Secret College Admission Essay Format for 2013 - College admission essay format is a design to make
your essay appear impressive and professional. There  are some guidelines that have been set by academic authorities to make your essay have an ideal presentation. These guidelines must be followed because they will be evaluated as part of the paper.

Formatting an admission paper begins with a good header. Your admission paper will require a title page. The titled page should contain on separated lines, centered and double spaced, the title of the paper and the writer's name. The instructor's name and the course name are left out since this is not a work for class presentation. Most admission papers are not necessary to be started using outlines. But if you use an outline to commence the paper, the outline should be typed on the centre of the
page one inch from the top and double-space the outline to fit the first line of the text. Take note that the outline should appear in short sentence form rather than in the shorter topic form. It is a skeleton of the admission paper. (see HERE)

Number all pages of your paper. If you use the MLA format, number all pages after the title page in the upper right hand corner, half an inch from the top. The outline pages should be number with small Roman numerals. Number the text pages with Arabic in the upper right hand corner. Begin the text one inch from the top and leave one inch margin at the bottom and sides of the paper.

You will normally be given word or page limits. Respect these limits even if you think you have something very important to write about. If you go beyond these limits, the rest of the work will be discarded.

If you are not given a particular font style, use the clear formatting. This will require a twelve point font size using times new roman.

The paper must have an introduction, a body and a conclusion. There will be so many admission essays to be viewed by instructors and if your paper fails to meet these standards, they will be nervous and may end up giving poor grades or even shoving your paper aside. Nothing should be taken with delight because there is no room for making corrections. (see HERE) The only available correction is that you will not be admitted into that particular college.

The requirement of typing out your paper should not be repeated. Almost all admission essays are typed out. This will allow for an easy reading of your essay. Most teachers are so obsessed about the handwritings of students. Anything boring or not visible will receive little or no attention. Take note that at times, you may even find it difficult to read what you have written.

College admission essay format has a lot of ins and outs to cater for. In researching and writing this paper, you will not only draw inspirations from library research techniques, but also ask from your teachers or get help from parents. There are different styles such as the MLA, APA, and CBE etc. It is of the student's interest to have an insight into all these styles of writing and know what path his or her curriculum takes.

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Tepper Launches an Online MBA for 2013 - Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business is
becoming the latest business school to jump into the online education business as it enrolls the first class for a FlexMBA program that will begin in August.

Tepper’s three-year program, which will be conducted partially online and partially in person, offers the same faculty and curriculum—and the same admission and graduation requirements—as its highly regarded full-time and part-time MBA programs. It follows similar programs at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. (see HERE)

Students who enroll in the FlexMBA program will be able to enter either the traditional part-time or full-time MBA programs at Tepper after the first year if they choose, says Robert Monroe, director of the FlexMBA.

The first set of acceptance letters for the initial round of applications recently went out to applicants. Monroe expects to have from 30 to 60 students in the first class. Although the school will cap the program’s attendees at 60, it will accept fewer students if applicants do not show they are qualified.

Those who enroll in the FlexMBA will spend five weekends with their classmates on the Tepper campus in Pittsburgh, as well as in New York and Silicon Valley. In-person meetings will include classes, workshops, leadership coaching, and career development. In between, students will spend six weeks participating in online education, which will include live classes, video, readings, and exercises.

Professors will determine the best use of technology based on the nature of the courses they are teaching. For example, students in the negotiations class might negotiate with one another via e-mail or Skype, says Monroe.

“We’ve come up with all sorts of neat ideas to meet the same objective but take advantage of the new technology,” he says. Professors are hoping to use the knowledge gained from operating the new online program to improve the other MBA programs at Tepper, he says. (see HERE)

Students who enter the program in 2013 will pay $118,080 for all three years, which is the same price as Tepper’s part-time MBA program but nearly $25,000 more than the UNC online program, MBA@UNC. They will also pay their own transportation expenses for each of the five on-campus weekends, though the school will provide hotels, meals, and shuttles during their stay.

