Blog Contest

Details coming soon...

Please keep watching- www.anycollege.com !!!

It's contest day!!

If you haven't done so, you have until 5 PM CST today to check this out and post it!!
http://www.anycollege.com/contest/index.cfm

Win a $250 giftcard for Target to deck out your future dorm room if you're an incoming college freshman in 2009 or 2010!!

New Contest!! $250 Giftcard to deck your dorm!

Win a $250 giftcard to decorate your dorm room! 3 easy steps below:

Step 1 Must be one of the following:

Follower of AnyCollege.com on Twitter (www.twitter.com/anycollege)
Fan of AnyCollege.com on Facebook (www.facebook.com/anycollege)
Friend of AnyCollege.com on MySpace (www.myspace.com/anycollege)

Note: Increase your odds of winning by adding AnyCollege.com on more than one social network!


Step 2: Must have the provided logo as your profile picture on August 12th
(Here's the link for the images: http://www.anycollege.com/contest/index.cfm)
Step 3 Make the following post to your profile on August 12th:

' Win a $2,000 AnyCollege.com Scholarship! Take five minutes to apply at http://www.anycollege.com/scholarship.cfm '

Special Instructions:

Twitter followers, RT @anycollege
Facebook fans, post to ‘What’s on Your Mind’
MySpace fans, post to ‘What are you doing right now?’ or ‘Bulletin Space’


Full Contest Rules:

1. Must be an incoming college freshman as of 2009 or 2010.
2. Must be a fan, friend, or follower of AnyCollege.com on Facebook, MySpace and/or Twitter. Note: Joining more than one network increases your odds of winning!
3. Must have the provided AnyCollege.com logo as your profile picture on August 12th (all day!) AND post the following link to your page – Win a $2,000 AnyCollege.com Scholarship! Take five minutes to apply at http://www.anycollege.com/scholarship.cfm.
4. Winner will be chosen at random for a $250 giftcard and will be notified on August 13th through instant message on Facebook, MySpace and/or Twitter. No information submission is necessary to win, however the winner must provide us with a mailing address for the giftcard.

New Blog Site

We've moved the blog now to:
http://www.anycollege.com/blog/

Diving In

I think I heard the most amazing thing ever on the radio driving home yesterday. Talking with a panel about community organizations in a small, northern MN iron range town a local woman came up and said "If you're going to complain about apathy, start with yourself." This one hit home.

I moved back to a small town a little over a year ago from living in a mid-sized city as well as two large metro areas for almost 10 years- in which time I became accustomed to the variety of resources and opportunities that were available for any interest that a person could have.

Upon moving up to this area I knew that there wouldn't be as many organizations and whatnot, however I was not expecting the attitude that surrounded them. I kept hearing over and over "This town needs a ______" (there would be a variety of things to fill that gap). But when I would ask "Then why don't you start one?" I would get a look of complete and utter astonishment, followed by a myriad of excuses from I don't have time to I don't know how to nothing at all....

So, after my experiences in Student Services of trying to get student organizations up and running on campus, which often came up with the same excuses (and that students wanted to be involved but didn't want to start something) I got myself in order and started three organizations in the city. Two are still growing but one took off like a rocket, and it's brought together over 500 people in the community. Was it a risk? Sure! Was it time consuming? Sure! But I have gotten to meet a lot of really fun, neat people that I would not have otherwise met.

So, the moral of this story is: if you get to campus this fall and realize that there isn't a group for whatever activity it is that you like to do: start one! Don't complain that your college doesn't have a group for people like you- chances are there are others on campus complaining about the same thing! Start with your own apathy, get rid of it and dive in head first!

PS- it's a resume builder too!

Link to us!

If you're interested and wanted to place a link on your site to quickly direct students to our search here is a set of links and images that can easily be copied and pasted to your page.

https://www.anycollege.com/linktous.cfm

What does "College" mean to you?

Just read a good blog post on the different connotations that "going to college" has with some people.

I'd like to revisit a few, and ask you to see where you fall in the list:

"Going to College" means a thing you just do after high school... a time to move out, meet people, party, and then move on with your life. (Whether or not that college pertains to it...)

"Going to College" means trying to get into the most prestigious college available... whether or not you like it, it's all about how hard it is to get in. Eventually you'll have a piece of paper you can brag about on the wall.

"Going to College" is about expanding your knowledge. Taking classes you wouldn't have the opportunity to anywhere else and learning about... well, whatever you can learn about!

"Going to College" is the first step towards a career and career training.

"Going to College" is something you do when you don't know what else to do with your life.

Chances are, one or more might apply to you... but I think it's something important to think about. Where were you when you started your college search? What did going to college mean then that it doesn't mean now? Why did it change? Why do you think you fall into the category you do? Did I miss any categories?

Just some food for thought for the week...

Respecting Students

I came across an interesting article today about how one professor turned his class around by getting a more positive view of his students and his material.

I thought it was an excellent point he made when he said he went into his material and found that it was put together on the idea of "You must learn this though it is a painful process". When he went back and tried to make the experience of learning more interesting to his students and a more enjoyable experience (note: not easier, just more enjoyable) by celebrating the discoveries with the students suddenly fewer students dropped his course and more were passing with higher grades.

Funny how that works... a little respect pays back 10 fold, rather than just dismissing students as "impossible to teach."

Pointing Fingers

I have heard some variations of this theme in my time through higher education, and it's one that has perplexed me quite a bit.

There seems to be a pointing fingers game within student success between student and professors. Students blame the profs for being bad teachers, and the profs blame the students for being lazy and unwilling to learn. So where is the line?

Many of the professors that I know are unwilling/unable to change their teaching style. To many, "changing teaching style" is equated with "dumbing down the class", which obviously they are unwilling (rightfully so) to do. However, as many in education know, there are many ways to teach the same material without "dumbing down" the class or making it easier. Making the material easier to learn does not mean making the material easier overall.

I guess I come down on the side of the student: if the material is being taught unsuccessfully then the style of teaching needs to change. I think the way to tell this is the continued success rates in a classroom. If semester after semester large numbers of students are failing the same class taught by the same professor, then maybe that professor should take a look at the teaching methods (not material...) being used in the classroom.

Maybe it's that I have a hard time thinking entire classes of students would not turn in homework in class after class... again, if that is happening where is the information getting lost?

However, this isn't to say that there aren't lazy or bad or poor students out there (I've been one too at times!), but when it's consistent then I think it's a problem.

On the other side, if there is a student failing similar classes over and over and over again at what point is there an intervention to understand how the student learns best and find where s/he is struggling? I know this takes time and manpower on the side of the school, but isn't the retention of a student worth it? Again, this isn't to say to put together a specialized plan for the student, but simply to help him/her understand how best to approach school work.

