Wrapping Up

I am all graduated now! What a year. It flew by. New school. new job. new friends. new life. Penn GSE! How spectacular. I can't believe it is coming to a close. I am sure I will go into shock when I finally realize that I am done! It is crazy! Graduation was fun! And emotional. It is so strange to graduate with your master's!

My family came from California to see me graduate! They were here for a few days. We saw the Liberty Bell, South Street, the art museum, and fabric row (my mom loves fabrics!). We ate at Mid-town Continental and Ralph's Italian, two of Philadelphia's greatest restaurants. For one of my brothers, it was his first time  in Philadelphia. My mom loved it! When they got out of the car at the airport and said their goodbyes, I could hardly believe it. As soon as they left, I teared up a little bit - well, maybe more than I care to admit. I miss them so much!

The job search has been a wonderful adventure! I have traveled far and wide to find the right fit. In some ways, it is like applying to colleges all over again! Everything is in place for my next chapter and I am very, very excited!

Thank you for reading my posts this year. I will be around until mid-June. Feel free to reach out if you need anything at rbenson@gse.upenn.edu.

Why Hello There: A Critical Update!

 Today, I came in to work and found  piece of mail addressed to me on the desk! Did I say I love mail? I don't know that I ever told you that, but I love it. In any case, it was a handwritten letter from someone who is entering the higher education program next year congratulating me on graduating and thanking me for writing this blog!!! If you are reading --thank you. You made my day! And- you have nice handwriting. It's the little things like handwritten notes that keep me going.

As far as assignments, I am pretty much done.

Last night, I was up until 4 am putting the final touches on my final paper about arbitration agreements in enrollment contracts at for-profit colleges. What a hot mess! Generally, I am the do-it-ahead-of-time person, but this time I just became overwhelmed by all of the complicated issues at hand when these arbitration agreements are in play. My argument is that courts' recent interpretation that these clauses are pretty much always enforceable should be re-evaluated because there is a lot of room for the possibility that the agreements are unconscionable or entered into based on false pretenses that I argue would (or could) serve to void the contract. I do not know very much about legal issues, so it was certainly both a challenge and an adventure to investigate this issue and write about it for a final paper. my final paper of college. ever. or. at least for now.

I do have one last class meeting today with Phillip (Dr. Buckley), my uncommonly hilarious and incredibly knowledgeable legal issues in ed. policy and practice professor. The class is 12 students and we have pretty hot debates in there about things like homeschooling, special education, speech at schools and school finance. The paper I wrote about for-profit colleges is for that class because Phillip thought that it would be great for me to write about higher education for my final paper, since I am in the higher ed. program. I appreciate his flexibility in that (it was his idea!) because it makes my last paper in the program relevant to the sorts of things I am interested in the most.

Today at work, we are having an ice cream party for all who have helped with admissions events. I can't wait! Until then, I will be chugging away at a few things, wrapping up things here in the office. I'm building up a list of our continuing students who want to continue to be ambassadors for admissions and it makes me smile that so many want to continue to be involved. the next GA, who will come in late summer, will have no shortage of students to work with for admissions events!

I'm going to get back to work and my onion bagel now, but drop me a line if you need anything!

:)

Colleges That Change Lives

 College access. College choice. College application. College ranking and reputation. These are things I spend a significant amount of time thinking about as a student in the higher education program, particularly in my course on enrollment management. here are some of my recent thoughts on college rankings and the mechanisms I believe are more appropriate for evaluating a college or university (at the undergraduate level)
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In the 1980's U.S. News & World Report changed the landscape of higher education and the college selection process by creating a list of college rankings. For the first time, anyone could purchase a list that compared the vastly different institutions of higher learning in America. Initially, U.S. News & World Report's college rankings were based solely on peer assessment. A relatively small sample of college administrators were asked to evaluate the quality of other colleges. Over the years, the methodology has evolved,but the colleges that dominate the top of the list rarely change. So much of the ranking,as evaluated by the methodology (right) is dependent upon the resources that the college has available. The colleges that tend to be ranked the highest are not surprisingly the colleges with the largest endowments.And, completion rates, which are arguably one of the most important measures of institutional quality, make up a relatively small percentage of the ranking.

