As California’s Mother of the Year, I’d like to make sure that we’re prepared to protect our homes, families, and pets as we enter FIRE SEASON. Everyone knows that it’s a matter of “WHEN” not “IF” there will be another catastrophic wildfire like had last year when both northern (Paradise Camp Fire) and southern (Woolsey Fire) destroyed almost 20,000 structures, burned almost 250,000 acres, and killed 88 people. So let’s work together to prevent a fire from taking out your homes and neighborhoods.
#1: PUT TOGETHER GO-BAGS
Fill an old backpack or suitcase with things you’ll need to survive in the case of an evacuation. I created 2 Go-Bags.
Go-Bag #1: In my car trunk
This bag has things that I need to survive for 3-5 days:
__ First aid kit
__ Food (high protein, energy boosting, non-perishable, plates/utensils)
__ Personal hygiene (toothbrush/paste, shampoo/conditioner, tampons/pads, contact lens cases/solution, medications, etc.)
__ Water (3 gal/person; water purification tablets)
__ Tools (wrench, screwdriver, saw, hammer, can opener, phone chargers)
__ Battery-powered radio and flashlight
__ Clothes (long pants, sweatshirts/jackets, sturdy shoes, hats, etc)
__ Sleeping bags/pillows
__ Paperwork (copies of IDs, insurance policies, prescriptions, important phone numbers, back-up drives, and Cash (small bills))
__ Pet plans (dog bowls, vaccination records, leash)
Go-Bag #2: In my house
This bag contains a list of things for me to grab before I evacuate my house. This prevents you from forgetting precious items during the chaos.
__ Precious jewelry
__ Cash
__ Medications/Medical equipment
__ Important documents (mortgage, insurance, investments, etc)
__ Computer drives/laptops/back-up drives
__ Photo albums
__ Videotapes/drives
__ Framed photos
__ Artwork
#2: SIGN UP FOR CodeRED
By signing up for CodeRED, this reverse 9-1-1 system will alert you of important messages in your county. All you need to do is sign up with your cell or VOIP phone number as well as GPS service,and you’ll automatically receive emergency messages (evacuation and disaster updates).
#3: UPDATE YOUR STATUS WITH LOCAL FIRE DEPARTMENT
During an emergency, your local fire department will have limited time to reach out to affected residents. If you inform them of who lives in your home (including how many disabled or elderly people), how many indoor and outdoor pets/livestock, gas tanks, electricity meters, water storage tanks, etc, they can more efficiently rescue victims.
__ Full names of each resident
__ Street address (including specific directions if the house is not on the main road)
__ Contact info (landline, cell phone, email)
__ Ages of residents who are disabled, elderly, or children
__ Pet names, breeds, ages, and location (indoor/outdoor)
__ Number and location of propane/gas tanks
__ Number and location of PG&E meters/shut-off valves
__ Number, location, and size of water tanks (specify valve type, pump, and hose) (current level of water)
__ Medical/Paramedic/EMT/CPR training
__ Access roads for evacuation (describe and indicate if a fire truck and/or vehicle can use in case of an emergency)
__ Ham radio (licensed)
#4: ORGANIZE EVACUATION PLAN AND MEETING LOCATION
Every household should set up an evacuation plan that consists of collecting go-bags, pets, and family members/neighbors. Know your evacuation routes, and if you have only exit route by car, know other routes that you can take on foot. Practice this with your family.
Plan to meet at one central location after a disaster. Assume that cell phone service will be down and that everyone will be hoofing it to this location. Choose a place that will be safe in the case of a fire or earthquake. My family meets in the Safeway parking lot where there is plenty of asphalt and few structures. We’ve agreed that if we should move from the lot, that we would post a note with the new destination on a light pole.
Sometimes you can reach people out of state, even when local calls won’t go through. Choose a family member or friend who lives out of state to be the contact person. Tell all family and friends to give updates on location and physical condition to that emergency contact person and make sure that their name and contact info is in each of the go-bags.