I was 23 before I realized I was an auditory learner. If I take notes I am far less likely to remember information than if I simply listen to it- at which point I can replay it in my head like a tape recorder. I recall a class in which I was yelled at in front of the class because I was not taking notes- and when I tried to explain that I learn better by listening and processing the information rather than mindlessly writing down the words being spoken it just resulted in being forced to write down the notes that he insisted people took to remember things- he even stopped to check that I was writing at points that day. It's a good thing that was only a one day for work kind of class, because I would have never gone back had it been a regular college class! (Yes, I'm stubborn like that.)But it would have been much better had it simply been accepted that I knew what kind of a learner I am and moved on from there. I think also had I known this earlier in my college career some classes would have been easier and I would have learned more, rather than trying to fit into what I "should" be doing to retain information.

The latest place where this has come up is with online vs. traditional vs. blended education. Obviously the some of the three formats work for some students and professors better than others. But they seem to all be pointing fingers accusing the other style (whichever one that is) of holding them back. A study came out showing blended education to be bringing in a lot of good results with students as well as high retention rates, but naturally there is outcry against having to change a teaching style or a learning style.

Again... we get profs blaming students for not knowing how to use the software (Blackboard, Angel, etc.) properly and students blaming the profs for not structuring/designing the class to be online user friendly. (A lovely quote from a comment on the subject: When it works, it's not an online utopia--it's just another space for meaningful learning. )

So at what point must the student or professor or admin at a school step back, stop pointing fingers at everyone else and say "Maybe it's not "them"... maybe it's me?"

Sadly, that's a very, very hard statement for many people to make.

Bizarre quizzes

There are some of those quizzes that are supposedly supposed to help you determine what you're supposed to be when you grow up, or whatever else (not one of those "Which Superhero Are You" kind of ones). I just tried to take one from an affiliate site here and I got totally confused. Here's the survey if you'd like to give it a shot.

The questions were laid out in an either/or kind of fashion, but often the two choices were completely unrelated. It was like answering "Are you more interested in riding an elephant or creating a calendar?" Most of the time I kept thinking "Well, neither of these". And when the questions kept clearly being centered around the medical or tourism industries (neither of which I personally am too interested in) I ended up making a fairly false impression of myself. Truth be told I only made it halfway through the survey.

Does anyone know how these are supposed to work? If I have to continually indicate that I'd be more interested in the tourism industry than the medical industry (but never get to indicate that I'm not very interested in either and never get to compare those two to anything else...) then I wondered if I would get a response of "You should go into tourism and be a travel agent!"

Riiiiight.

So, I remain a little confused, and still don't want to be a travel agent when I grow up.

Need Some Lovin'

Actually, make that, "Need Some Likin' "

These videos need some love, er, like... from YOU!

http://www.anycollege.com/video_library/index.cfm?cid=3622798

Or... there's this one:

http://www.anycollege.com/video_library/index.cfm?cid=1563445#now_playing

Or, be the first one to like THIS video:

http://www.anycollege.com/video_library/index.cfm?cid=1594688#now_playing

What about this video?

http://www.anycollege.com/video_library/index.cfm?cid=1565417#now_playing

Still no love? Try this:

http://www.anycollege.com/video_library/index.cfm?cid=1592197#now_playing

Were you the first liker on any of these? Did the videos get you interested in any of these schools?

Staying With the Times: Profs, Admin and Technology

I admit, I get a bit of a kick reading about the latest technology that has come out and then reading the comments on the article to see how many prophets of doom that have a PhD attached to their name like to come out and say that whatever the new gadget is will completely ruin education, etc etc etc.

I heard one about the Kindle, which I admit I don't know much about but if it's true that a student could just buy one of these then pay a lot less to download books onto it... well, from a students perspective that's pretty cool. (Yes I know there's the whole textbook industry to think about but at what point is it ridiculous that you can't buy a used book because the professor is using the newest edition that has 2 pages changed in it?)

Then I heard about the person who came up with (as a joke, I will add) the corrupted email attachment that students can pay $5.00 to download and send to their professors to buy a little extra time to write the paper. Again, I admit I giggled a little bit when I read that. Yes, I know it's ethically wrong to do, but if you were to ask a random sampling of students if they ever wished they had something like that I bet 75% would say that at some point in their life they wished they had thought of that. (It's that whole reality thing again!)

But that's not the point of this blog.

The point was the outrage (and rightly so, but still) of various professors and instructors in the comments section of this article. Many, many, many of them said "I never use email for anything in my class and after reading this I never ever will!" But here's where I get confused. Most of us in the business world use email on a daily basis for a lot of important communication. So why can't education hop on the same bandwagon? What is causing this horrible horrible fear that many academics have in both secondary school and post secondary education about using technology in the classroom? It's got to be more than the occasional corrupt file that a student sends to buy another day to write a paper. Why is there a seeming stubborn contingent that wants us to stay permanently in 1975? (Or earlier...) But yet we can't imagine a 16 year old driving a car now without a cell phone...

I do think that these things (email, Kindles, Blackboard and other online learning software, even social networking) are there to improve our lives and improve learning... if first we learn not to be afraid of them. (The ironic thing is as I'm writing this I'm looking at my cell phone which only calls people and can do text messages- nothing else... I intentionally bought a phone that doesn't have anything else on it, mainly because I don't need it. I'm not against it being out there and available, it's just not necessary for me at this time.) Plus, a LOT of the online software that is being used in higher education has options that prevent cheating. But if that's where kids are- on the computer and online... why not go to them instead of forcing them to conform to something out of date? Maybe we could look at adapting to them, since the 16-22 year old demographic tends to be on the cutting edge of the newest technology, and encourage them to take the technology and run with it. (Aren't we complaining about the lack of innovation and creativity in kids? I hear it quite a bit...) Who knows what might happen!

Moral of the story... adapt. Things won't ever, ever stay the same no matter how much we'd sometimes like them to, especially with the speed at which technology is evolving now. But it's not going to do anyone any good to dig your heels in and say you're not playing... so might as well join 'em if you can't beat em.

Anyway- read the article-- the issue it's about is one thing, but the response of the academics is what scares me.

Students? What do you think?
Teachers/professors? What do you think?

Games + College Admission

Not gonna lie, when we started talking about that I got the fun little chills that come with hearing a REALLY good idea come up.

What about this: Almost all teens and even their parents now are playing some kind of video game, be that on the Xbox, on their mobile phone or on the internet. (I watched one of the high school kids I work with outside of Anycollege play Bejeweled obsessively on her phone for almost an hour the other night.)

So what about a casual type of game to help with college admissions? I'm not sure yet what this would be... but it sounds kind of cool. Think about the games on Facebook and Myspace that people use: the Mafia Wars and similar games, even the Lil' Green Patch, etc. My guess is that you can think of someone who is crazy addicted to one of these games. So what if it was something like that but centered around a college? Hmmm...

Lots of possibility...

"Like" Your Favorite Video!!

New feature on the website!

Like, now you can, like, totally, like, like your favorite, like, video on our, like, college video website!

www.anycollege.tv

Do you have a school you really like or a video you really like? Tell your friends about it and have them like it too!

And I have a challenge for you: post a comment using the word "like" more than I did in once sentence!

PS- check out our home page too. New stuff... see the most liked video, most watched video, most searched schools and majors!