Because of this, and because I do not believe you can compare such vastly different institutions using a single methodology, I do not rely on the ranking system to evaluate the quality of a college or university. Instead, I look to the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE for short), The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS for short) and the Colleges That Change lives (CTCL for short) to learn about what really matters. Instead of ranking colleges, all three of these sources seek to understand various dimensions of quality in higher education. They paint a more holistic picture of the institution that helps people understand what the strengths and weaknesses of any particular institution might be. It is a little more work than simply pulling up a list, but it is much more revealing. on IPEDS, for example, you can view first year retention rates, four and six-year graduation rates and even loan default rates). The list of 40 Colleges That Change Lives helps people to understand what is valuable in undergraduate education.Loren Pope, who wrote the book, Colleges That Change Lives, said that:

"These schools share two essential elements: a familial sense of communal enterprise that gets students heavily involved in cooperative rather than competitive learning, and a faculty of scholars devoted to helping young people develop their powers, mentors who often become their valued friends."

Isn't this -rather than faculty compensation, expenditure per student, or average SAT score- what makes college such a transformative experience?


Here is my one concession to the ranking system. People generally buy into it, and I think that the association between ranking and quality is real in the minds of some employers. It does not have to be that way. If recent graduates seeking employment are able to articulate the value they found in their college education in a way that makes sense to the employer, I think that rankings can g out the window. So, assuming that the applicant can use the cover letter and resume to "get off paper," rankings do not have to matter as much as they do.


For me, the undergraduate experience was incredibly valuable, in part because the University of California, Santa Cruz was the right place for me. It was a community of people dedicated to learning, to creating opportunity for one another and to flexible, interdisciplinary education.My UCSC education continually revamped my writing and critical thinking skills. It exposed me to scholars in my fields of interest with whom I am still very close. It allowed me to take courses in multiple subject areas, to gain valuable work experience, to find value in learning across disciplinary bounds, and to let all of the learning that I was doing interact in such a way that expanded my consciousness and aided in my development as a practitioner and a person. Of the undergraduate institutions to which I applied and was admitted, UCSC was fourth in the ranking. If I had chosen to follow what U.S. News & World Report had to say about UCSC, and about the other colleges to which I applied, I would not have gone to UCSC. To this day, I believe that UCSC was the best choice, for me. It's such a unique school, and one where everyone in the community values one another on a very individualized basis. I love UCSC.

Turning away from my own experience,there is research to suggest that fit and matching are important in predicting student success (you can draw this conclusion from the work of Kuh; Tinto; Terenzini; or Bowen, Chingos & McPherson). College is about changing lives, and it always has been. Everything else flows from this. If the undergraduate experience being offered by a college is valuable to students, they will graduate in higher numbers; they will want to come to the institution; they will be successful there; they will want to engage with the institution long after they graduate.

Inside a GSE Assignment

In the higher education program, we can take a few non-higher education courses, and we are required to take at least one GSE course that is non-higher ed. This allows us to sharpen our skills in other areas of education and stay connected to the field overall. The K-12ers are, after all, technically in the same field as us! My foray into K-12 education has been through the Legal Issues in Education Policy and Practice course. In this course, led by the fabulous Dr. Buckley, we explore the role and influence of litigation, precedent and statutes upon education and education reform efforts. We have looked at how the courts have viewed (or abstained from viewing) the role of common schools, school finance reform, special education, segregation, and now, we are looking at homeschooling.

To be completely honest, the class of about 16 students is full of brilliant education policy and K-12 experts from other programs, and sometimes I feel a couple steps behind. I read, and I generally understand the reading, but the students in the class know their stuff. They know how to get right to the heart of the issues and bring out some of the most interesting topics of discussion. Sometimes they get to that point when I am still pondering the more basic questions about whether or not the courts should even be involved in these issue at hand.

As part of meeting the course requirement, everyone has to partner up with someone and give a presentation on one of the units. My unit is homeschooling and I am presenting today! I partnered up with the one higher education student in the class, so we are both a bit nervous about presenting on K-12 to those who probably know a lot more about homeschooling than we do! As a practice run, I want to go over some of the things we will cover right here on my blog.

We will start with an overview of the constituents that have a stake in the issue of homeschooling, or of directing childrens' education more broadly. There are three interested parties: the state, the parent and the child. Then, there is the question of rights versus interests.For example, if a democratic community of parents decide not to include particular topics in the local school curriculum, and the state believes the decision is detrimental to the interest of the child, when does the state have the right to intervene?