#5: BUDDY COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
Now that we’ve discussed your plans with your immediate family and household members, let’s consider your neighborhoods. First create a neighborhood group that consists of no more than a dozen households. Get #3 information from each household. Select the group leader who will be responsible for making sure that all 12 households are informed, prepared, and evacuated should there be an emergency. The group leader can set up a phone tree by selecting 3 reliable volunteers to reach the households quickly. These 3 volunteers then contact 4 of the other families in the neighborhood and report back to the volunteers, who in turn report back to the group leader. If there any dead ends (no contact or responses), then volunteers will go to the house to assess the situation and leave notification of the emergency.
As California’s Mother of the Year, I’d like to make sure that we’re prepared to protect our homes, families, and pets as we enter FIRE SEASON. Everyone knows that it’s a matter of “WHEN” not “IF” there will be another catastrophic wildfire like had last year when both northern (Paradise Camp Fire) and southern (Woolsey Fire) destroyed almost 20,000 structures, burned almost 250,000 acres, and killed 88 people. So let’s work together to prevent a fire from taking out your homes and neighborhoods.
#1: PUT TOGETHER GO-BAGS
Fill an old backpack or suitcase with things you’ll need to survive in the case of an evacuation. I created 2 Go-Bags.
Go-Bag #1: In my car trunk
This bag has things that I need to survive for 3-5 days:
__ First aid kit
__ Food (high protein, energy boosting, non-perishable, plates/utensils)
__ Personal hygiene (toothbrush/paste, shampoo/conditioner, tampons/pads, contact lens cases/solution, medications, etc.)
__ Water (3 gal/person; water purification tablets)
__ Tools (wrench, screwdriver, saw, hammer, can opener, phone chargers)
__ Battery-powered radio and flashlight
__ Clothes (long pants, sweatshirts/jackets, sturdy shoes, hats, etc)
__ Sleeping bags/pillows
__ Paperwork (copies of IDs, insurance policies, prescriptions, important phone numbers, back-up drives, and Cash (small bills))
__ Pet plans (dog bowls, vaccination records, leash)
Go-Bag #2: In my house
This bag contains a list of things for me to grab before I evacuate my house. This prevents you from forgetting precious items during the chaos.
__ Precious jewelry
__ Cash
__ Medications/Medical equipment
__ Important documents (mortgage, insurance, investments, etc)
__ Computer drives/laptops/back-up drives
__ Photo albums
__ Videotapes/drives
__ Framed photos
__ Artwork
#2: SIGN UP FOR CodeRED
By signing up for CodeRED, this reverse 9-1-1 system will alert you of important messages in your county. All you need to do is sign up with your cell or VOIP phone number as well as GPS service,and you’ll automatically receive emergency messages (evacuation and disaster updates).
#3: UPDATE YOUR STATUS WITH LOCAL FIRE DEPARTMENT
During an emergency, your local fire department will have limited time to reach out to affected residents. If you inform them of who lives in your home (including how many disabled or elderly people), how many indoor and outdoor pets/livestock, gas tanks, electricity meters, water storage tanks, etc, they can more efficiently rescue victims.
__ Full names of each resident
__ Street address (including specific directions if the house is not on the main road)
__ Contact info (landline, cell phone, email)
__ Ages of residents who are disabled, elderly, or children
__ Pet names, breeds, ages, and location (indoor/outdoor)
__ Number and location of propane/gas tanks
__ Number and location of PG&E meters/shut-off valves
__ Number, location, and size of water tanks (specify valve type, pump, and hose) (current level of water)
__ Medical/Paramedic/EMT/CPR training
__ Access roads for evacuation (describe and indicate if a fire truck and/or vehicle can use in case of an emergency)
__ Ham radio (licensed)
#4: ORGANIZE EVACUATION PLAN AND MEETING LOCATION
Every household should set up an evacuation plan that consists of collecting go-bags, pets, and family members/neighbors. Know your evacuation routes, and if you have only exit route by car, know other routes that you can take on foot. Practice this with your family.
Plan to meet at one central location after a disaster. Assume that cell phone service will be down and that everyone will be hoofing it to this location. Choose a place that will be safe in the case of a fire or earthquake. My family meets in the Safeway parking lot where there is plenty of asphalt and few structures. We’ve agreed that if we should move from the lot, that we would post a note with the new destination on a light pole.