While prospective students remain concerned about how employers and others might view their participation in an online program—many of which are considered sub par when compared to brick-and-mortar courses, Tepper promises to deliver the same rigorous education.

Ultimately, Tepper wants to embrace technology and reach more students with this degree, says Monroe. “We really see this as part of the future of MBA degrees,” he says. “Clearly, we want to be part of the trend.”

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USA Making Little Progress On Jobs Jor Disabled Americans - Whether it means opening school track meets to a deaf child or developing a new lunch menu with safe alternatives for students with food allergies, recent Obama administration decisions could significantly affect Americans with disabilities. But there's been little progress in one of the most stubborn challenges: employing the disabled.

According to government labor data, of the 29 million working-age Americans with a disability - those who are 16 years and older - 5.2 million are employed. That's 18 percent of the disabled population and is down from 20 percent four years ago. The employment rate for people without a disability was 63 percent in February.

The job numbers for the disabled haven't budged much since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which gave millions of disabled people civil rights protections and guaranteed equal opportunity in employment, public accommodations, transportation, government services and more.

The National Council on Disability's Jeff Rosen said long-standing prejudicial attitudes need to be addressed to boost jobs.

"Employers are still catching on to the fact that the needs of most workers with disabilities aren't special, but employees with disabilities often bring specialized skills to the workplace," Rosen said. "Perhaps no one knows how to adapt, think critically or find solutions better than someone who has to do so daily in order to navigate a world that wasn't built with them in mind."

Rosen, who is deaf, was named in January as chairman of the council, an independent federal agency that advises the president, Congress and other federal agencies on disability policy.

The Obama administration recently has acted to expand the rights of Americans with disabilities in other areas.

The Education Department's civil rights division released new guidelines that direct schools to provide students with disabilities equal access to extracurricular sports teams. If schools can't, they should create similar athletic programs for disabled children, the department said.

Also, the Justice Department said in a settlement with a Massachusetts college, Lesley University, that severe food allergies can be considered a disability under the law. That potentially could lead to new menus and accommodations at schools, restaurants and other places to address the needs of people with food allergies.

One silver lining in the lagging employment for the disabled has been federal hiring.

The latest data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management shows nearly 15 percent of new federal hires between 2010 and 2011 were people with disabilities - almost 19,000 people. That's up from the previous year when about 10 percent of new hires were people with disabilities.

President Barack Obama signed an executive order in 2010 aimed at improving the federal ranks of people with disabilities. The goal was to add 100,000 disabled people to federal payrolls in five years; that would be within reach if the 2010-2011 hiring numbers were to stick or improve (see HERE).

Federal agencies are trying to achieve the numbers through better recruitment, especially at colleges and universities. And last month, OPM issued rules to limit the paperwork that potential hires with disabilities would need to provide. They essentially "self identify" as disabled by qualifying for a special hiring category known as "Schedule A" that allows disabled people to apply for a job through a noncompetitive hiring process, meaning they could be hired without competing with the general public.

The administration also is considering new rules that would leverage the power of federal spending to encourage companies to hire more disabled workers. The Labor Department is weighing a rule that would require companies with federal contracts to set a goal of having at least 7 percent of their workforce be disabled. Federal contractors employ nearly one-quarter of the nation's workforce.

Since the rule was proposed more than a year ago, business groups have complained that it would be too burdensome and lead to conflicts with federal laws that discourage companies from asking job applicants to identify themselves as disabled.

"We have had a long history of supporting the disabled community," said Randel Johnson, vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for labor issues. "But this proposal goes too far, woefully underestimates cost of compliance, and is completely unworkable as structured in the proposal."

Jennifer Lortie, 29, of Griswold, Conn., considers herself one of the lucky employed Americans with a disability.

Lortie was born with cerebral palsy and has limited use of her arms and legs. She graduated college during the recession and it was no easy task finding a job.

