527. DOES GROWTH MINDSET MATTER?
Tests and the Rest: College Admissions Industry Podcast
Release Date: 10/03/2023
611. IEC PROFILE: Stef Mauler
Tests and the Rest: College Admissions Industry Podcast
Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced independent educational consultant? MEET OUR GUEST Meet Stef Mauler, founder of the Mauler Institute™ and author of . She began working in Ivy League admissions over 30 years ago. She met thousands of high school students and their families as they went through the mysterious Ivy League admissions process. Discovering that the majority of applicants had the academic record, but were not accepted, she set out to find patterns in what differentiated the students who were accepted from those who weren’t. Stef holds a B.A....
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610. IEC PROFILE: Michelle Siddons
Tests and the Rest: College Admissions Industry Podcast
Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced independent educational consultant? MEET OUR GUEST Meet Michelle Siddons. Michelle is an Associate Member of IECA, a new member of NTPA, and has her Masters in Education from Seton Hall and undergraduate degree from Colgate University. Michelle has been helping high school students for over twenty five years with test prep and the past five years with college counseling. She completed her certificate in college counseling from UCLA. She and her husband live in Mountain Lakes New Jersey, have three young...
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609. IEC PROFILE: Feiyang Liu
Tests and the Rest: College Admissions Industry Podcast
Ready to learn the history, philosophy, and practice of an experienced independent educational consultant? MEET OUR GUEST Meet Feiyang Liu. As a naturally introverted high school student, Feiyang felt immense pressure to adopt a bubbly, inauthentic persona for my college applications. This led to a lack of fulfillment and a realization that pretending to be someone he wasn’t came with significant consequences. After graduating from UCLA with a degree in Political Science and from USC with a Master's in Education (Enrollment Management and Policy), he grappled with people-pleasing while...
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608. HOW TEST PREP PREPARES YOU FOR COLLEGE
Tests and the Rest: College Admissions Industry Podcast
The successful outcome of preparing for the SAT & ACT can yield a massive return on investment, but the real value lies in the process itself. Amy and Mike invited educator Rob Pollak to explore how test prep prepares you for college. What are five things you will learn in this episode? Is test prep all about tips and tricks? How is standardized test prep more than just preparation for one isolated exam? In what way does test prep challenge students to think more strategically about their learning and approach to studying? How do the skills students develop during test prep...
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607. THE DIFFERENT ROLES OF SCHOOL AND PRIVATE COUNSELORS
Tests and the Rest: College Admissions Industry Podcast
Teens on the road to college tend to encounter a variety of counselors positioned to support them on their journeys. However, not every one of these counselors has the same job. Amy and Mike invited educational consultant Margaret Rothe to define the different roles of school and private counselors. What are five things you will learn in this episode? In what ways are school and private college counselors the same? Do you have to be a high school counselor to be a private college counselor? What is something high school counselors do that IECs don’t or can’t do? What is something...
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606. HOW GRADING POLICIES INFLUENCE GRADE INFLATION
Tests and the Rest: College Admissions Industry Podcast
The fact that students are earning higher grades than ever without any appreciable increase in other assessments of academic ability should be well-known by now. Less understood are the root causes of this increasing phenomenon. Amy and Mike invited researchers Maia Goodman Young and Dan Goldhaber to dig into the data on how grading policies influence grade inflation. What are five things you will learn in this episode? What is the purpose of grading? How did state policy around grading in Washington change during the pandemic? What does the research show about changes in grades...
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605. EXTEMP WITH AMY & MIKE: November 2024
Tests and the Rest: College Admissions Industry Podcast
The Tests and the Rest podcast has always been relentlessly focused on exploring important topics in testing, admissions, education, and learning with amazing expert guests. Once in a while, though, we enjoy an unstructured opportunity to discuss our own takes on major issues, upcoming events, and our endeavors at the intersection of business and education. Catch up with us in the latest episode of EXTEMP with Amy & Mike. What are five things you will learn in this episode? What new piece of curriculum did Mike create recently? What is Mike’s background in birding? What were...
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604. ALL ABOUT THE ACT TEST ENHANCEMENTS
Tests and the Rest: College Admissions Industry Podcast
The ACT has been remarkably stable since the last time the exam was “enhanced” in 1989. However, significant changes are coming more quickly than you might think to this influential college admissions exam. Amy and Mike invited ACT representative Catherine Hofmann to share all the details about the ACT Test Enhancements. What are five things you will learn in this episode? How is the ACT changing? What aspects of the ACT are staying the same? What is the motivation for these enhancements? Will the Enhanced ACT be linear or adaptive? What is the timeline for the Enhanced...
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603. BUILD A WINNING BRAND TO ACE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS
Tests and the Rest: College Admissions Industry Podcast
You don’t need to be a future business major to bring some marketing acumen to your application to higher education. Amy and Mike invited marketing professional Stacey Ross Cohen to review how to build a winning brand to ace college admissions. What are five things you will learn in this episode? How are college admissions and personal branding related? Why is personal branding/digital leadership critical for college-bound students? What are essential steps teens should take to build a strong personal brand? How can college-bound students use social media to their advantage? What...
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602. HOW ADMISSIONS COUNSELOR MORALE IS CHANGING ADMISSIONS
Tests and the Rest: College Admissions Industry Podcast
The current college admissions dynamic where selective schools routinely receive 10, 15, or even 20 times as many applications as they have available seats has been a tremendous source of stress for applicants and their families. But how are the professionals who have to manage these applications holding up? Amy and Mike invited author Teege Mettille to explore how admissions counselor morale is changing admissions. What are five things you will learn in this episode? What exactly is admissions counselor malaise? How have changes on college campuses impacted the admissions process? What...
info_outlineFew concepts in education and performance psychology are as universally accepted as that of the power of a growth mindset. Does that mean the research is conclusive and settled? Not exactly. Amy and Mike invited journalist Jill Barshay to dig into an unexpectedly controversial question–does growth mindset matter?
What are five things you will learn in this episode?
1. What is growth mindset?
2. How new is the concept of growth mindset?
3. What is the research evidence for growth mindset?
4. Is the science behind growth mindset universally accepted?
5. Should growth mindset be taught?
MEET OUR GUEST
Jill Barshay writes the weekly “Proof Points” column about education research and data, covering a range of topics from early childhood to higher education. She taught algebra to ninth-graders for the 2013-14 school year. Previously, Barshay was the New York bureau chief for Marketplace, a national business show on public radio stations. She has also written for Congressional Quarterly, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and the Financial Times, and appeared on CNN and ABC News. She was a 2016-17 Spencer Fellow in Education Reporting. In 2019 she received the American Educational Research Association's award for excellence in media reporting on education research. A graduate of Brown University, Barshay holds master's degrees from the London School of Economics and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Follow Jill by subscribing to the Proof Points newsletter at https://hechingerreport.org/newsletters/.
LINKS
Does growth mindset matter? The debate heats up
Should taxpayers and schools invest in ‘growth mindset’ programs?
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ABOUT THIS PODCAST
Tests and the Rest is THE college admissions industry podcast. Explore all of our episodes on the show page.
ABOUT YOUR HOSTS
Mike Bergin is the president of Chariot Learning and founder of TestBright. Amy Seeley is the president of Seeley Test Pros. If you’re interested in working with Mike and/or Amy for test preparation, training, or consulting, feel free to get in touch through our contact page.