When To Apply For College Complete Timeline

When To Apply For College Complete Timeline SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Manystudents start college in the fall after they graduate high school, but their planning and applying starts yearsbefore. Application deadlines may be in the fall or winter of senior year, and completing each step on the path to college mightstartas early as freshman year. This article is concerned with when to apply for college: when do you complete each step of the process, and when are your college deadlines? After reading this, you'll know exactly when to apply to college and what steps are needed. Let's first consider what the majority of students do. When Do the Majority of Students Apply to College? Most students apply to college in their senior year of high school. They graduate in May or Juneand then start college in Septemberof that same year. There are a few different deadlines, and schools offer variousoptions for when to apply forcollege. These options include one or more of the following: early decision, early action, regular decision, and rolling admissions. Generally speaking, you would apply for early admissions in November of 12th grade. To meet a regular decision deadline, you’d apply a few months later in January or February. Let’s take a look at each deadline in more specific detail, starting with early decision and early action. When Do You Apply for Early Admissions? Early admissions includes two options, early decision and early action. While early decision and early action differ in terms of their conditions, they share similar timelines. Both have a deadline in November and allow you to hear back about your admissions decision in mid-December. Some popular schools with early action deadlines of November 1 are Boston College, CalTech, Georgetown, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, University of Virginia, Villanova, and Yale. Popular early decision schools with a November 1 deadline include Boston University, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, NYU, University of Pennsylvania, and Vanderbilt. Some schools with early decisionnow also offer an Early Decision II deadline, which is in January. This binding option lets you hear back early from your first choice school, usually in February, about whether or not you got in.Some popular schools with Early DecisionII deadlines of January 1 are Bowdoin, Brandeis, Emory, NYU, Smith, Tufts, and Vanderbilt. Early admissions can be a great option for students who are prepared to apply early and appreciate early notification. If you're planning to apply early, when do you complete each step of the process? Your College Planning Timeline for Early Deadlines Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither should your application be. You need to take time filling out your application, thoughtfully writing about your extracurricular involvement, and proofreading all of the information for errors. Apart from filling out your app, you'll have to take time fulfilling other requirements. Three that demand the most planning and time are your personal essay, recommendation letters and SAT or ACT scores. You should spend a few months thinking about and writing your personal essay. Giving yourself space to brainstorm and mull over ideas is an important part of the writing process that can take weeks. Since your essay is such an important part of your application, you should spend a couple of months drafting, getting feedback, and revising it until it feels precise and authentic, almost like a work of art. To meet an early deadline, you might begin working on it over the summer before senior year. While it's rare that the Common App changes its essay prompts, they have done so in the past. Common App announced these changes in August. Keep this in mind when working on your essay, but don't worry about drastic changes in the questions. Generally speaking, they all ask you tocommunicatesomething important about your identity and show how you make meaning of significant experiences in your life. A second piece of your application that requires your attention early on is your recommendation letters. You should ask your counselor and teachers at least a month before your deadlines, likely by the end of September. You might also ask your junior year teachers at the end of 11th grade. Apart from making the request, you should also spend a week or so thinking about and filling out your "brag sheet," so that your recommenders have some thoughtful material to consult when they begin to write. Finally,you want to leave yourself plenty of time to take the SAT or ACT. You might take the tests two or three times to achieve your target scores. You also would benefit from several months to study and improve. To apply for an early deadline, you'd ideally have your test scores all set by the end of junior year. You might be able to take the tests in September or October of senior year, but these dates should be a last resort, rather than a "make or break" test date. To reiterate, you'll want to work on your essays a few months before your November deadlines, ask for recommendationsin junior year or September of senior year, and start prepping and planning for the SAT or ACT at the end of 10th or beginning of 11th grade. Applying early to college isan increasingly popular option among students, but the majority of students still apply under regular decision. Read on to learn about regular decision deadlines and how they impact your college planning. When Do You Apply Under Regular Decision? The most commonregular decision deadlinesare in January and February. January 1 is a common date, making for a busy winter break! January 15 and January 31 are popular ones, too. Some schoolswith regular decision January 1 deadlines are