Sometimes you can reach people out of state, even when local calls won’t go through. Choose a family member or friend who lives out of state to be the contact person. Tell all family and friends to give updates on location and physical condition to that emergency contact person and make sure that their name and contact info is in each of the go-bags.
#5: BUDDY COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
Now that we’ve discussed your plans with your immediate family and household members, let’s consider your neighborhoods. First create a neighborhood group that consists of no more than a dozen households. Get #3 information from each household. Select the group leader who will be responsible for making sure that all 12 households are informed, prepared, and evacuated should there be an emergency. The group leader can set up a phone tree by selecting 3 reliable volunteers to reach the households quickly. These 3 volunteers then contact 4 of the other families in the neighborhood and report back to the volunteers, who in turn report back to the group leader. If there any dead ends (no contact or responses), then volunteers will go to the house to assess the situation and leave notification of the emergency.
What is it about Stanford students or coaches that make judges reduce sentences for criminal behavior? Vandemoer, a former Stanford sailing coach, took bribes from parents to recruit their children so they would be admitted to Stanford University. Sounds guilty – just like the dozens of others in the college admissions scandal, right? But because he spent the dirty money on team expenses and supposedly not for personal gain, Judge Rya Zobel sentenced Vandemoer to just ONE DAY in JAIL!
Seriously, one day in jail? Smells like Brock Turner… he was the infamous Stanford student who served less than 3 months for raping an unconscious student behind a dumpster. His judge, Aaron Persky (who was recalled in June 2018), claimed that a heavy sentence might ruin Brock Turner’s life. Well, isn’t that true for all college students? I wonder if the sentences would have been substantially reduced if a black or brown coach accepted a bribe or a person of color raped a girl under the same circumstances?
Instead of lying about who you are, become a better applicant. Lying or falsifying your transcript, resume, or applications will eventually catch up and destroy you. It’s never worth it; besides, do you really want to live with the constant fear that your lies will be revealed?
That’s exactly what happened with the dean of admissions at MIT. She falsified her resume to get the job by claiming that she had a doctorate degree when she didn’t. She lost her position and is now advising students about the importance of authenticity in the college admissions process.
We all know how competitive it is to get into top colleges today. This isn’t new information. Instead of fabricating lies on your application forms (or have your parents bribe coaches or pay someone to take your SATS) because you realized in your senior year that you don’t have anything remarkable to write about on your personal statement, rethink how you spend your time now.
If you know you’re college bound, then you know you’ll be asked about your passions and what you’ve done to make a difference when it comes time to apply to college. So pick a project to do throughout high school. Consider issues that bother you and need to be changed. Build a tiny house, develop an app, or engineer a device. Any of these projects will make your essays and interviews exciting because they’ll speak volumes about the real you. Colleges want to see you act on your personal interests.
If you’re struggling to get started with a project, I wrote Beat the College Admissions Game with ProjectMerit to help you brainstorm, develop, implement and complete your project!
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Colleges are beginning to offer degrees and programs that align with necessary skills that graduates need when entering the workplace. Liberal arts colleges are facing closures because many academic degrees neither prepare students with technical skills nor fundamental critical thinking skills to gain employment upon graduation.
Colleges are merging degrees and programs that can save money and time. The University of Notre Dame in Indiana and College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts now offer a 4-year degree from Holy Cross and an online master’s degree from Notre Dame. The 2 colleges partnered to ensure that students wouldn’t duplicate courses and laid out a tuition plan that allowed a seamless, and affordable, transition. These hybrid programs give students the best of both worlds – brick and mortar undergraduate and online graduate courses that meld liberal arts and advanced degrees in fields.
Glad to see that colleges are coming around to offer innovated higher education to students to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of future employment opportunities.
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When students head off to college each year, they leave their homes and move into dorms that are supposed to offer them a safe place to transition from their parents’ protective custody to a little utopia of 16-24 year old students who are monitored by resident assistants and preceptors or faculty who reside in the dorms. So why did Lauren McCluskey die from a gunshot wound on the University of Utah’s campus earlier this year?
McCluskey had dated an abusive and controlling man for a month, and then broke off the relationship when she learned that he had pled guilty of sexual assault of a teenage girl and was out on parole. The 37-year old man harassed her, peeked through her windows, attempted to extort money, and impersonated a police officer. McCluskey had reported all of this to the campus police months before her death but they didn’t recognize the possible dangers. The campus police and the state did not communicate, and there were a series of errors in reporting his parole/probation status.
