Disorganized College Students Put Tuition At Risk (NAPSA)—Next to buying a home, college tuition is the largest expense most families will face. But your investment in college tuition could be at risk. Despite four years of hard work in high school and success in gaining admission to college, your child may be underperforming. And it might have nothing to do with academic skills. In a recent national survey conducted by research firm Greenfield Online, 47 percent of college students said their high school did not prepare them with the organizational skills required to do well in college. What’s more, 87 percent of students say better time management and organization skills would help them get better grades. Ironically, for a generation of students raised on computer technology, the survey also found almost half of college students still manage their tasks and schedules by hand writing on a personal calendar. Another 23 percent rely on memoryto keep track of their many deadlines and assignments. “Getting into college is only half the battle. Doing well in college prep courses in high schoolis not enough,” said David T. Conley, Ph.D., professor of education at the University of Oregon, and author of “College Knowledge: WhatIt Really Takes for Students to Succeed and What We Can Do to Get Them Ready.” “Students need both academic skills and organizational skills to manage the many competing interests that college life offers.” Every year college students, especially freshmen, face the distraction of greater freedom and the challenge of more course work. As students become increasingly “High-tech” generation still using paper and pen could jeopardize good grades and tuition investment. time challenged, their organizational skills are susceptible to compromise. Fortunately, the ability to organize your college course demands and manage your time can be quickly gained. In fact, you can use technology to actually do the organizing for you. Manycollege students now use free organizing software called the CampusProductivity Kit (downloadable at www.filemaker.com/ epkpr). The Campus Productivity Kit is ready-to-use software for both Mac and Windows PCs that allows students to easily manage contacts, organize searchable research and lecture notes, track all kinds of assignments and projects, manage and coordinate events and all the extra To-Do’s that go along with being a college student. The software was developed by the makers of the popular FileMaker Pro database software, which is already used in top U.S. colleges including MIT, Stanford University, Syracuse University, Rutgers University, Wheaton College and UCLA.