Boston University, Harvard, NYU, and Yale, among many others. Students who apply under regular decision usually hear back about their admissions decisions in March or April. Since regular decision deadlines are in the winter, how does your college planning schedule differ from that to meet an early deadline? Your College Planning Timeline for RegularDeadlines Does your timeline match the one described above for early deadlines except pushed forward two to three months? Yes and no. You have to consider how busy the fall of senior year is, both for you and for your teachers and counselors. If your schedule is packed with challenging courses and after school involvements, then you still might want to work on your essay over the summer months, when you have more time and focus for it. You also might still ask for your recommendations in September, or at least October. Some teachers set a cap on how many letters they'll write, and they probably don't want to spend their entire winter holiday writing letters. Try to ask early in the fall semester. You might have one more opportunity to take the SAT or ACT, like in December. It's still advisable to take it at least once in junior year, and many students take it twice - in the fall of 11th grade and again in the spring. Again, you want to think about your schedule in the fall and how to best balance putting together a strong college application with all your other assignments, clubs, and/or sports. Finally, some schools don’t have set deadlines at allandare flexible about when applications arrive. This option is called rolling admissions. When Do You Apply for Rolling Admissions? Your timeline for applying rolling admissions depends on a few factors and may vary from student to student. Schools with rolling admissions accept applications throughout a period of time, usually ranging from the fall to the spring. The University of Virginiaopens its application window on September 1, for instance. Since most schools with rolling admissionsaccept applicationson a first come, first served basis - sometimes notifying you of admission only a few weeks after you submit - it’s advisable to apply as early as possible. Sticking to an early deadline of November or regular deadline in January, even though you don’t absolutely have to, is a good guideline to follow. Not only will setting a deadline for yourselfhelp you keep better track of your college planning, but it will help you apply early and thereby impress admissions officers and gaina better chance of admission. Some schools with rolling admission also publicize a priority deadline, meaning students who apply by that deadline have an advantage. UVA’s priority deadline, for instance, is November 30. They’ll still accept applications after, but you’ll have improved chances if you apply by then. So far, this article assumes that you’re applying as a senior to go right into college. Of course, not all students immediately move ontocollege after graduating. Some choose to take a gap year or apply later in life. Others actually get a headstart on college and apply even younger. When do these students apply? When Do You Apply If You're Not a High School Senior? There are other timelines for applying to college besides the typical one that culminates in senior year.Maybe you want to work for a year or two before entering college. Maybe you have the opportunity to volunteer abroad or travel the world. Perhaps you graduated years ago and are now thinking about going back to school for your degree. In these cases, you'll still apply to meet the same early or regular deadlines or rolling admissions time frame. However, you might need to leave yourself extra time to collect all your application materials. Let’s consider each of the above situations individually. "I Want to Take a Gap Year" If this sounds like you, when do you apply for college? Actually, your timeline might still involve applying senior year. Lots of schools allow you to defer your admissions decision for a year. That means you would still apply by an early or regular deadline, or rolling admissions, and then if you got accepted, you'd defer your enrollment for one academic year. You might be thinking that you want to travel and then figure out where to go to college. This could be a good option too, but remember that your deadlines might still be in January. That meansyou’ll still need to have your SAT scores finalized, letters of recommendation gathered, and essays written throughout the fall. Not all that much time will have passed since highschool, so it could be a lot easier to get everything collectedwhile you’re still in the swing of schooland used to being a student. If you’ve been out of school already for a year or two, then that’s a different story. "I'm Going Back to College After a Year or More Off" If you’ve been out of high school for a while, then you’ll probably have to reconnect with your school for teacher and counselor recommendations and official documents, like your transcript. if you haven’t taken the SAT or ACT yet, then you may have to study and take one of those tests as well. Your deadlines will be in November or December, as mentioned above, and you’ll mostly wantto follow similar steps, like asking for recommendationsat least a month before your deadlines and leaving yourself a couple opportunities to prep for and take the SAT or ACT. If you've been out of school for several years, then colleges might not require you take the SAT or ACT as they would a high school student. You'll want to contact the colleges early to find out whether or not you need to prep for and take one of these exams. It’d be advisable to leave yourself extra time so that you can meet with your recommenders and help them write you a letter. Since you’re nota current student, you’ll want to have extra time