Blog Addict.

I'm not sure if I'm embarrassed by this or simply shocked. I never thought I would be one of "those people", but here I am, following avidly the blogs of people I don't know.

Typically they revolve around subjects near and dear to my heart such as marketing for higher ed (I'm always looking for new ways to reach out to high school students) and community college education. (I'm an education junkie, it's OK, I have come to terms with that.) But I didn't realize how much I looked forward each day to see what the new blog topic was going to be and the discussion around it until there wasn't a new posting on one of them today. And it made me sad! I couldn't believe it! My day was a little less bright because there wasn't a new post yet on a blog. What on earth has my world come to?!

But, in my defense, I didn't know how interesting blogs revolving around a specific topic could be. I actually find myself searching out blogs on college websites when I am working with the schools to get a student perspective of the college and see what they are like. I also find myself using the blogs as a source of inspiration when I've hit a roadblock. It's nice to see a journal of sorts of how someone else approached a similar issue and what problems came up as it was worked through.

So yes, I have now found myself a blog addict. Well, the first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem, right?

Have a great holiday everyone! I will be back on next week.

College Roommates

Sometimes in the normal course of a work day a topic will appear in the general chit-chat that is taking place in the office. Today the conversations were focused around college roommates that we had or that our friends had who colored our college career.

Most of these stories weren't life changing events, but I thought about how much more interesting of people each one of us became because of the people we met through various mish mash of living situations during our college years. EVERYONE at some point lives with someone who is quite different from him/herself and the inevitable culture clash is what makes the stories interesting and ultimately (you knew there was going to be a moral here, didn't you?) helps us to grow as people.

They were varied, from the person who lived with some of my college buddies that was obsessed (no, really... obsessed) with fire trucks in the way that a three year old is obsessed with fire trucks. It was well known in that house to stay away from the path to the window if a siren was heard because you may get trampled as roommate rushed to the window. Another was about the roommate who thought majoring in anything less than medical science or engineering was simply unacceptable and a waste of that person's life- and wasn't afraid to let anyone know about those opinions! Then we have roommates with various crazy (so they seemed to us) money making schemes, various medical conditions (some real, some... questionable) some with just downright weird (or so it seemed to us) habits...

But it got me thinking. While none of us ever actually claimed these folks as friends we remembered them better than some of the people who were our friends in college that we no longer talk to. ("Oh yeah, there was this guy who was the roommate of my friend... uh, well I can't remember my friend's name but this guy he lived with, you see, was totally weird...") So oddly enough 2 or 5 or 10 years later (oh my...I've hit double digit years since starting college. Yikes!) these are the people we remember and use as conversation centerpieces, while some of the people who we were friends with have fallen by the wayside.

A little sad, yes, but I think we're certainly all more interesting people from having the exposure to these different tastes, lifestyles, quirks, opinions, etc. After all, you never know when you're going to run into someone just like that "one" roommate in real life and now you already know how to deal with it! Plus, what on earth would we have talked about all day if it weren't for these people coloring our college years?!

Surveys Results Are Never What You Expect

People amaze me.

I often like to think that I've got a pretty good handle on people and what they think about things that relate to me. However, I'm learning that every time I think that I should survey them for their actual thoughts and bring myself down a peg or two.

These are two surveys we recently placed into our newsletters that we send out, one to high school students around the country and another to high school counselors around the country. I would have thought that the results would have come in about the same, but that wasn't so! The top poll is from the students and the bottom poll is the same poll taken of counselors.

What does this say about the perception high school students have about college? I wonder if being in the "real world", as the counselors are, they have a more pragmatic view of higher education than students do, leading them to feel less education is necessary to be competitive in today's workforce? Or is it an "at least" kind of thing, where the counselors feel that students need "at least" two years of higher education to be competitive (and of course more doesn't hurt either)? Add on top of that my answer would have been "none of the above" as I'm a huge

advocate for graduate school! (Of course it's not for everyone but I've enjoyed my graduate school experience so much more than my undergraduate coursework.)

This is where the simple answers get tough because we can only conjecture the reasoning behind it, but I am absolutely blown away at the significant difference of students feeling the need for a four year degree.

I would actually like to see the poll results of one more group- current college students. But then, I wonder if the response would again be significantly different between students attending a two year or four year school, or even public or private school. And I wonder how many of the students who are attending a two year school had counselors who answered two years to the question.

Unfortunately for me, as what usually happens, is this survey created more questions for me than it answered!

Any thoughts on these results?

Moving Along With Technology

We recently sent out a survey to about 4,800 high school counselors asking them about our website and their web usage when helping kids find colleges.

What truly, truly surprised me was the amount of responses I received (huge thank you to all of the counselors who took the two minutes to fill it out!) and how many of those responses said that they do not use the web to help students find a college. My gut instinct was to say "no way!" but after I thought about it I wondered how many of the counselors just aren't comfortable with it was an information medium. This article about a Freshman English prof also made me think more about this.

However, glaring in the face of this is the amount of kids who don't know the world B.G. (before Google) and to whom the web is the first place to turn when learning about anything. Last week I made the mistake (I think) of asking the middle and high school kids I coach if anyone knew what the weather was supposed to be the next day. Before I could blink almost every kid had a cell phone in hand and was pulling up the weather channel on the web. Whoa! I was just curious if anyone had listened to the radio or seen it on the news the night before... silly outdated me. But the kids seemed to only accept the latest most up to date information which they would find on the web.