Then, we launch into some historical context using an article by Barbara Woodhouse called Who Owns the Child? as an entry point. In the article, Woodhouse looks at the implications of supreme Court cases, Meyer V. Nebraska (1923) and Pierce V. the Society of Sisters (1925). though the cases were not about homeschooling per se, they helped to establish a precedent for parental rights to direct children's education. here is how:

Meyer V. Nebraska was a Supreme Court case which deemed a law restricting the teaching of languages other than English to students under the eighth grade unconstitutional. The argument behind their decision was interesting. The decision handed down by Justice McReynolds included the following:

“The liberty guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the Federal Constitution denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint, but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.”

Two years later in Pierce, the Supreme Court decided that it was unconstitutional for a state to require students to go to public school, again because it infringed upon the rights of the parent to direct the child's education.Although these two cases had essentially nothing to do with homeschooling in their respective historical contexts, they have been put forth as support for the right of parents to home school their children. The cases, for the first time, created sa sort of right to parenthood in the 14th amendment (which would become very useful later).

The two cases raise questions that we still think about today. What are the interests of the community within the child? Are children the property of parents? Are they extension of parents? Or, are they individuals with rights? Again, if we look only at these two decisions, there seems to be a lot of support for parents rights, and the cases are deciding where to draw the line on state authority to infringe upon parents.

Then, my partner goes over a more contemporary case, Rachel, and some of the arguments about the constitutionality of homeschooling as they pertain to that case.The main article we use in this is from someone (who we do not agree with) who oppose the idea that there are some cases where is not in the interest of the child for the parent to home school the child (issues of abuse or threats to the child's welfare provide clear examples).

After that, I explore whether or not it matters why a parent chooses to home school. In short, I am asking; what about the interests of the state, the society? A democratic society is interested in having well educated, civically-engaged citizens who have been exposed to ideas of people different than themselves. If parents are homeschooling their children to protect them from the difference of ideas and people that exist in a diverse society, should they be allowed to do so? How do we decide this matter? Should the interest of the state in creating the future of its society come into play here?

Then, my partner goes over a third point of view, as presented by  James Dwyer. Dwyer's argument is that the dichotomy of parents' rights and states' rights is erroneous and irrelevant. we need to consider the rights of the child and the interests of the child. In practice, this is hard because children are immature and cannot be autonomous. Adults inevitably are a part of defining what kind of education children will have, but Dwyer argues that they should do i t not out of what will benefit or satisfy them, but what is ultimately best for the child. this is, in practice, quite difficult, but Dwyer does raise a pretty good point. He is saying that these cases, decisions and discussions should be framed in the interest of the child rather than the parent or the state.

Then, we do a short role-play example where the students are different parties to an interchange at a middle school where parents object to their children being taught about homosexuality.

Thank you for letting me practice. And, pardon the fact that I know very little about K-12 education! I am trying! :)

Wish me luck on the presentation today at 2!

Saving Money As A Grad Student At Penn

As a graduate student, I generally do not have a lot of extra money lying around, so it is helpful to be smart about how, where and how much I spend. before I came to Penn, I was ridiculously worried about money and having enough of it to get by and not miss out on everything. Over the year here, I have relaxed about that much more and I think that I am now in a position where I can share some insider tips about how you, as an incoming student, might begin to think about ways to save money or spend less when you do spend, rather. This short list is just a beginning, but I think it might be useful, so enjoy!

FOOD

• Bring small amounts of cash to school 
• At first, this may seem a little counter intuitive. Bring money to school in order to save money. I will explain. On and around campus, there are a multitude of ways to get cheap food if you have a few bucks in cash. Right at GSE, there is a snack bar on the ground floor. They serve up muffins, yogurt, waters, sports drinks, soda, coffee, espresso, soups, chips and granola bars. Then, there are tons of food trucks. One, near 37th and Spruce  sells the best custom fresh fruit bowls for $3.50. They're humongous, delicious, cheap and healthy. Some students go for vegetarian (but super flavor rich) Mediterranean food at the infamous Magic Carpet truck at 34th and Walnut. There are a couple other trucks there too. There's also three trucks right across the street. I have only tried George's. It is pretty good and offers sandwiches, burgers and such.
• if you don't bring cash, there are a couple other ways to get food while you are on the go without having to spend ten bucks on lunch
• Fresh Grocer (40th and Walnut, three blocks up on the same street as GSE)
• Never underestimate the power of buying your lunch at the grocery store. There's a microwave at GSE, so you can always heat something up a little. Fresh Grocer (40th and Walnut, three blocks up on the same street as GSE)
• Dunkin Donuts (between 34th and 35th on Walnut, a couple blocks from GSE)
• Maybe I am biased, but Dunkin Donuts is a great place to refuel for a super reasonable price. You can grab a coffee and a bagel with cream cheese for under $4.
• GrubHub (http://www.grubhub.com/)
• Grub Hub aggregates the menus of nearby restaurants, most of which will even deliver right to GSE for super cheap! I once got Chinese food for a fellow student and for myself for $11 including delivery!  

