Perkins loans and tax implications down the road when the balance of your loan is discharged.

Also check out Equal Justice Work’s new blog on public interest law and loan forgiveness for public service employment.

Peace Corps and Grad School

The newest episode of the Idealist.org Public Service Careers Podcast features Eileen Conoboy, the director of the Office of University Programs at Peace Corps. Eileen says that its relationships with grad schools is the best-kept secret about Peace Corps.

Did you know that your Peace Corps service can count towards your grad degree? If you participated in the Masters International program, you would apply to both a partner grad school and Peace Corps at the same time, study for a year, and then take off for Peace Corps service for 27 months or so. At the end of Peace Corps service you may have some loose ends to tie up at school, and then you’d get your degree. Your degree program would be aligned with your Peace Corps service too, so that you’d be learning theories and practices useful to your eventual Peace Corps service while in school. PCMI does take into account your financial needs as well. Partner schools must offer some kind of financial benefit, including credit for foreign language mastery, or tuition benefits.

If you’ve already done Peace Corps, Fellows USA partner schools offer you financial benefits for grad school as well, along with an array of service-oriented programs to choose from. You don’t have to be a recently minted Returned Volunteer, either. Eligibility is life-long.

To learn more, go to Peace Corps’s grad school web pages.

Also check out Idealist.org’s new Public Service Graduate Education Resource Center. It’s still in the soft launch phase, but there are good articles there to help guide your search.