Your College Advisor

Without a doubt, this is one of the most important, influential people in your college career. He/she will help you figure out your classes, help you figure out some direction for your overall education or other general academic matters.

I've gone through a few of these over the years and have seen what good and bad ones can do for your academics- and have a few thoughts on working with them.

Advisor #1 was a very well respected professor in her field (she liked very much to talk about the various people she had trained with and trained herself). This was cool, except for the fact that she had her favorites in the department and I was not one of them. This meant my advising meetings were about half the time of some of the other students- I would ask quite a few questions (after reading this blog I'm sure you can imagine how many questions I will ask in an actual conversation) because I was very interested in doing much of the same kind of work that she had done. But I hardly got the time of day with her. To be honest, while I was thrilled to have her as an advisor I was very happy when I switched to...

Advisor #2 who is still to this day my favorite advisor. After one conversation with me he suggested a completely different track within the field that I was studying, and immediately figured out where my actual interests were. While he was not as well known in the field, he taught some of the most interesting classes I've ever taken and always had advice on whatever I wanted to ask him about- from extracurricular activities to other classes he didn't teach. He kept in touch with me as well as many other students after we left the college for some years and was still even then a great person to approach for questions.

Advisor #3 was at a different college and we simply did not see eye to eye. Ever. He wanted me to follow the track that he taught (never mind that it was a complete 180 from my interests and prior education that advisor #2 laid the foundation for). It's frustrating as a student to have the person who is supposed to be helping you never really listen to where you're trying to go with your education and career. However, there was another professor who taught the classes that I really liked who was much more helpful in assisting me at this time.

Advisor #4 was at yet another university, this one of over 50,000 students. I met him only once in the course of two or so years. He signed the papers needed for graduation, asked how my last class was going and flipped out when I said "Fine...". He kept asking "Just, fine?" Well... yes! I was fairly indifferent to it at that point and I didn't see the use of getting all excited over the last week of classes. I told him I was passing it with a good grade and there was nothing to worry about. I really couldn't get out of the office fast enough.

Advisor #5 in grad school was pretty good. He really had some good suggestions for my classes and helped me get an independent study so I could live 200 miles from the campus and finish the last class. Again, it made a big difference that he listened to what I wanted to do and based on my employment history (in higher education) and prior education (in fine arts) he was able to really help me get my thoughts in order for after my graduation.

Advisor #6 is my current advisor, for my final thesis/capstone project that will finish my graduate degree. Granted I am living about 200 miles from campus so in person meetings are more than a little hard, but the beauty of email is I can instantly send her everything that I'm working on, and typically she gets it back quickly. That is, when she's not busy. It's been a little frustrating trying to finish the degree and having to wait and wait and wait for her schedule to allow her the time to take a look at my work when I'm trying to wrap everything up quite quickly at this point. Granted yes, I know she's busy at the school, but it's frustrating being in the position of having to wait for your adviser's approval and spin your wheels in place until that happens.

So I've run the spectrum from very involved to barely knowing my advisor. I recommend highly trying to get to know him/her and open yourself up to that person enough that you can get good advice from him/her. You won't always get along. That's frustrating, but it happens. When it does I would recommend either trying to switch to someone else once you've gotten to know a few professors or just do what I did and have an informal advisor. Either way, having someone at the school who knows you as more than just a name on a paper or a seat in class will be beneficial when you run into the inevitable roadblocks that will come up.

Program size at college...

Lately I've been working on a project outside of Anycollege that is involving several high school students who are going to be seniors next year and are starting to narrow down their search for colleges. While talking to them (as many of them are considering going to college for the same undergraduate degree I have) an interesting topic has come up: the size of the department that you're going to.

Most college search and fit characteristics tend to revolve around location of the campus (city/rural), overall size of the campus, extracurricular opportunities, class size etc.... but very rarely do I ever hear come up "how big is the department?"

This might seem like it directly relates to class size but I don't believe this is the case.

Reason being, you can have a tiny department, but this could mean they only offer some classes every other year, thus forcing two years worth of classes to take it all at once and doubling the amount of people in the class.

Also, there is access to opportunity. Again, the key is to find the happy medium. If it's super small you may be guaranteed the chance to get involved in everything your academic department or school does, thus giving you a lot of opportunity but not much competition. On the other hand, you can have a larger department where students have to compete to get a shot to be involved, but can't always be in everything thus decreasing involvement. (Or, the department can be huge and competition can be crazy and you can only be involved occasionally... ) So what's the best route?

I think it depends on your personality, what you are comfortable with, what your career goals are and how you feel about the campus. Again, a small department you'll get to know everyone very well (some will say too well) but a larger department you'll have more opportunity to meet more people but maybe not get to know everyone quite as well.

However, I do think you should also seriously consider the size of your academic department when looking for a college, in addition to all of those other things. Sure it's one more thing to look at, but if you make the right choice the first time you'll be much more successful and happier down the road. [Insert my theme of transferring is a pain here].

What do you think? Is department size something to consider?

The Internets iz a scary place!

Lots of hubbub this morning about a well respected blog for higher education marketing being taken down, due to to disagreements between the blogger and the blogger's higher-ups.

Basically the back story is this: The blog is a personal blog, tastefully and humorously written, that fictionalizes the blogger's roadblocks at work. Identities of the people, places and events being referred to are not disclosed or heavily fictionalized in the form of cartoons, and the blog brought some insight into the blogger's life and the background of the work he was doing for his school. But, the school decided that he was too openly criticizing their processes and as soon as they found out about the blog he was "given a talking to" about the blog, and the writer decided to shut it down. Basically they were afraid his critiques, though cleverly disguised, were not disguised enough and it would hinder their web redesign process even more if others saw it and were afraid of how they would be represented on it. (Granted in a humorous, cartoony way.)

This got me thinking, as it did many others.

The Internet is empowering to everyone- anyone can go on it and instantly have a voice via a blog or twitter or commenting on articles that is public and out there for the world to see. And that scares the bejeebus out of some institutions and whatnot (the college I worked for previously was one of these places, and closely monitored anything students said about it and would not allow any kind of public commenting forum because of what students might say on it), because they can't 100% monitor what is being publicly said about them.

And you know what? I think that's great.

That isn't to say I approve of the people who go on various articles and say terrible things about anyone that disagrees with them. But if someone has a terrible experience somewhere this not only gives the ability to share that with others who could potentially go there, but also a heads up to that institution/company/ etc. that someone had a terrible time and there is a situation to be remedied. Maybe it's too late to fix that one experience, but it's a chance to find an underlying problem and fix it. Plus if you can find something like this and then apologize and rectify everything how good does your company look then???

Sure we only want to see great things about whatever it is that we're involved with, but I think with the prevalence of the Internet authenticity is now valued more than constant pitches. A good review on a blog of a product or place is worth more than a thousand advertisements saying how good the product is. Why? We are all savvy now to being pitched to. No one wants to be sold anything, they want to find it organically, from a source they trust.