to set up appointments with faculty and gather all the documents you need. Finally, when do students apply if they want to graduate high school earlierthan senior year? "I'm Graduating High School Early" There are rare advanced students who earn enough credits, perhaps from courses at a local community college or online, to graduate high school early and go straight into college at a young age. These students push their timeline earlier by a year or two, taking the SATor ACTas freshmen or sophomores, and gathering all their documents early. If this sounds like you, you'll probably wantto work closely with your counselors, administrators, and teachers to make sure they agree with your choice. You might take your tests in freshmen and sophomore year, ask your sophomore year teachers for recommendations, and apply in the fall or winter of your junior year. You may also have to take the GED to earn the equivalent of your high school diploma. Make sure you've met all graduation requirements and, of course, have concrete, realistic reasons for graduating high school early and enrolling in college. The aforementioned situations are exceptions rather than the rule, but can be great options if they apply to your situation and needs. In closing, let's review when most students submit their applications to colleges. ToSum Up... We've covered all the important details of when to apply for college. The majority of students apply tocollege in January or February of their senior year to meet regular decision deadlines. They hear back in April and choose a college by the national response date of May 1. Other students might apply in November with early decision or early action, or through a range of time with rolling admissions. To meet deadlines, college planning must start at least a year or two out. This includes prepping for the SATor ACTand writing essays, but it alsoincludesthe time it takes to reflect on your interests, explore new ones, and think deeply about where you'd like to go to college. As you explore and develop in high school, you should be thinking about your goals and what college communities wouldprovide you with the intellectual climate and opportunities to thrive. This journey starts early in high school, and of course continues throughout the rest of your life. What’sNext? Now that you have a sense of when to start applying for college, what aboutspecific deadlines forschools? This guide hasthe full list of early decision deadlines, and this one has the complete list of early action deadlines. Are you a younger student interested in getting more involved in community service?Learn all about community service here, plus check out the 9 best places to volunteer. Want to improve your SAT score by 240 points or your ACT score by 4 points?We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Feminists Turn Miss America 1968 Into a Protest

Feminists Turn Miss America 1968 Into a Protest The Miss America Pageant that took place on September 7, 1968, was no ordinary pageant. Hundreds of feminist activists showed up on the Atlantic City Boardwalk to enact their â€Å"Miss America Protest.† They distributed publicity materials titled â€Å"No More Miss America!† Organizers The group behind the Miss America Protest was New York Radical Women. Prominent feminists who participated included Carol Hanisch, who originally had the idea to protest the pageant, as well as Robin Morgan, and Kathie Sarachild. What Was Wrong With Miss America? The women who came to the Miss America Protest had several complaints about the pageant: It judges women on impossible standards of beauty. The protesters called the standards â€Å"ludicrous.†The pageant objectifies women and thereby harms all women.The protesters disliked the hypocrisy of the pageant, specifically the double standard of the Madonna/whore fantasy, in which men irrationally demand that women be innocent and beautiful, while also satisfying the mens lust. The feminists had other political disagreements with the pageant as well: They considered the pageant racist, for never having had a black Miss America.The activists opposed the Vietnam War and felt the pageant supported it by sending the Miss America winner to Vietnam to entertain the troops.There was a blatant inequality in encouraging girls to grow up to become Miss America. The standard line in the United States to any boy was that he could grow up to be president. Why not women? Why was Miss America supposed to be their equivalent dream? Rampant Consumerism The women at the Miss America Protest also criticized the consumer aspect of the pageant and the sponsors who used the contestants to promote their products. At the protest, the feminists of New York Radical Women announced a boycott of the companies that sponsored the pageant.   Ã¢â‚¬Å"Cattle Auction† The Miss America Protest began in the afternoon on the boardwalk. There at least 150 women marched with signs of protest. Some of their slogans called the pageant a cattle auction, for parading women around to judge them on their looks, the way men would judge cattle to decide the animals’ worth. The protesters nominated a sheep for Miss America and even crowned a live sheep on the boardwalk. Paying Attention to Liberation At the end of the evening, when the winner was crowned, several of the protesters who had sneaked inside unfurled a banner from the balcony that read â€Å"Women’s Liberation.† Miss America was a highly anticipated and widely watched event in 1968, so much of the nation tuned in to the live broadcast. The protest received media attention, which in turn attracted more women to the Women’s Liberation movement. The protesters asked the media to send female reporters to cover their demonstration and demanded that if there were any arrests that they only be made by women police officers.   