•  Bring a coffee mug to school
• If you find yourself tired at GSE, just stroll on over to the Graduate Student Center at 3615 Locust Walk and get yourself some free coffee (http://www.gsc.upenn.edu/)! This is a perk only available to graduate students!
•  Bring food from home
• This seems obvious, but remember that there is a microwave available for student use in the GSE building, so yesterday's pasta can actually taste like it was made today! 

SOCIAL

• Cohort Happy Hours
• This too may seem like a pretty counter intuitive way to save money, but hear me out. If you go to cohort happy hours, you are networking, getting in some social time and probably enjoying awesome drink specials. The higher ed happy hour has 75 cent Miller High Lifes. There simply is no beating that! 

•  Find Free activities
• There is a lot to do in Philadelphia and you do not always have to spend money fto have a good time. there are all kinds of great things going on all the time. Two of the best websites for fun and free or cheap activities in the city are (http://www.uwishunu.com/) and (http://www.phillyfunguide.com/). I am sure you have already heard that the spectacular Art Museum is free on the first Sunday of every month.
• GAPSA events
• One of the major purposes of the The Graduate And Professional Student Assembly is to help graduate students have fun, and they know that grad. students do not always have a lot of money. GAPSA seeks out opportunities for grad. students to have happy hours, enjoy sports games, go to karaoke or enjoy dinner together at a rate that is reasonable because a large group of people are attending. So, look out for the many GAPSA events that happen throughout the year.

SHOPPING

• Shop Sales
• As far as stores that are right near GSE, there is  a Gap, Loft, Urban Outfitters and American Apparel literally within a two or three minute walk of the school. They have sales very frequently, so there is plenty of opportunity to save.
• Check for your books in the library first
• A lot of people do not do this, but I have been able to save quite a bit by checking out the books that I need at the library! You get to keep the books for the whole term. What's not to love! 

TRAVEL

• MegaBus/Bolt Bus
• If you are going to New York City, DC or another major American city, definitely check out Bolt and MegaBus options. I once had a round trip DC ticket for under $25! Both buses leave from 30th Street Train Station, a short walk from GSE!
• Semester Pass
• If you live somewhere far enough away that you will be using public transit daily, it is worth it to get the semester or year long SEPTA pass. There are a variety of passes available depending on your needs, so check out your options if this applies to you!

Reflecting

Last Friday was Accepted Master's Preview Day. About 70 accepted students across the various Penn GSE programs came to see us! It was fabulous to meet and get to know you. You came all the way from California, Texas, Washington, Canada, North Carolina and other places to meet Penn GSE!

In the morning, we shared breakfast over the optional New To Philly Session. This session, which included a video, presentation and panel, was something new for this year. As someone who moved to Philadelphia and to Penn from across the country, a place that seemed worlds away, I thought it would be useful to have something like this so that students could begin to familiarize themselves with all that Philly has to offer. The students in the video and on the panel did a fabulous job of illustrating all of the amenities of the city and making the point that Philadelphia really is a city of neighborhoods!

Next, we heard from our Dean, Andy Porter. Andy talked about innovation in education, the education business plan, some of the recent investments Penn GSE has made and about the new opportunities for interdisciplinary research at Penn GSE! It was wonderful to hear from him! After he spoke, we moved right into the current student panel. There, accepted students asked questions about school-work-life balance, campus resources, student organizations, how we get around, what we do for fun and even where we get our groceries! Lots and lots of great questions came up in the panel. After the panel, it was time for lunch with more current students and some of the faculty! During lunch, students had the opportunity to speak with representatives from Student Health Services, financial aid, the libraries, the fitness center, the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, student government, student organizations and the Graduate Student Center.

Fisher Fine Arts Library, one of the best places to study on campus!