That being said, I think more people are more likely to trust a blog's opinion or a Tweet than an advertisement because it's an authentic reaction to whatever it is the blog or Tweet is about.

Sadly, many places still try to monitor everything that is being said about them, directly or indirectly, as in the case of this blog. But that just isn't possible anymore, and hey, if you can't beat them- join them! And let's face it, you can't make everyone happy all the time.

Again, I don't think there is a place for what I call "internet litter" (the hateful remarks spewed on some comment forms at other posters or the article itself) but conversation can be critical and be OK... as a college or company isn't it better to know someone is unhappy so you can do something about it rather than pretend it never happened?

Times is a changin'... some of the old ways of marketing and PR just don't work anymore with the "web 2.0" stuff.

I have to share the initial blog's response to the outcry on the web from blogs such as this one. What a beauty of a response- well done!

And on that note- have a fantastic weekend everyone!

Cool Things About Involving High School Students

I have had a revelation with some of the community activities that I've been doing in the past few months that I don't know if it's really been figured out yet by a lot of the organizers in the community I'm in.

High Schoolers are the BEST people to get involved in your activity. Why?
Here's a quick run down:

1. They're passionate about it. There's not the cynicism I find with other adults about whatever the event is, these kids throw themselves into it 100% and completely believe it will be successful.

2. Because they are excited, they bring their friends, who in turn get excited. And so on...

3. They are masters of social networking. Do you want to advertise your event? Get a 16 year old who is on Facebook/Myspace/Twitter excited about it and s/he will update the status thing every 5 minutes with something new and exciting about your event/activity. Pretty soon everyone knows about it.

4. Text messaging. See #3, only with text messages.

5. When the teen is begging to go to this event, then they tell their parents... and thus the adults in the community find out about it.


It's an easy way to get word out about your activity in the community you're in. Social networking has made the world a much smaller pace where news can travel in an instant... and these kids are on top of it. The trick is involving a few of them in the production side of it- not only does it give them some responsibility but they're REALLY proud of it when it's over. So, moral of the story: to do grass roots marketing involve your local teenagers!

Words!

This is a fantastic video from someone who writes the dictionary. Quite frankly, I never thought writing the dictionary would be a cool job, but shows what I didn't know!

Check it out. It's kind of long so give it a bit to load, then watch, and watch the whole thing. There is a great bit about 10 minutes in. http://gelconference.com/videos/2006/erin_mckean/

New Scholarship!

New scholarship available at www.mycollegescholarship.com

Check it out and have a great long weekend!

Moving Up Commencement...

Remember a few blogs ago when I mentioned that the photographs on a virtual tour are deceiving?

Well, humorist Peter Smith also saw the irony of that in his latest piece asking colleges in Minnesota not to move up commencement to early May because May is one of the few times up here that campuses actually look like their photos!

I highly recommend listening to it, it's quite funny.

Here is the link: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/05/19/smith/

Email and Etiquette

First off, I like email.
I know email isn't as cool with the younger crowd anymore, they'd rather have a Facebook message, and that's fine too but I still really like my email.

You can contact several people at once, you can spell check it, and you can attach whatever you need to! But I have found that I've run into a question of etiquette that I'm not sure of anymore. If you get an announcement email, or a request email, do you need to respond or acknowledge it? I recently sent out several announcements about a Shakespeare theatre production I'm involved with to invite some local high school teachers and their students to auditions, and no one acknowledged receiving the email. Now, there was nothing in the email asking them to respond, but I just would have thought at least one of them would have said "Cool! Thanks!" (Unless the whole thing was really lame... also possible!) When I contact colleges with general updates and information usually at least half of them will respond with a simple "Thank you"... so I know they received it. So is that something you should do? Or not? Or does it depend on the email?

So then, if you're contacted by a school via email do you need to respond? I guess I would always encourage it... since usually it's not spam- and if you're not interested in the school you can use the response as an opportunity to tell them you're not interested. Otherwise if you're undecided use your response to ask more questions and learn more, and more importantly, get a feeling about the personnel at the college. Does it take them 3 minutes or 3 days to respond to your email?

As for me, I generally like a basic response to emails I send out- even if it's just a 'yes' or a 'thank you'... and that's it! But I don't know if that's to be expected or not from a majority?

Can anyone enlighten me a little bit please??

Congrats to our $1,000 drawing winner!

We are pleased to announce that Paulding County High School in Georgia is our newest High School Member drawing winner!

Their high school will receive $1,000 to use however the school feels is best. (Hopefully they will let us know so we can share it on here.)

Congratulations!

If you need more information about entering the drawing, please check here:
High School Member Page

I don't 100% understand.

I just read an article this morning on Forbes about parents getting into the "risky business" of co-signing for a student loan with their child. Here it is: http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/14/student-loans-retirement-moneybuilder-personal-finance-loans.html

But here's what I don't understand. Why are they encouraging parents and students to tap a 401k retirement fund or take out a second mortgage on the home when if the parent is willing to co-sign, there are plenty of much safer alternatives that are set up for education to take?

For instance, first the student has the option of Stafford Loans. These have many, many years to repay and are primarily in the student's name. (And while I understand many parent's don't want their child to leave college with debt, I think a little isn't a bad idea because it helped me get my credit established which eventually let me buy my first home and a nice car... and it also helped me take school a little more seriously when I realized it was coming out of my own pocket!) They also have low, low interest rates as well as some have subsidized interest while you're in school so you don't accrue any interest during that time.

Then there is, at least in Minnesota, the PLUS loan which requires a co-signer and again is similar to the Stafford loan. Then there are Perkin's loans and a whole bunch of other loans that are set up for education- specifically in that there are no payments while the child is in school, interest is low and there isn't a risk of the parent losing a home or a retirement fund.

Articles like that, in my opinion, cause the unnecessary panic about attending college due to the financial situation that is completely unwarranted. I think they also prevent some students from going to college because the parents put it in the child's head (and I have seen this happen) that it's completely impossible because it's too expensive.

Dear Publication Companies: before you cause an uproar in the educational community by showing how risky financially it is for a child to attend college PLEASE show the whole story and not make it appear that the parent has to remortgage their home (an example used in the article) to send their child to school.

Thank you,
Nikki

Now, that being said: do some students not understand that their loans are loans that have to be repaid? Yes. But there is REQUIRED financial aid entrance counseling when a student starts school and REQUIRED financial aid counseling when a student leaves school. If a parent co-signs on the loan should the student have a clear understanding that the student is the primary beneficiary of the loan and therefore responsible for repayment? Yes! However, these issues which seemed insurmountable in the article are ones that a little communication between the parent and student will clear up..

As far as the student not getting a job right out of college? Again, as long as the student doesn't have the unrealistic expectation (or the parent!) of the student walking off the graduation stage into the $500,000 a year job (not saying that doesn't happen, but let's face it, it's not common) and will have an entry level salary for a while and may have to (gasp) make some sacrifices to start some of the repayment on student loans repayment is not impossible.