Bras on Fire? The Miss America Protest apparently gave birth to one of the greatest myths of the women’s rights movement: the myth of bra burning.   The protesters at the Miss America Pageant threw items of their oppression into a â€Å"freedom trash can.† Among these items of oppression were girdles, high-heeled shoes, some bras, copies of Playboy magazine, and hair curlers. The women never lit these items on fire; throwing them out was the symbolism of the day. It has been reported that the women attempted to get a permit to burn the items but were denied because of the danger fire would pose to the wooden Atlantic City Boardwalk. The intent to set them on fire may have been what sparked the rumor that bras actually were burned. There is no documented instance where 1960s feminists burned their bras, although the legend persists. No More Miss America? Feminists protested Miss America again in 1969, although the second protest was smaller and did not receive much attention. The Womens Liberation Movement continued to grow and develop, with more protests occurring and more feminist groups being formed over the next few years. The Miss America Pageant still exists; the pageant moved from Atlantic City to Las Vegas in 2006.

International System of Justice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

International System of Justice - Essay Example Until recently, these atrocities and affronts to ideals of humanity went unpunished by national judicial systems and there was urgent need to put in place a system of justice that would protect the international human rights as enshrined in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration on Human Rights (Roht-Arriaza, 1995). The decade was marked by the creation of international criminal justice mechanisms and the application of a universal jurisdiction that would ensure that those who participate in crimes against humanity are held to account for their actions. Due to inherent obstacles in applying justice for such crimes, the mechanisms developed have continued to be marred with failure despite the numerous strides that have been experienced. After the Cold War period and the horrific acts that took place in the former Yugoslavia and the genocide in Rwanda coupled with the miserable failures of national courts of justice to bring perpetrators of crimes against humanity to account for their acts, major international actors including the United Nations (UN), a number of governments and international nongovernmental (NGOs) organizations came up to form international criminal courts. ... In1998, the United Nations adopted the Statute that would lead to the creation of a permanent International Criminal Court as a complementary to national courts of justice with the mandate to act in cases where the national courts are unable or unwilling to investigate and/or prosecute (Schabas, 2007; Schiff, 2008). It is important to note that the concept of international system of justice include standards governing rendering of justice to all on an international scale and the conduct of war and standards that define the fundamental human rights. Most of these requirements of have achieved a degree of recognition internationally over the past few decades in defining the types of criminal conduct by states against other states or against individuals or ethnic groups. In this regard, the varied definitions of violent crime between countries due to dissimilarities in both legal and statistics recording methods have made international comparisons problematic. The law of armed or violen t conflict has generally been applied to define conflict between states with little or no attention to internal armed conflict. However, there have been some developments in international law to especially through the Geneva Conventions to protect civilians during internal armed violence (Moir, 2002) International Criminal Court and Universal Jurisdiction With international criminal law infiltrating the legal systems of many states, the principle of complementarity, which stipulates the only subsidiary competence of the ICC vis-a-vis national jurisdictions, comes to be seen as one of the most important features of the ICC Statute (Schabas, 2007; Bellamy, 2009). The principle of

The internet has changed the way we access information, bringing the Essay

The internet has changed the way we access information, bringing the world to our desks. What are some of the strengths and weak - Essay Example This new platform has been aiding learning and education for several years now, and it is recognized to be one of the most valuable tools, which the world can use for advancement. The internet has become a very popular tool for academic research, due to its highly useful and user-friendly nature (McCuen, pp. 104). Scholars and students alike can access academic journals and books related to science, medicine, technology, business, and hundreds of other disciplines online, from any corner of the world, which has internet access. This gives them a wide bank of resources to work with, which often eliminates the need for more lengthy procedures such as locating and going through printed versions of books and journals. Another reason why this latter procedure is less desirable is because it is highly time consuming, as a researcher who is looking for a specific topic will have to leaf through the whole journal to locate a relevant article (McCuen, pp. 104). Whereas, in an online journal, technology assists this research and the researcher only has to type in the key words of their search and the computer presents them with relevant journal articles from several different journals, books and magazines. It is thus a highly efficient procedure to conduct research online, saving large costs in terms of time and money (McCuen, pp. 104).