College women (and some men and same-sex partners) are at high risk of dating violence. They are new to negotiating and experimenting in relationships, and they often don’t know what resources are available to them. Both counseling and police departments need better training so they can set up safe houses and protocol so that all students have safe places to go to when they feel threatened. If your children are heading off to college this fall, check with the counseling and police departments to learn about programs available for students, and share this information with your children.
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My hat’s off to Palo Alto High School (aka Paly) for stopping the demeaning “End-of-the-School-Year Map” in their high school paper The Campanile this year. This map pointed out which colleges each senior planned to attend the following year accompanied by a list of students’ names with their respective colleges. Ouch! As if it wasn’t bad enough that all of the seniors knew which colleges you didn’t get into; but to have an official list in the school paper was tortuous to many students.
With Stanford University just up the street, many Paly students are children of professors or Silicon Valley executives. Palo Alto students receive top-notch education in their public schools – better than many private schools in the area. There’s a lot of pressure on these students to take excessive amounts of AP classes and engage in extracurricular activities. When SAT or ACT scores are released, everyone knows who got perfect scores. I remember meeting with one of my clients just 20 minutes after the SAT scores were released. She walked into my office sobbing – so I assumed she bombed the SAT – but was taken aback when she told me she got a 2380 (out of 2400). Apparently everyone shared their scores within minutes and she learned that 7 other students at her school received a perfect 2400. Imagine being upset with a 2380?
I find it disturbing that there is an air of arrogance by both parents and students towards students who choose to go to community college and transfer to a 4-year university. Parents often force students to choose more prestigious schools even though they’re not a perfect fit. One parent told me that her daughter wanted to go to UC Santa Barbara but she insisted that she attend UC Berkeley because it’s more prestigious. Wow. Another student selected UC Santa Barbara only to find out later that it didn’t offer business marketing – and she later dropped out. Choose colleges because they offer great programs in your areas of interest, not based on image.
Just this year, one of my clients got into Columbia University but didn’t receive much by way of scholarships. His mother had just lost her job and there was no way his parents could pay the $275,000 tuition for an undergraduate degree. After many tears and stressful conversations, they decided that the student would go to UC Berkeley instead. Sadly, other parents showed disdain for the parents because they believed that families should do whatever is necessary so their children can get into the best colleges.
Choosing your college path is personal. Many students need to factor in the cost of their entire academic plan so they can stretch their funds to include grad school. They might do 2 years at a community college, 2 years at a state college, and complete their education with a master’s degree at a private university. Others consider programs offered and choose colleges because of the training and exposure they’ll receive. Isn’t this why students go to college?
As a college advisor, I tell my clients NOT to share their SAT/ACT scores, GPA, or college lists with anyone. Why? It’s nobody’s business, and it’s awkward and painful to hear how well everyone else did and to have to answer relentless questions about scores and admissions decisions from nosy people. I hope other high schools follow in Paly’s footsteps by dropping the End-of-the-School-Year Map and lists of who is going to which college. That way, students (and parents) won’t have to deal with judgmental comments and gossip.
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Imagine if the best students got into the best colleges — and that these entering freshman classes represented the real American population? That’d be in an ideal world. But we know the truth… that highly selective colleges admit white and wealthy students, and these privileged students have access to private college advisors, SAT/ACT prep classes, private schools, and professional opportunities that poor students don’t.
But there may be hope!
New America is proposing an overhaul of the college admissions process by removing the huge wealth gaps so students will NOT be admitted simply because they’re privileged. With this new plan, colleges and universities that give admission preferences to alumni children or offer Early Decision applications will lose federal aid programs (MONEY for students) and federal research grants (MONEY for research). Colleges need these programs and grants, and they tend to pay attention when they’ll lose funding.
New America recommends that all applicants have minimum GPA and SAT/ACT scores to ensure that all applicants will be successful if accepted. Then the applicants would all be placed in a lottery where there would be no preferential treatment for legacies, ethnicities and even athletes. After all, college admissions should be based on meritocracy where everyone has a fair chance of getting into top colleges.
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