I have a fair amount of student loans myself from my undergraduate and graduate studies. (And by "fair amount" I mean significantly more than I see people freaking out about in these articles.) And you know what? Once repayment starts my payments for all of them are less than $300 a month. I have made payments on them in the past between colleges, and you know what? I was able to make the payments on my student loans, my car payment on a new car, my rent payment and still have money left over for food on about $12.00 an hour.

So please, please please please when you read articles like this please don't fall prey to the panic that I think they induce. Talk to your financial aid counselors before you say college is impossible. I'll get off of my soap box now. Please go to college.

Oh, and have a great weekend!

Announcing Announcements... How Do You Do It?

Again another topic I find fascinating.

There is an article on Inside Higher Ed today about people learning family announcements that are fairly important via Facebook/Twitter and other social networking sites rather than in person with a phone call, etc.

There is much grumbling from an older generation about this (read the comments on the article) ... how it's tearing the social fabric of our society, etc, etc, etc... but while it might be tearing an older version of our society I do think it's rebuilding a new one. The technology that is available now is changing so quickly, and for many of the younger generation (today's college and high school students) these things have always been around. It is now second nature to immediately post your news as your Facebook status for this group.

I'm torn. Sure I like a phone call to let me know- for instance, my best friend just called to tell me she's thinking of moving to Rhode Island this summer and wanted to let me know before she put it on Faceboook. It was a gesture I appreciated, though had I learned it via Facebook or Twitter I wouldn't have been upset. From what I see in the high school students I work with have college students I used to work with, learning news via these messages is perfectly acceptable. Now, I know there are some older folks out there who don't use these sites and don't think this is the way to learn news. At one time it wasn't, and for you (depending on who you are) it may not be. But for these kids, I really think it is and these "impersonal" (as I heard them called) methods of communication are not impersonal at all to this generation.

Broadcasting to all 300+ of your Facebook/Myspace/Twitter friends that you just had a major life changing event happen immediately after it happens I think is the way this group reaches out to their support network. It's not second nature for this group to pick up the phone, or go to someone's house. They log in instead.

Is it bad? No, I don't think so. It's just different, and different than what maybe some people are accustomed to. Change isn't all bad- my guess is that with a little digging I could find some of the same opinions that came out when the telephone became more commonplace. (What do you MEAN people can just call each other with news and not do it face to face??!)

Just think, in 40 years when we're 500 new versions of these sites down the road this generation will be grumbeling about how impersonal it is that all 300 of your Thoughtbook friends can hear your thoughts as soon as you think them. :) Yep, these things go in cycles. I bet, if you're thinking about how much you disagree with this post you can think of something you did as a teenager that was commonplace to you that your parents would have been shocked at!

Data Use and Privacy Policies

Don't tell me THAT doesn't sound like an exciting title for a blog!

While it might not be the most exciting, I do think it's a fairly important topic to address, especially with all of the college search sites and scholarships available on the web. Most sites like this will, at some point, ask you to give at the very minimum your name and email address, sometimes a zip code. This can also include address, academic interests, phone numbers, test scores... etc.

Most of these sites, both scholarship and search, have affiliated colleges who will have access to this information. And these colleges, who are actively recruiting, will probably contact you at some point, whether or not you have specifically expressed interest in them. This may be via email (most common) but a few may send you something in the mail or even call you.

If you are undecided on a school I would recommend taking a look at what they send you. Sometimes an option presented out of the blue can be a good one! If you are fairly sure of where to go but haven't committed yet I would still recommend looking at the information if only as a test of how sure you are of your college choice. If you're wavering at all figure out why and what qualities you are looking for in a college that the initial choice doesn't have. There are enough colleges in the US that I can pretty much promise you that there is an ideal school for you out there- it just might not be close to home.

But, if you are decided and committed and all of those fun things, then politely let the schools contacting you know that you are already committed somewhere else. Believe me, they'll be OK with it, wish you luck at that school, and should take you off of their lists. Otherwise, if you receive an email that you never respond to most schools will (correctly) take that as a "no". (This, in school lingo, is called a double opt-in. It's why sometimes they'll confirm it via by asking you to reply when you do request information.)

However, if you're concerned about this ALWAYS check the privacy and data use policies when you submit your information. If you're not sure then contact the company and they should tell you.

I do receive quite a few emails asking me why schools are contacting them, but our data use policy states that when you submit a scholarship application your information (nothing sensitive, just mainly contact info and academic interests) is made available to our members schools. The hard part is that once we send out the information to the school it is up to that school as to what they will do with it, and while I can pull you off of the Anycollege email list I cannot remove you from XYZ College's email list.

As far as I can tell right now, that is how most sites function that are similar... so if you sign up for anything on a website that has anything to do with colleges, be prepared to hear from colleges!

Please let me know what questions you have on this topic... it seems to be a pressing one now that quite a few of the Class of '09 has selected their schools but are still on the mailing lists of many colleges and universities.

Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself

I'm going to cop out on the blog today, because I just read a fabulous post that I think you should read instead of reading this one.

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions_of_a_community_college_dean/dear_graduates

It's an open letter to the current graduating class, and I highly recommend taking a little time to read through it.

Prepping for College

It's that time of year...
High school seniors are starting to figure out what in the world they're going to take with them to college. Why figure it out so early? Why graduation gifts, of course!

But from what I have seen happen from my own experiences and from working with freshmen I see a few major things to remember when trying to figure out what to bring for college:

#1- Anything and everything, except the essentials. While I didn't do this myself I did see quite a few students who packed the proper clothing, their electronics, decorations and mementos from home... but no toothbrush. The big chain stores like Target, Walmart and Costco have to do amazing business in college towns selling things like toothbrushes and shampoo that weekend for students who forgot them.

#2 - No Climate Consideration. Beyond knowing what the climate is if you're moving a long way from home, it's important to really understand what hot or cold means in that climate. If you asked me, I would tell you Minnesota gets a little chilly in the winter. If you asked someone from Arizona I don't think you would get the same answer about a Minnesota winter from them, as you wouldn't hear me say the same thing about heat as that person would. This goes both ways. I saw students come to Minnesota sadly under-prepared for our winters, trying to use the winter jacket that got them by in Indiana or wherever they were from. But, when I moved to Texas I had no idea what the heat would be like. The first week I was down there I went out with some friends (in August...) and brought along a sweatshirt. Apparently I didn't realize that the temperature there does not drop 30+ degrees at night like it does in Minnesota.

#3- Too many reminders of high school. This may sound crass, but when you go to school after you've been there a month you're not really going to want all kinds of things that say your high school or hometown all over your dorm room.

And finally #4- Towels: Ten years later I still have towels I was given at my high school graduation party that I have barely ever used that I don't have the heart to retire into cleaning towels. I really got that many... I think EVERYONE decided that I really needed towels going to college so they ALL gave me one. Be aware of that, and maybe put out a few more suggestions for gifts so you're not furnishing your bathroom with towels received at high school graduation for the next ten years of your life.

So, start thinking about what you're bringing, and be aware that you probably don't need 15 full size bath towels when you go to school.