Building Positive Relationships in Children Essay Example for Free

Building Positive Relationships in Children Essay To help your child understand feelings you could do a feeling chart or make a feeling tree in your home. To make a feelings chart just draw out faces with how there expression might be when they are feeling that way an do the expressions yourself when showing them. This will give your child a better understanding of their feelings and how they can express them through facial expressions. For a feeling tree its much the same idea as a feeling card but you just take in a branch from a tree and stick the faces with the expressions on it. this will help a child express themselves when they can’t do it through facial expressions. The Significance of friendship Buy them some books with plenty of colourful pictures with the theme of friendship and them to them.this will help show them how nice it is to have friends and how to make them and keep them. It is only after the age of three that children can incorperate other children into their playtime activities so at around this age ask other parents if they would like to make a playdate for their child and yours n a regular basis.this will get your child used to other childrens company.you can also talk about what they did together at dinner or quiet time alone and encourage them to do it again. Communication and Respect To help your child with communication you need to be a good example to them.talk to them as much as you can about your day and ask how theirs was.even talking about their favourite tv programme would be good as they will be more likely to talk about something that they’re interested in. To teach them about respect you need to set a good example for this as well. Giving them boundaries will also help and treating them with respect will encourage them to do the same to you. Factors that impact/Motivate children Tou tourself have a major impact on your child.they learn from how you react to situations and other peaople and will use this as a guide for themselves. Also the tv programmes that they watch will make an impact on them and can also motivate them to try new things that they wouldn’t of thought of themselves. .

Contract Law Essay examples -- essays research papers

DETERMINING PAST PERFORMANCE VERSUS EXPERIENCE Contracting Officers within the Federal Government are tasked with negotiating contracts for goods and services with the contractor that is best able to satisfy that particular requirement in terms of quality, timeliness and cost. Best value analysis strives to apply good business judgement to making source selection decisions. It seeks to isolate technical differences between proposals to determine which offer represents the best value to the customer. The Federal Government is steadily moving away from awarding contracts purely on the basis of low price and opting to employ evaluation factors such as past performance, management capabilities and technical superiority. Confidence in a prospective contractor's ability to perform satisfactorily is an important factor in the source selection process making for "best value" analysis. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the difference between experience and past performance in the source selection process of &quo t;best value" procurements. Definition Experience is the active participation in events or activities, leading to the accumulation of knowledge or skill (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1988). In other words it is the process of "learning by doing". It reflects whether a contractor has performed a job that is similar or of "comparable size and complexity". Comparable size and complexity meaning that which is similar in dollar amount; number of client/customer employees services; and number of contractor employees assigned to the contract, and types of services performed. When you consider that every requirement has its own set of problems and pitfalls, it makes perfectly good sense to look at whether a contractor is knowledgeable of where those problems are likely to occur and if the contractor has experience in solving such problems. Past performance serves as an indication of a contractor's ability to perform virtually any contract. In addition to whether or not a contractor has experience doing a particular job it is also important to know "how well" that particular job was performed as it relates to the pending procurement. Evaluation of a contractor's past performance enables contracting professionals to better predict the quality of and customer satisfaction of future work. Past perfo... ...sp; Contact: Phone: Phone: 2. If a Government Contract, Contract Number: Contract Officer (CO): Phone Number and Fax Number: 3. Provide a brief description of all services performed on the contract. 4. Number of building (s) on-site/off site. Total square footage serviced and number of occupants per each building. 5. Number of occupants per building. # On-Site: Total Square Footage: Number of Occupants: # Off-Site: Total Square Footage: Number of Occupants: 6. Number of permanent supervisors/employees assigned to the contract project. Supervisors: Employees: 7. Contract Start Date: Contract Completion Date: 8. What was the dollar value of the contract per year: Total for term of contract: 9. Names of all Sub-Contractors and their roles on the contract. Name: Role: Name: Role: Name: Role: Name: Role: 10.Brief statement regarding your compliance with the contract terms and conditions. 11.Your statement regarding any known performance outlined as unacceptable and/or not in accordance with the contract terms and conditions. 12. If contract was not renewed for all option years, what is your explanation why it was not renewed?