As lunch came to a close, we moved into GSE and had divisional break-out sessions to discuss program specifics. then, we had the concurrent sessions, where students traveled between a mock class, a campus tour, a demonstration of next steps (for those who have already accepted their offers) and a panel on alumni, carer services and student life (from staff in those areas). Then, of course, we had a Happy Hour / Reception at City Tap House, one of my favorite Philadelphia hangouts, just blocks from campus.



If you did not make it to Preview Day, you can always join us at the Virtual Preview Day to be held on April 10th from 6 - 8 pm EST. You can RSVP for that here.

As part of the final project in professional development, I have been asked to develop a paper and presentation on my experience this year as a graduate assistant. On the right is what i will probably use as my opening slide! This presentation is bittersweet. It comes just as we come out of the last major event of the year and as our office is 'passing on the torch,' offering the position to two of next year's higher education cohort. Oh! How time flies! It's been an intensely productive year here at GSE, and I will be sad to go. I am moving on to the next phase of this adventurous life of mine as I seek out a full-time admissions position. That process has been going really well so far, and I am confident in my ability to secure a position that is both interesting and fulfilling. Then again, I was never that worried about this, as I said in the beginning of this year.

I can't wait for Enrollment Management class tonight. We read "The Order of Things" by Malcolm Gladwell and "The Admissions Arms Race" by Massy, Wegner and our very own Robert Zemsky so that we could gather to learn about and discuss competitive positioning in admissions. Here is the blurb from our syllabus this week:

In an era of branding, marketing and ranking, higher education confronts a competitive marketplace and which requires consideration of limited resources, consumer demands and peer pressures. The resulting dynamic has created a commercialized industry for higher education leaders and for its consumers. How do competition and commercialization impact institutional and consumer behavior and how do these dynamics influence each other?

Jenny Rickard and Eric Kaplan, the professors of Enrollment management, are both so knowledgeable about the field. It doesn't hurt that they work well together as collaborative teachers and both have a great sense of humor. The other wonderful thing about a class like enrollment is that it gets controversial. There is a lot of disagreement about early action, financial aid leveraging, the goals of admissions and the means used to meet those goals. I find it useful to hear the various perspectives mainly because these broad, diverse points of view are akin to what i will encounter as an admissions professional. Hearing a lot of view points now is what I like to think of as getting maximum exposure! This class gives me a whole new reason to love Monday nights!

- - - - - -  You should probably also know that  that I passed my master's comprehensive exam! 

Guest Post by KC From Education Policy

One of my favorite people at Penn GSE is KC. She is a current master's student in the Education Policy Program and is fiercely passionate about education reform. On her personal blog, she wrote about Penn GSE and I wanted to share with you what she wrote. What follows is her post, "Why I love Penn GSE."
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Why I Love Penn GSE

This time a year ago, the weather in Philly was miserable. The traffic was terrible, and the stench was unmistakably east coast industrial. My boyfriend dragged me around Philadelphia on what was clearly a noble effort to help me fall in love with the city I would soon call home. Having just been rejected from another top-tier ed school, my ego was bruised and the cloudy skies weren’t helping matters.

Now, I’m nearing the end of my program and I am often tasked with helping newly-admitted students understand what makes Penn GSE stand out. In the process, I found myself reflecting on my own journey to the little four-story building at 3700 Walnut Street.

There used to be a place on the Penn GSE website with a little cartoon man in a scrappy Popeye-esque fightin’ stance. The text underneath said something to the effect of, “we’re a small ed school, but we’re passionate.” With that, I was sold. Penn’s enthusiasm beat out the sunshine of the south, and the chance to live near the heart of DC. It even rebuilt my bruised ego. So, on that Saturday in March, I explored Penn and Philly with a disgruntled excitement — if that’s a thing. I even bought a sweatshirt that I then refused to remove (a tradition that I associate with my not-so-gently loved Reed sweatshirt).

I am eternally grateful that I ended up at Penn GSE, and not anywhere else.

It didn’t take long to feel justified in my choice. Within a week, I had my first revelatory moment — I knew next to nothing about education policy. Two weeks later, I sat outside a favorite Philly pizza joint espousing the gospel of Ravitch to my patient boyfriend. In another week, I would experience my next revelation: Ravitch was wrong. Whereas reading Ravitch made me indignant, everything I read thereafter made me confused. How could I know so little? As a well-trained Reedie, I felt my excitement build as I became more confused. I thrived on the need to ask more questions, which quickly led to spending time in my professors’ offices and joining an independent study class that focused on schools and community development.