Have a great weekend!

Sweet New Video Page!

Check it out!

www.anycollege.tv

All the college videos we have, all in one place! How cool is that?!

How Much Say Do Parents Have?

I just read an interesting blog regarding a student unhappy that his parents want him to go to school to be an MD (well whose parents wouldn't?) but he would rather go to be an English major. The blogger asserts that if the parents are paying then they have 100% say over where the student goes and what is studied.

Yikes. I happen to completely disagree. I posted a response to the blog which you can read, but I would like to share it here as well in more detail. Also, my perspective on college is that I paid for a large majority of my undergraduate studies and all of my graduate studies on my own. (Which again, unlike the blogger, I do not regret.) My parental help consisted of helping with housing the first year, little help for the rent payment after that and I believe there was one semester where the college I was at lost my FAFSA application (hurray for online applications now!) where my dad helped out. But the rest... well, let's just say I've got a fair amount of student loan debt now.

A close friend of mine had the option of going to the ONE college that her parents would pay for entirely, or financing the whole thing on her own which she didn't know how to do at age 18. (I told her it was do-able, but frankly at that age it's a little scary.) Her parents would not listen to any argument of not wanting to go there, not fitting in, etc. That is where they went and it is a well respected school in the area, therefore, that is where she would go too. They chose her major too which again was not what she was happy doing.

And...

She hated every minute of it. Hated the classes, hated her classmates, hated her roommates, and the eventual outcome of this was one semester in she dropped out entirely and had a massive falling out with her parents that lasted close to five years. Now, ten years later her husband has supported her return to college in a field she is interested in and where she was able to have a more choice (though was somewhat confined to staying in the town they are settled in) AND is much, much happier.

So I do think parents should have input into the college choice, definitely talk and have a conversation with them as a student about what you would like to do and where to go because they will have good feedback... but I believe if they are choosing to support you in college they are also choosing to support your decisions as to where to go and what major fits you best. Otherwise both parents and children are risking major relationship consequences and major life changers if things go wrong. And sometimes things change in college. You grow up a lot as you attend college and maybe what you wanted when you were 17 and made your college choice is not what suits you anymore at age 20. I can certainly vouch for this happening.

Put yourself in that situation. What happens when you are forced into something you don't really like? Most people I know do a pretty crappy job of it. While I have enjoyed about 99% of my college classes (maybe that's why I just kept going and going...) I couldn't imagine having a computer science major. Sure I could probably do it, but for me it would be miserable! And while sometimes parents can know best in situations, something as intensely personal as a college decision and major can't be made by anyone other than the student.

The other thing that can happen is a lot of deception. The FERPA rules and regulations limit the parents from having access to grades, schedules, etc. of their student regardless of if they are paying for it unless the student chooses to sign something allowing their parents or guardians to see it. (They are adults after all, and this is personal information.) I've spoken with more than a few angry parents who wanted academic and attendance information that I couldn't release at the college. Given that, a student could switch from the pre-med major to the English major and the parents would never know it. Just think what kind of ugliness in the family THAT would set up when mom and dad find out...

Finally, what I think some of this might come down to is a personal definition of success. What the parents might consider successful is not what the student might consider as success. It's kind of one of those moments (only on a much grander scale) when you make something you're really proud of and you go to show it to someone else and they say "Why on earth are you proud of that piece of junk?"

My goodness this blog got much longer than I intended, and again wasn't about the chosen topic of the day. Well, you'll just have to wait on the fascinating and exciting blog about "data use and privacy policies" tomorrow.

Getting the Word Out

As I'm sure you've guessed from the last blog post, we're trying to get the word out about our website right now to a lot of high school counselors.

Currently we're adding some new features and over the next few weeks will be doing some major updates to the website so we're trying to get as many future college students and the people that work with them to check it out as possible.

What's in store, you ask? Well, among the many things, immediately noticeable will be a new page devoted only to videos where you can scroll through the various college videos that schools have uploaded. It will look a little like Youtube, but be devoted only to colleges.

Sorry for the brief blog post, trying to keep up with the programmer! Check out the website in the next few weeks and watch for changes!

What would your high school do with $1,000?

That's the question of the day!

Fix the copier? Take all the teachers and staff out for a picnic? Create a new scholarship? Bring a performing arts group to the school? Replace some desks and tables? Buy a sports team some new equipment? Have the most rockingest post-prom party EVER?

Do you have a few ideas for your high school? Good!

Now, high school counselors, teachers and other staff... have you signed up for the Anycollege.com High School Member Drawing? It's free to enter, there are some other perks (i.e. get some swag for your office) AND if you win the drawing you win $1,000 for your high school! There are two drawings per year, and once you're entered you're in on all of them! (We have occasionally drawn a counselor who totally forgot they signed up... oops!)

Students- tell your high school teachers and counselors about this! Do you have something you think your school could use the money for? Tell them!

How do you sign up?
Just go here: www.anycollege.com/hsmembers and you can learn all about the contest as well as the information on becoming a Free High School Member!

Good luck! Next drawing is May 15th!

Questions? Email us at mail@anycollege.com!

A College Contradiction

This issue is one that has puzzled me for a long time because it's one that puts both the college and the student in between the proverbial rock and hard place.

How does a college balance the fine line between "come to our school and you'll have a wonderful career" and the reality of "you can get a college degree here but that doesn't entitle you to anything afterward"? Because if colleges advertised with the latter, more realistic statement a lot of practical thinking people would wonder why in the world even go to college... and if you push the initial statement only then you will set your students up for certain disappointment.

I recall a student who called me when I was working in admissions who asked what he could expect to make upon degree completion. I told him it would depend where and if he was hired in the field, an answer he wasn't too happy with. He then pressed on, asking if there was a range that could be expected, and if it was too high on your resume if that was deterring employers from hiring graduates from the college I was at. (It turned into a bit of a strange phone call...)

That was when I first started thinking about this paradox of college- and not just the one I worked at but of the whole idea of college. It is a reasonable expectation when one graduates from college to think one will find a job in the chosen field. What I have often heard from students I worked with was disgust at still having to start at entry level positions with entry level pay- despite having a bachelor's degree. They had had the less reasonable expectation of graduating and walking off the graduation stage right into a well paying job doing exactly what they had always dreamed of doing.

In a perfect world it would work like this... but unfortunately our world isn't quite perfect. So at what point do you start introducing the idea of having to still start on the bottom rung and work up with the college degree in hand? Naturally it's hard to recruit that way- though you have to be careful not to go overboard with what's said there on the positive side- but I truly can't imagine anyone would attend Debbie Downer University who says "You can come here, but who knows how long you'll wait to get a job in the field making less than you made at your college job!"

In addition to when is this idea introduced how do you do it without sounding like you're contradicting everything that the student initially thought (whether it was said or not) about the university and disillusioning them about the school that seemed perfect coming in? It's definitely a tough call and line to walk for the college career counselors. This isn't to say that no students do find jobs or that it's impossible... but sometimes the reality of the time between graduation and finding the "real" career job can get a little murky at the beginning of a college career.

