College Jobs: What Works Best

Phys Org: "Research shows that about 10 to 20 hours per week is the sweet spot when it comes to working in college. Students who work 10 to 20 hours per week tend to have better outcomes, including higher grades and more educational engagement, such as interacting with faculty, than students who do not work and students who work more than 20 hours per week. Although few studies demonstrate that working causes particular outcomes, working more than 20 hours per week during the academic year has been shown to have harmful consequences."

"To accommodate work, you may need to take fewer classes per semester or switch to part-time status. Taking fewer classes or becoming a part-time student can increase the time it takes to graduate and reduce the chances of completing a degree. Working can also reduce the amount of grants you are eligible to receive depending on how much money you earn. You can use the FAFSA4caster to explore how different amounts of earnings from work influence eligibility for Pell Grants—money that does not have to be earned or repaid and is awarded to students based on financial need."

"Not all jobs are the same. One study found that students who had a Federal Work-Study job were five percentage points more likely to graduate within six years than students working non-Work-Study jobs ... Any job can build general job-related skills, but some jobs are more directly related to future employment than others. Jobs that are related to your major or intended career may help build networks and other skills that lead to better jobs after completing college."

Moving Boulder: Tell Us What We Don't Know

Denver Post: "If it eases any anguish, Clark Brigger said he and the other CU Boulder admissions officers are not looking for perfection in applicants’ essays." He comments: “We are not grading a paper. We are not English professors. We are looking for unique attributes — something that isn’t already presented to us in the other application details. We want some type of uniqueness that tells us this student would really lend themselves well to our learning environment and make it a more complete and diverse environment.”

"Mark Hatch of Colorado College echoed the sentiment, saying students are better off trying to present their authentic selves rather than being a 'stenographer' who can check off every extracurricular without having a real passion behind their pursuits. If students dig deep to consider what makes them tick — a travel bug, a strong connection to family, a charitable streak, an adversity they have overcome — that is more appealing than a robotic list of accomplishments done just to get into college, Hatch said."

"Admissions officers who The Denver Post spoke to admitted that scrolling through teens’ Twitter and Instagram feeds wasn’t a top priority ... But there have been occasions when CU admissions staffers get a tip to check out a particularly egregious social media post of an applicant, and that post could knock out an otherwise solid candidate if it goes against the university’s values."

Guess Who? 10 Most Innovative Colleges

Reuters: "For the fifth year running, Stanford University tops Reuters’ ranking of the World’s Most Innovative Universities, a list that identifies and ranks the educational institutions doing the most to advance science, invent new technologies and power new markets and industries ... he top three universities on the list — No. 2 is MIT and No. 3, Harvard— have all held their spots for five straight years, as long as Reuters has produced the ranking. In fact, eight of last year’s 10 highest-ranked universities remained in the top 10, and 18 of the top 20. The results show that while inventors are often portrayed as iconoclasts, innovation relies on strong institutions."

"Overall, the United States continues to dominate the list, with 46 universities in the top 100, the same as the year prior. Germany is the second best performing country with nine universities. France climbs to third, with eight universities on the list; Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom each have 6; China has 4; the Netherlands and Switzerland have 3; Belgium, Canada, Israel and Singapore have 2, and Denmark has 1."

After Stanford, MIT and Harvard, the top ten most innovative U.S. universities according to Reuters are: University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of Southern California, Cornell University, University of Texas System, and University of California System.