I think it works this way with colleges too. Beyond sites like we have at Anycollege, the actual college websites themselves provide a wealth of up to date information from the classes being offered the next semester, the latest scores from the football team or what the upcoming season is for the Theatre department. These are as important to know, I think, as what majors the college offers or simply what sports it is known for.

Adapting to new technologies and/or strategies to reach students isn't always the easiest but it can be effective. A large reason for my personal Facebook page was to be accessible on the social network to my students when working at the college. I didn't have a lot of faith in it, but sure enough I would get 2 AM questions on things I don't think they were OK sending me at my "official" email address. (Nothing inappropriate, in fact often they were pleas for help with personal issues such as housing, etc.) However it gave the students another way in which to connect to me that was more comfortable to them. I think it might be something like this with web searches too. If counselors can take advantage of all of the info that is out there on colleges it might help the student make a truly good decision by choosing the college with the best overall fit rather than one that just offers the major/sport he/she wants to play.

Students... Any thoughts? Parents? Counselors? Recruiters?? Anyone???

Weather and College Culture

There is a blizzard coming tomorrow and I am very excited. There is just something about the first major snowfall of the year.

This also reminds me of three vastly different experiences I had at three colleges in three different parts of the country that were directly related to weather.

First, I started my college career in Northern MN (where I again reside, though in a different city). I never really noticed the snow falling and falling and falling in the winter until I got my first car my junior year. Then I realized just how hardy this school was- 18" of snow (and it's still falling!) and we are expected to still be in class on time. This usually meant knowing if it was going to storm the day before, making sure your shovel and boots were in the car, and getting up an hour earlier to dig your car out before class.

Then I transferred to a college in the Dallas, TX area. What a change! The area had a completely different attitude towards snow. My first winter there it snowed about 2" one night. I got up the following morning, hopped in the car and drove to class... only to find the campus completely dead! I thought maybe a few people chose to stay home (OK maybe I wasn't that observant back then) but when I walked to the building my first class of the day was in and found it locked I was shocked! It hadn't occurred to me to check to see if classes were cancelled- after all it's only 2" of snow! They ended up being cancelled for two days if my memory serves me correctly. I couldn't believe it- two days for a measly two inches of snow?!

I transferred again (note for any future college students reading this: don't imitate me. Transferring that many times= not smart and not fun) to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. This school turned into the weather service place for all of the other schools in the Twin Cities, from what I could tell. The way to determine if classes were going to be cancelled was if the U of M was going to cancel. (Of course, with as many students as they have it takes very little short of a complete disaster to actually cancel classes). I was also working at another college at this time and I recall a few days anxiously watching the University of Minnesota website to see if they were going to close.

I was amazed at how three colleges treated the weather so differently. Looking back I probably would not have made the choice to go to TX if I had realized how much I would miss the snow once I got down there, but it was certainly a live and learn experience! When you're searching for colleges remember to ask about the weather in the area- and prepare yourself to cope with it!

Happy snow day!!

Entering the world of the blog...

Welcome!

This is a new venture for Anycollege.com; we hope to use this as a way to get a little more info out there in the webisphere (how's that for a technical sounding word?? :)) for kids getting ready to start looking for colleges or actually go to college. That being said, if you want to ask anything to us please feel free!

I would like to share a recent story of something I experienced while doing some research for our website. While at a local high school conducting a focus group with some juniors and seniors I asked the kids how many had chosen a college already. About half raised their hands. When I asked them how they found their colleges the answer was mainly "I heard about them from other people" or "I just knew about them". Upon further prodding I learned that many of them were attending school either within the same city as the high school or within a state away.

There certainly is nothing wrong with this. However when I asked the group if any ever considered looking at a small school on the East Coast or checking out info for a music school in California they all looked at me with a baffled expression. Finally one asked me (with that tone of voice that only high school students can do that clearly shows what is being thought about my intelligence level) "WHY would we do that?"

"Well" I replied "To see what else is out there. You never know, maybe there is a really cool school in Vermont or Oregon that is everything you've ever wanted in a college. You'll never know until you look!"

But, with a shake of a head (again, which clearly said "This woman is crazy") that far-fetched idea was dismissed.

However, I'd like to bring it up again in this blog. Expand your horizons! Check out schools you've never heard of! See what is being offered. When I began working at Anycollege I was amazed at the schools that are out there. Some have some really innovative academic programs, some have some really neat layouts (tell me putting all the art majors together in one dorm with studios available in the building isn't brilliant!) , some have activities that even now I would love to get involved with. While I am proud of the schools I attended seeing some of these other options made me wish I had really looked around a little more before making my decision. Who knows, maybe I would have gone for that degree in Cross Country Ski Coaching from the University of Maine!

If you know what you'd like to do take a look at all the schools that offer that program, not just schools that your friends are going to attend, that your sister went to or that are within 200 miles. Many of these schools are also actively recruiting students from out of state, so is a good possibility of some scholarships to make up for the possibility of out of state tuition.

Even if you don't go to one you can at least say you looked for something out of the ordinary!