<p>Tiny BC department off charts with Fulbrights</p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/07/28/tiny_bc_department_off_charts_with_fulbrights/[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/07/28/tiny_bc_department_off_charts_with_fulbrights/</a></p>
<p>Wow, 13 Fulbrights from a single department is amazing!</p>
<p>It’s indeed impressive. However, given enough time, you can expect Mini to contribute to this thread and show that tiny “schools” hold their own in the Fulbright race.</p>
<p>Fwiw, winning a Fulbright has become an exercise akin to landing a spot at a very exclusive school or preparing students for competitions such as the Intel scholarships. While the candidate does have to have the right r</p>
<p>I was impressed by the great mentoring that went on from the day the students stepped into the prof’s office. If that’s what’s meant by “grooming a student” I’m all for it!</p>
<p>"While the candidate does have to have the right r</p>
<p>Xiggi, </p>
<p>BC is not exactly a big school, though at almost 9000 undergrads it is about 4x as big as Williams College about about 1/3 the size of the University of Michigan. Additionally, if you exclude the undergraduate professional schools of Nursing, Business and Education the school of Arts and Sciences is about the same size as Williams and many of the liberal arts schools.</p>
<p>As such, I am not sure how best to compare a “big school” like BC to a LAC.</p>
<p>it is not “amazing” nor “impressive” it is suspect</p>
<p>And what do you suspect?</p>
<p>just that, if you have one place win so many awards in one department, it looks like packaging and if the students are wonderful there can be a cloud over the award and diminshes its value to the public</p>
<p>sorry if that offends, but perception can trump reality</p>
<p>also, it is not unheard of for “friends” to help “friends”…</p>
<p>we have all seen awards go to people that don’t deserve it them and if me, as a person who is not invested in the award or anyone connected sees it as maybe "fishy’ others will as well</p>
<p>defend it all you want, doesn’t matter, if it looks funny, well, that is what people may think</p>
<p>and after rereading the article, it is all a game to the prof, with strategies involved, not just real academics</p>
<p>so many other countries in Europe should have scholors, to have so many in Germany alone, eh, what good does it do</p>
<p>so yeah, if it is suspect and if that upsets, too bad</p>
<p>For the past academic year, 1,300 US students were awarded Fulbrights to study in 140 countries.</p>
<p><a href=“http://us.fulbrightonline.org/about_programdesign.html[/url]”>http://us.fulbrightonline.org/about_programdesign.html</a></p>
<p>I know a little of the selection process and about German universities. No favors are involved. What officers look for, however: a feasible project in an appropriate location; good preparation for undertaking the project; willingness of the institution to welcome the student or the researcher;contacts established with the faculty who will be guiding the research. In this case, the BC profs looked to place their students in institutions which, because they may not be as well known as the Free University of Berlin or Heidelberg, may be more willing to put themselves out to help American students. It’s not a game; it’s a wise strategy for getting maximum benefit for their students. </p>
<p>There is nothing fishy about it.</p>
<p>my 2 cents: even 30 yrs ago my older sibling (who won a Fulbright to Germ) thought that is was “easier” (her words) to be placed in Germany. She was a fine candidate all the way around, but she thought that Germany seemed to take alot of Fulbrights.</p>
<p>And they even managed to award five of those to boys! ;)</p>
<p>maybe I just see the world differently than CGM, but I think what the prof did is admirable. I don’t have the impression he sees it as a “game” at all. He knows the rules and how the decisions are made, and gives advice to his students that maximize their chances. Kinda like what we’re doing here on the forum ;)</p>
<p>Is telling kids that applying for a school in Berlin is a poorer choice than applying to one outside it because Berlin is in high demand wrong, or a sign of a savvy advisor? Is telling kids to focus their app so that it is clear their intended research can only be done at the place they’re applying gamesmanship, or the mark of carefully targeted planning?</p>
<p>What this advisor is doing deserves applause, not criticism. He is the college equivalent of the HS counselor steering kids into activities matching their interests frosh year so that by the time their seniors they have an impressive resume, and then advising them which colleges are looking for kids with their strengths. Maybe CGM thinks that’s wrong too, I dunno. Having a college advisor that gives pertinent advice is something to celebrate, as opposed to far too many schools where all the advice you’ll get about a Fulbright if you wander into the career center is “the app booklet is in that stack there on the wall”</p>
<p>Great for BC and the successful students: While it’s true that Germany gets a lot of Fulbrighters, I noticed that many of the BC students who got Fulbrights are going on the research program and not as ESL instructors. And BC’s not alone in being among departments that have a tradition of grooming students for Fulbrights–I glanced at the list of recipients and noticed a lot from Bowdoin to Germany for the size of the dept., for example, in recent years.</p>
<p>Interesting about Bowdoin. I know a prof of German History who has a graduate student who was a Bowdoin graduate. He commented to me how well trained the student was.</p>
<p>I agree with Mikemac, but I’m not by nature a conspiracy theorist.</p>
<p>Oh, and while I googled the Fulbright student program, I saw an article in which Chicago bragged about its 12 awardees.</p>
<p>"just that, if you have one place win so many awards in one department, it looks like packaging and if the students are wonderful there can be a cloud over the award and diminshes its value to the public</p>
<p>sorry if that offends, but perception can trump reality"</p>
<p>Fulbrights, like most other fellowships, only have very secondary value to the public. Their primary value is to the STUDENTS, and represent the “value-added” by the institution. Unlike Rhodes and Marshalls, which are awarded to overall superstars who could likely have succeeded wherever they went to college, Fulbrights represent the quality of language and cultural instruction, writing ability, ability to conduct independent research, and access to good mentoring and adviisng. They are a very good measure for what they are.</p>
<p>My d’s school has had 14, 17, and 15 in the past three years (the last number includes two from the French Gov’t administered by the Fulbright people), and about two-thirds of applicants were finalists. That doesn’t so much reflect the academic strength of the students going in, but what their education added in the process.</p>
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<p>MarathonMan, the article mentioned this:</p>
<p>“This year, nine of BC’s 13 Fulbright scholars will teach in Germany, including Stefanie Casillas, a 21-year-old from New York City, who is headed to the small town of Ennepetal in September.”</p>
<p>Are there scholars who teach and do research at the same time? Are there differenet categories of for ESL and other teachers?</p>
<p>It seems that BC had 18 applicants and 9 won teaching awards, which is very much inl line with the quoted fact of “More than half of applicants to teach English in Germany won grants.”</p>
<p>“What this advisor is doing deserves applause, not criticism.”</p>
<p>I don’t think it is relevant if the professor deserves applause or criticism. His role is well established and the article made his contributions abundantly clear.</p>
<p>It is nice departure from the lack of adequate disclosure by well known Intel Awards powerhouses when reporting the successes of THEIR candidates.</p>
<p>xiggi, Here’s some info on the Fulbright ESL program, which is a bit lower profile than the so-called full awards for research. Some ESL teachers do have research projects, but they’re often on their own. Details vary a lot by country. There are many other different categories of Fulbright: some for exchanges of professors, some for doctoral research, some for recent college grads for research, the ESL program, and more targeted programs as well.</p>
<p><a href=“http://us.fulbrightonline.org/thinking_teaching.html[/url]”>http://us.fulbrightonline.org/thinking_teaching.html</a></p>