She spent more than a year scouring newspapers, job search websites and sending out dozens of resumes. She worried her wheelchair might be a strike against her until she landed a position in 2009 as an assistive technology specialist with the Connecticut Tech Act Project. The federally-funded program aims to increase independence for people with disabilities by educating them on new and best-fit technologies for work, school and community living.

"I think helping people kind of makes me think maybe there's a reason that I am in a wheelchair," Lortie said in an interview. "There has to be some reason to all this, so it gives me a sense of purpose as far as 'OK, I'm in a wheelchair but I can help other people' instead of just sitting home feeling sorry for myself."

Lortie spends four hours each day commuting to work and then back to the home she shares with her parents. They drive her to the bus stop and then she takes two buses to get to work - two hours each morning and two hours at the end of the day to get home. And she doesn't mind a bit. "I like to help people," she said.

Jill Houghton works with companies to expand employment for people with disabilities. Among the big barriers, she said, are concerns about cost. Companies worry about whether they'll have to make special accommodations or additional training and they want to know how much it's going to cost.

"The reality is that businesses have found that when they create inclusive workplaces, where people with disabilities are working side by side with people without disabilities ... the bottom line is that it doesn't increase costs," said Houghton, who heads the US Business Leadership Network, a trade association that represents about 5,000 businesses.

She said she has noticed a significant increase in calls and requests recently to the group from the business community about hiring people with disabilities.

Companies want to be inclusive of people with disabilities, Houghton said. "Businesses are learning that it just makes good business sense."

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Lauching Based Interviews for MBA Admissions 2014 - The Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan plans to launch a team-based interview as part of its MBA admissions process for 2014. The interviews, unlike traditional one-on-one or group interviews, bring together several applicants to give the admissions team a chance to evaluate them based on how they interact. Ross is the second major business school to experiment with this approach.

Ross tested its team interview concept in Beijing, Shanghai, and Ann Arbor in January and February, and the admissions committee will spend the summer determining how to formally organize and begin group interviews, said Soojin Kwon, director of admissions at the Ross School. The logistics of bringing together applicants and evaluators might make a global roll out difficult, she added. “We want to implement this more broadly next year,” says Kwon. “How broadly is the question.”

For the pilot, some of the people who had been invited for the traditional one-on-one interview were highly encouraged to participate in the group exercise. The admissions committee told them that it would not be part of the evaluation of their application. About 110 applicants in all participated in the three locations. Alumni and second-year students served as evaluators (see HERE).

The applicants sat at tables in groups of four to six with at least one evaluator. First, they were given two random words and 10 minutes to prepare an individual presentation that connected the words in some way. They could take any direction, from serious to humorous, from analytical to opinionated, says Kwon. Next, the group was given a set of random words and 20 minutes to prepare a team presentation that used the words to address a problem and solution.

“Different things come out in a group interview,” says Kwon. “It creates a more complete picture of what the applicant will be like in a classroom and in our community.”

Kwon consulted the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, which launched its team-based interviews in the fall. The Ross School’s process is slightly different. Wharton sends candidates a question ahead of the interview and then puts them in groups of no more than six to prepare and present their conclusions and recommendations. The group has 35 minutes from start to finish. Either second-year students or admissions committee members evaluate the interviews.

At Ross, Kwon chose to use random words to ensure that applicants could not prepare much ahead of time, she says. The traditional one-on-one interview has become stale, says Kwon, because many applicants see the questions online ahead of time, get the aid of admissions consultants, and over-rehearse.

Indeed, the Wharton and Ross schools turned to the group interview to see how applicants react on their feet, work in teams, and speak in public. Ankur Kumar, Wharton’s director of MBA admissions and financial aid (see HERE), says it’s also an opportunity for applicants to get a window into the culture at the business school, where students are expected to participate in about 15 to 25 teams during their two years in the program.

“We’re not trying to pull any punches or trick applicants,” says Kumar. “We’re trying to get to know the applicants in a multi-dimensional form.”

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