What has been your experience with job prospect expectations upon graduation? What are yours? What was your experience after graduation?

Virtual College Fairs?

I am fascinated by this idea, but to be honest with you I don't know that much about them.

How many students attend? Do parents get involved? Or could this be coordinated through a school where the entire junior and/or senior class can participate? If you were at a high school would you be open to an event such as this?

Or would this be something that primarily took place in the evening or on a weekend to accommodate students and parents being at home to log in?

Then, how much can the computer handle? What's the level of user friendliness that needs to be there? Obviously it needs to be fairly intuitive but how complex can you go with it?

And... what's the level of personalization? Can students make an "avatar" (computer image) of themselves to "walk around" in? (Yay quotation marks!)

So, if you've participated in one of these (I believe College Week Live has the biggest one) will you let me know about your experience? Was it cool? Did you get everything out of it that you liked to?
Counselors... is this something your school would participate in? Colleges, are the students who visit your virtual booth responsive?

So much to learn...

Finals!!!

It's almost that time of year again... finals are looming up for many students, both college and high school.

For high school seniors I have seen an interesting phenomenon in that sometimes these last finals can get blown off if the student is already accepted at the college of his/her choice. Yikes! I know "senioritis" may have kicked in full time at this point but it will be worth it in the long run to hang on for these last few exams.

Why? First, keeping or increasing your GPA may make you eligible for additional scholarships whereas tanking on your last semester/trimester/quarter could take away some money that your school was going to give you. Also, you need to consider if you ever transfer down the road (I know it seems like it will never happen right now but who knows three years later what will be going on!) you very well may have to send in your high school transcripts again, and you don't want to show that your last stretch at the high school did not go so well.

College students, you hang in there too for many of the same reasons!

How to get through it? That varies of course from person to person, but here is what I recommend:
1. Keep the goal in sight.
2. Keep it in sight but don't freak out about it. I've seen many students spend more time freaking out about the test than preparing for it. I'm pretty sure the test won't bite you (unless you're working with animals, then all bets are off) so you'll be fine.
3. Go outside for a little bit. While I don't recommend studying outside due to the distractions go outside for a walk, bike ride, etc. and do something active for a bit. I'm very adamant about the "outside" factor in this.
4. But try to stay away from the computer and video games when you're trying to concentrate for a test. Wondering what your girlfriend's Facebook status means during the exam or while you're prepping for one isn't going to do either of you any good.
5. Remember that in a few weeks this will be all over with!

Then, go do something fun!

Humourous side note: Spell check just tried to change "senioritis" to "senoritas". And people wonder why I don't trust spell check! Have a great weekend everyone!

Grammatical Notes

Forgive me, I have to air this out because it is driving me crazy. I have two major pet peeves with grammar: unnecessary capitalization and homonyms. Take note for scholarship essays!

There is no Reason to capitalize random Nouns that are not proper nouns while writing a Sentence. (See?) Please refer to the capitalization rules at: http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/capital.asp

Then there are homonyms. They sound alike but are not spelled alike. There, they're, their... you're, your... those are the biggest ones that I see being confused and none of them have remotely the same meaning so they are not interchangeable.

Here are four pages of these words, their definition and rules as to when to use each one if it is confusing (i.e. except and accept) http://www.grammarbook.com/homonyms/confusing-words-1.asp

Why does this come about, you ask? I see them quite frequently on Facebook status updates. Yes, it's "just" a social network, but I believe when many people can see you using grammar incorrectly it kind of looks bad for you. Sure everyone might be doing it, but wouldn't you want to look a little more educated? I also get them quite a bit in requests for scholarship applications, and it makes me worry a little bit that the reliance on computers has taken away the understanding of some of these grammatical rules.

I recall once a letter a friend sent to me to ask why it got such a negative response when she was coaching a youth cheerleading league. It was a letter to the parents of the children asking them to bring the children on time and prepared, and to be at practice every week. It had a fairly angry tone as she was quite exasperated when writing the letter. However, there were so many grammatical and spelling errors in the letter I had to send it back to her and tell her that I would have pulled my child out of a league in which a coach sends out a letter like that- not for the content or what it said but for the gross errors in the writing of the letter itself which reflected terribly on her.

So again, while not everything is of the magnitude of that letter or scholarship applications I think it is good to get in the good practice of knowing these grammatical rules and using them consistently... after all, you never know who is reading your Facebook status or Tweets!

PS- Are you following us on Twitter yet? www.twitter.com/anycollege

What if my major turns into a nightmare??

I just read an excellent advice column written to a student who had switched majors and was now not happy in the second one either:
http://calnewport.com/blog/2009/04/22/what-if-my-dream-major-turns-into-a-nightmare/

I agree with the author in that it's good to know that sometimes it happens in your junior/senior year of college where you're burned out on the subject and overwhelmed. I would also agree with the "don't jump!" advice given... it's totally worth it in the end.

I would compare my undergrad experience a little bit like a marathon, which I've done a few of (on skis). It seems like a great idea when you're starting out. There is excitement, anticipation and and the feeling of rising to a challenge. This feeling lasts into the race for a few kilometers where it feels like you're flying and could do it forever. Then comes about mid race where you're starting to get a little tired but keep plugging through because, hey, you're halfway!

After that, about 3/4 of the way in I start to wonder why in the world I thought doing this was a good idea. It's not fun at that point, everything hurts and I swear up and down at that point I will never do this again. But I keep going. And going. And going. Then I get into the angry part. I HATE the race and the course and my skis and that harmless tree over there. They're all conspiring to make me miserable. And then... miraculously you can SEE the finish line. I think the last 50 meters or so of the race are truly the longest because you are pushing so hard and it seems like the line stays the same distance away.

Suddenly, though, you've crossed the finish line.

And then, as you start to recover and look back you realize how great the experience was. And what funny things happened along the way. And how it really wasn't so bad. And, most importantly that YOU DID IT!

I think back to my undergrad in much of the same way. Though for the first two attempts for me as soon as the burn hit I jumped ship and tried another college all together. Hindsight, being 20/20, that was a pretty dumb idea. This isn't saying that I screwed my life up, but it's just saying that really I should have reached inside to that part where it's about toughing it out and, well, toughed it out.

So will all of college be a dream and a great time? No, probably not. But will it be worth it when you've made it through? Absolutely! Only instead of a big banner that says FINISH (which I think colleges should have) you get a big stage and a handshake from the president. Still pretty cool...

Applying Online For Free?!?

This concept has been around for a while now so I did some looking into it yesterday and it really surprised me how many schools do this. The college I am attending for my master's program had this, and frankly at the time it appealed to me because of how expensive it was to apply to grad school. For students wanting to apply to multiple colleges the multiple applications can really start ringing up the dollar signs at $30-$75 a pop to apply. Ouch.