The Scene of the First Revelation

(As a side note, I should mention that the size of my cohort was immediately shocking to me. I know that most ed schools have huge master’s programs where it’s easy to feel lost; where professors sometimes hold office hours but more often rely on their TAs to field the questions of pesky master’s students. Penn GSE is neither of those things. My Ed Policy cohort is 15. Fifteen students. My largest class at Penn is 25; my smallest is 6. My professors all hold office hours, and most are eager to have us stop by after class. One professor frequently interrupts his other meetings if he sees a student’s head pop around the corner.)

Within a week most of my preconceived notions were shattered, and my desire to read any and everything was uncontrollable. My professors quickly caught onto this passion and happily shared reading materials with me. What I respect most is that no professor ever says no to talking through an idea. These are professors who’ve been around for decades — and have probably heard it all — but they always want to engage anyway. They don’t treat me like a student. Well, they do, but they also treat me like someone who is capable of coming up with new and brilliant ideas.

Then, there are my peers. Like I mentioned, there are fifteen master’s students in Ed Policy this year. Within that group, I have friends who are passionate about teacher’s unions, merit-based pay, international comparative education, state-based policy initiatives that harness old resources in new ways, and the benefits of Waldorf schools. I learn something new from my peers daily. And we make connections between each other’s work. I can’t tell you how many times we realize mid-conversation that our seemingly-distinct thesis topics overlap in huge ways. We build on each other’s excitement, and we’re proud of each other. Rarely as an undergraduate student did I feel that my peers and I were encouraged to be proud of each other — excited, yes, but not proud. Here, I fill to the brim with pride when I hear about the work my peers are doing.

We’re intellectuals, and we’re a community. Those are two nebulous ideas, but I feel them distinctly when I spend hours in the lounge engaged in conversation.

 Lunch Hour Debate about Ed Reform

Lastly, I have my personal intellectual journey. When I entered Penn, I had pretty basic ideas about what I wanted to do. “I am fascinated by the bridge between high school and college.” I can’t tell you how many times I uttered that statement. But, as I near the end of my program, I am astonished by the naiveté of my past self. Not that the bridge doesn’t matter — it does. But I can’t focus on the bridge without devoting my life to K12. Things in our education system aren’t working, and few people agree on why. My time in admission often made me irate — why can’t schools teach reading, writing, and arithmetic? Why does financial aid have to hinder a student’s chances of admission so dramatically? I’m still angry, but now I feel empowered because I have a better understanding of the landscape.

In a class on the economics of education, I wrote a literature review on the barriers to entry and exit in the charter school market. When I began the paper, I knew next to nothing about charter schools — except the vitriolic rhetoric that both sides used to defend their positions. By the end of that paper, I was wrapped up in autonomy, states’ rights, accountability, and a dozen other issues that plague the school system and handicap the ability for charter schools to function. I entered the paper convinced that charter schools had an unfair advantage; by the end of it, I was sympathetic to a completely different position. My professor, the Vice Dean, calls this the power of viewing problems as an agnostic. He emphasizes the impact of focusing on whether something works and how it works, instead of whether I agree with it. Honestly, that’s the best piece of advice a professor has ever given me.

Now I am expanding that paper into my thesis. My first section examines the structure of the charter school market from a business and innovation perspective. My second section isolates the most important barriers to entry and exit and how these elements influence the growth of charter management organizations (networks of charter schools — think KIPP). My last section will synthesize data analysis with close readings of state charter school laws to better understand the impact of CMOs’ behavior on the development of innovation in the charter school market.

Nine months ago, I would have had absolutely no idea what any of that meant.

Not only do my professors love the angle I am taking in my thesis, but they are actively encouraging me to write my thesis with an eye toward publication. They have an incredible faith in my ability to produce consistently strong work. They see my potential, and want to light a fire under it. I never thought graduate school professors would devote so much time to their students.

I am a changed person. My undergraduate career gave me a taste of what an intellectual transformation can feel like, but it was my professors and peers at Penn GSE who have helped me realize, clarify, and act on my potential to be a game-changer in the world of education reform.

Even if I had the chance to re-enroll at any ed school, anywhere in the country, knowing what I know now, I would choose Penn without a second of hesitation. As for Philly, the traffic is irrelevant when you bike and walk everywhere, the smell is better than NYC, there are plenty of delicious restaurants with local food, and the hipsters remind me of Portland. Looking down Locust walk when everyone is using an umbrella is absolutely gorgeous. And, when the sun shines, campus looks damn beautiful.