Best practices in project quality management/leadership for information technology Essay

Most people simply accept low quality from many information technology (IT) products. So what if ones laptop crashes a couple of times a week? Just ensure there is back up for data. So what if one cannot log in to the business intranet or the internet right now? Just attempt a little later when it is less busy. So what if the latest version of word-processing software was shipped with several bugs? One may like the software’s new features, and all new software has bugs. Is quality a real problem with information technology projects? Yes, it is! IT is not just a luxury available in some offices, homes, or schools. Firms throughout the world provide employees with access to computers. The majority of people in the US use the internet, and usage in other countries continues to expand rapidly. It took only six years for 60 million people to use the internet compared to 20 years for 60 million to use cell phones (Kathy, 2008, p. 292). Many issues of individual and or group lives depend on high-quality IT products. Food is produced and distributed with the help of computers; vehicles have computer chips to monitor performance; students use computers to aid them learn in school; organizations depend on technology for many business functions; and millions of people depend on technology for entertainment and individual communications (Kathy, 2008). Many IT projects develop mission-critical systems that are utilized in life-and-death circumstances. Such as navigation systems on aircraft and computer components built into medical equipment. Financial institutions and their clients also depend on high-quality information systems. Clients get very upset when systems present inaccurate data or display information to unauthorized people that could result to identity theft. When any of these systems fails, it is much more than a mere inconvenience (Taguchi, 2004). 1. 1 Definitions Before one can enhance the quality of IT projects, it is good to understand the fundamental concepts of project quality management. Indeed, it is hard to define project quality management. According to the international organization for standardization (ISO) quality can be defined as the totality of features of an organization that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied requirements (Kathy, 2008). It can also be defined as the extent to which a set of inherent features fulfils needs (ISO9000). Other professionals define quality based on adherence to needs and fitness for use. Adherence to needs means project’s products and processes meet laid down specifications. Fitness for use implies a product can be used as it was intended. The purpose of project quality management is to make sure that the project will fulfill the requirements for which it was undertaken. Project management involves among others things meeting or surpassing stakeholder requirements and anticipations. The project group must initiate good relationships with core stakeholders, especially the primary client for the project, to comprehend what quality implies to them. Many technical projects fail because the project management group aims only at meeting the written requirements for the project (Juran and Frank, 2002). Quality, therefore, must be on an equal basis with project scope, cost, and time. If the project’s stakeholders are dissatisfied with the quality of the project management or the end products of the project, the management group will require adjusting time, cost, and scope to fulfill stakeholder needs. In which case meeting only documented requirements for time, cost, and scope is not sufficient. To attain stakeholder fulfillment, the project group must come up with a good working relationship with all stakeholders and comprehend their implied or stated requirements. Best practices: over the years, organizations have become mesmerized with the term-best practice-but after continued use, experts began scrutinizing the expression and now better definitions exist. A best practice starts simply with an idea. Knowing that there is a process, tool, activity, or method that can deliver results effectively than any other method and provides one with the desired results with less barriers and predictable complexities is a welcome. As a result, one apparently ends up with an efficient way of completing a task by use of a repeatable procedure that has stood the test of time for quite a large number of IT projects (Kathy, 2008). As project quality management evolved, so did the meanings of best practices. Some definitions of best practices are complicated while others are somehow simple. Yet, they both address the same aim of encouraging project quality management throughout the organization. Firms must decide on the depth and extent of their best practices. Must it be at high level and generic or at a low level and detailed? A generic best practice may not attain the desired efficiencies whereas a detailed one may not have unlimited applicability. Basically, any firm can decide to have own definition of best practices and there might even be company quality requirements on the definition of such best practices. For example, a best practice can be defined as something that: works, works well, works well on a repetitive basis, leads to a competitive advantage, can be identified in quest to improve business, and prevents the firm from problems. 1. 2 Principles Generally, there are 3 basic principles/processes of project quality management: 1. 2. 1 Planning quality Planning for quality involves identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and how to fulfill those standards. Integrating quality standards into project design is a core portion of quality planning. For an IT project, quality standards include enabling system growth, planning a considerable response time, or making sure that the system produces accurate and consistent information. The core outputs of quality planning are a quality management plan, quality metrics, quality checklists, a process improvement plan, and project document updates. 1. 2. 2 Performing quality assurance Performing quality assurance includes periodical evaluation of the whole project performance to make sure that the project will meet the desired quality standards. The process involves assuming roles of quality in the entire project life cycle. Senior management must take the lead in emphasizing the roles all employees play in quality assurance. The core outputs of this process are organizational process asset, project management, project document, and change requests updates (Kathy, 2008). 1. 2. 3 Performing quality control Performing quality control involves monitoring specific project results to make sure that they adhere to the desired quality requirements while identifying methods to enhance ultimate quality. This process is mostly linked to the technical techniques and tools of quality management, such as quality control charts, statistical sampling, and Pareto charts. The main outputs of quality control include quality control measurements, validated deliverables, change requests, validated changes, organizational process asset updates, project management plan, and project document updates (Kathy, 2008). This research seeks to: †¢ Incorporate the best practices in project quality management with quality leadership/ team work within a quality focused company, †¢ Evaluate the significance of project quality management for IT products and services, †¢ Understand the techniques and tools for quality control, and †¢ Describe how leadership model relate to enhancing quality in information technology projects. 2. 0 Review of Literature In his book on quality control, Juran (2002) stressed the significance of top management commitment to continuous product quality improvement. In 2000, Juran published the fifth edition of his famous book. In both texts, Juran developed and built upon a trilogy involving quality improvement, quality control, and quality planning. Juran emphasized the difference between the manufacturer’s view of quality and the client’s view. He observed that manufacturer’s focused on adherence to requirements, but client’s focused on fitness for use. In this book, Juran developed 10 stages to quality improvement. These include; building awareness of the need and chance for improvement, set goals for improvements, organize to reach the goals, provide training, carry out projects to solve problems, report progress, give recognition, communicate results, keep ratings, and maintain momentum by establishing yearly improvement part of the regular systems and processes of the economy. Crosby (1979) wrote Quality Is Free and is best known for suggesting that firms struggle for zero defects. He stressed that the costs of low quality must include all costs of not doing the work right the first time, such as rework, scrap, wasted man hours and machine hours, customer ill will and wasted sales, and warranty costs. Crosby proposed that the cost of low quality is so misappropriated that firms can profitably spend unlimited amounts of money on enhancing quality. Like Juran, Crosby developed 14 stages for quality improvement; these include making it clear that management is committed to quality, organizing quality control teams with representatives from each section, establishing where current and potential quality problems lie, evaluating the cost of quality and explaining its use as a management tool, raising the quality awareness and personal concern of all employees, take actions to correct problems identified through previous steps, establishing a committee for the zero defects program, training supervisors to actively carry out their part of the quality improvement program, holding a-zero defects day-to allow all employees realize that there has been a change, encouraging individuals to establish improvement goals for themselves and their teams, encouraging employees to communicate to management the barriers they face in achieving their improvement goals, reorganizing and appreciating those who participate, establishing quality councils to communicate on a regular basis, and reworking to emphasize that the quality improvement program never ends. Crosby (1979) initiated the Quality Management Process Maturity Grid. Such a grid can be applied to a firm’s attitude toward product usability. For instance, the initial level in the grid is ignorance, where employees might think they do not have any difficulties with usability. The last level is wisdom, where employees have changed their attitude so that usability defect prevention is a routine part of their activities. Ishikawa (1976) developed the concept of quality circles and pioneered the utilization of cause-and-effect graphics. Ishikawa made notable contributions to quality management, the most important being Ishikawa’s total quality perspective, organization quality control and emphasizes to human based quality, the quality diagram, and the creation and use of his 7 basic quality tools. The tools are: Pareto analysis, stratification, cause and effect diagrams, check sheets, scatter charts, histograms, and process control charts. Ishikawa believed these 7 tools must be known in depth, if not by all, in a firm and used to evaluate problems and create enhancements. Used effectively the tools form a powerful quality kit. Genichi (1998) believed it is good to develop product that is stout and or insensitive to manufacturing process variation, rather than trying to control all variations during manufacturing. To practice this idea, he embarked on the already developed knowledge on design and made it more practical and usable for quality experts. Genichi’s idea was mainly about the routine maximization of process and product prior to actual processing rather than quality control through inspection. Reliability and quality are ensured at the designing stage. Genichi went on to break off-line quality into 3 core levels. These levels include; system design, tolerance design, and parameter design. Foster (2004) identified leadership as being core to the quality improvement process, assuming minimal difference between management and leadership. The role is of a facilitator, and the foundation is-managing by walking, allowing the leader to be in touch with clients, people, and innovation, the three primary sections in the expedition of excellence. Foster believes that, as the leader walks, three main operations are occurring: listening, facilitating, and listening; suggesting caring, able to provide instant help, and transmission of values respectively. Foster, having analyzed key American firms concluded that any smart concept to organizing had to take into account 7 variables, a framework that was designed to include both the software and hardware of a firm. 3. 0 Findings 3. 1 Best practices Every organization has its own point of view of best practices. But generally there seem to be four basic reasons for embracing best practices. The four are: †¢ Improving efficiency, †¢ Standardization, †¢ Improving effectiveness, and †¢ Consistency In whatever definition, the company must identify which of the four, or combination therein, the firm targets. The paper focused on best practices as practiced at Orange Soft-Link Ltd, an IT company based in Switzerland (Crosby, 1979). †¢ A best practice is an experience based, published, and proven way to achieve company objectives. †¢ The company has detailed best practices in its procedures/policies and work flows. There are templates and guidelines as well as procedures that the company embraced. Additionally, when it closed a project, the company conducts a formal lesson learned section. The session involves the sponsors, core team, project manager, and other stakeholders impacted by the project. The lessons are stored in a common database and reviewed with the whole team. Its best practices depend on lessons learned. The company shares these practices with other IT firms for those vendors for which the company is a reference site. All Orange Ltd templates, procedures/policies, and work flow can be accessed when necessary and, by request, the quality leadership team set conferences to give feedback as well as explain in details all practices. †¢ Any tool, activity or template used by a quality manager that has had a positive impact on quality delivery, knowledge, and process. For example, performing to satisfy customers is a best practice in this IT Company. This is done by assessing each phase of a project. †¢ Generally the company views a best practice as any process or activity that enhances a given quality issue, eliminates the need of other more complicated procedures, or significantly improves an existing procedure. Each best practice is a living unit and subject to amendments, removal, or review. †¢ For Orange Soft-Link ltd, a best practice is any process or method that has been successful in producing the desired outcomes through practical application. This IT Company do not embrace professional or industry standards as a best practice until it has been proven that the process or method works in its corporate environment (Kathy, 2008).