So some schools are bucking the trend and making their online application completely free of charge.
Do a quick search on our website and look up these colleges:

Simmons College
Concordia University (OR)
Clarke College
Central Methodist University
Aquinas College
Averett University
Silver Lake College
Hamline University
Regis University
Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology
Ranken Technical College
Viterbo University
Ouachita Community College
Unity College
St. John's University (NY)
Green Mountain College

Totally free to submit an application to these schools. There may be a lot more but this was just on a quick sweep through our member colleges on the site, and what I could find on the first page of the online application.

What I wonder is if this will cause students to apply to schools they may not have or may not be as interested in... I wonder how many attend a school because of being able to apply for free. What I also wonder (I'm very curious today apparently) is how much extra work this might cause an admissions department to weed out students who just applied online because it's free... I don't know. I can't imagine applying to a college I wasn't interested in just because I could, but then again I've seen what my younger brothers who are in high school do when they're bored!

What do you think? Would you submit an application to a school you're not terribly interested in just because it's free? Do you wonder too?

All or Nothing- Or, a Pedagogical Ponzi Scheme

Please, please please go read this blog about access to technology in classrooms, and take the time to read the comments.

Fascinating.

What a tough question. If one classroom has the opportunity to get additional technology should the school turn it down because all of the classrooms can't get it?

There is another part of this question though that has not come up for debate from what I could see in the comments. It is this: if the school CAN get the equipment but cannot use or maintain it because of existing facilities then should they turn it down?

Again, another tough, tough question.

I particularly enjoyed one comment about the first part of the question (the "fairness" part if you will...) - "Maybe we can’t help all the students, I guess that is an impossible dream. But if we save a class, that is 30 students who will go out and effect 30 more each. Those 900 will save others, it’s exponential. Maybe it’s a pedagogical Ponzi scheme but if we don’t start with a single one, then we still stay at zero forever. "

I think I agree with the camp of "If you can get it than do so, it's better to help 5 students than none." Plus, as many of the commenters pointed out having is not using or using effectively. Simple personality differences in teachers and teaching styles may make some teacher adept at using this technology whereas others may not. Really, is it that beneficial to have a smart board in a classroom of a teacher who will just use it as a replacement for the old fashioned overhead projector and not do anything new with it? And this isn't to say teachers haven't and are not doing now brilliant things with that overhead projector- but there simply are some people who are better suited for the technology than others.

However if you're in the classroom or the teacher or the parent of a student in the class who doesn't get the technology and who is able to use it would it be frustrating? Absolutely!

Again, this is a tough question. I wouldn't want to be an administrator in one of those schools that is facing this question, but I'm sure it's probably pretty common.

Teachers? Students? Counselors? What is your experience with this? Where do you fall?

College Slogans

I need some help here. I keep coming across colleges who are using the same admissions slogan. And there have been quite a few of them.

"Start Here. Go Anywhere!"

And I keep seeing it!! So do me a favor, will you please? Add as a comment here any school that you know who uses this slogan that you've seen. I think we're going to find a few.

Then... food for thought. Do you think they know other (many other) schools are using this too??

**********************
Part II, totally unrelated. Just read a FANTASTIC article that I have to share. I'm wrapping up my master's degree thesis so this hit home with me:
http://trc.ucdavis.edu/bajaffee/NEM150/Course%20Content/dancing.htm

Excerpt: Everyone knows that today's college students cannot write, but few seem willing to admit that the professors who denounce them are not doing much better. The problem is so blatant there are signs that students are catching on. In my American history survey course last semester, I presented a few writing rules that I intended to enforce inflexibly. The students looked more and more peevish; they looked as if they were about to run down the hall, find a telephone, place an urgent call and demand that someone from the A.C.LU. rush up to campus to sue me for interfering with their First Amendment rights to compose unintelligible, misshapen, sentences.
Finally one aggrieved student raised her hand and said, "You are telling us not to write long, dull sentences, but most of our assigned reading is full of long, dull sentences."

The Virtual Visit

I was presented with an interesting idea last week that after pondering I believe warrants a blog post. (Note: this was supposed to be yesterday's blog.)

The idea is this: To go green on your campus visit just do the virtual visit rather than going to the campus in person. This decreases your carbon footprint by not driving/flying to the college, eating out while you're there, etc. and if you just hop on your computer you can see the campus just as well.

I'm not 100% sure I'm on board with this.

Now, don't get me wrong. I think the idea is great as far as a more environmentally friendly option AND a way to see the campus without spending the money. In these harder economic times it may not be financially viable to physically go to the campus if it's 200 miles away for some families.

However, from what I've seen on the virtual tours I've taken of colleges you will have a few general impressions that can be said on any college campus:
1. The sky is always blue and it's always sunny.
2.The grass is always lush and green on the many green spaces on campus.
3. You can stroll along the fairly empty sidewalks between classes.
4. The other students are all amazingly good looking.
5. Campus is spotless.

None of the things on my list are really that horrible or give a totally false impression of the college, but it makes the school generic. Not that campuses don't keep themselves clean but when 50,000 students take over inevitably there are bits of paper and/or trash blowing around, as well as a LOT of students milling around. Also the green grass makes me laugh- having attended college in MN seeing green grass on campus was something that only happened for a little bit at the beginning of the school year and then again at the very end. And seeing the students milling around or playing football in the green spaces or gathering for whatever reasons students gather is the way you can feel that the college is some place you would like to be or not. Perhaps it's the opposite and there are never students milling around anywhere in real life... either way I don't think you can get the "feel" of a place via looking at some nicely put together marketing images of a college.

Where does this leave the online campus visit? Where I think it has value is when you're in the stage of choosing between 6 colleges but don't want to/can't visit all of them. That could be a major trip (with a major carbon footprint) so if you can get a vague feeling from the online visit and narrow that down to two or three colleges I think that's a good start.

So I'm again a little torn- I see the value of a online campus visit- but overall I never think it should be the final decision when attending a college and it should never ever take the place of actually visiting the college. Just take the hybrid car. :)

Close Encounter of the Strange Kind

Honestly, I had a different topic all picked out for today's blog, but I couldn't just let this experience go from the person who just walked in.

A little background: our offices are quite quiet as we do most of our work on the web and work with most colleges via phone or email. This means very very few people come in to visit who do not have an appointment of some kind here (bringing us marketing materials, applying for a job, fixing something, etc.). My office is the closest to the door and due to our lack of visitors we do not have a "front desk" kind of setup so I typically see people who come in and try to direct them to the correct person/place.

Today a gentleman with a huge bushy heard (his most distinguishing feature) came in and stood at our front counter area, so I asked him if he was here to see someone. Rather than respond to my question he came into my office and asked what this place was, to which I explained that we are an Internet based marketing company for colleges.

"Market... what?" he asked. Realizing maybe I had used some industry lingo and that not everyone really realizes how colleges recruit I explained that we helped high school students find colleges that appeal to them, and help the colleges reach out to high school students who may not have known about them.

After a pause... he says "Oooh. You must have gone to MSUM then." (MSUM= Minnesota State University Moorhead.) "No, I didn't go there." I replied. "Concordia then?" (Again, not really sure why this is relevant... but I feel like I should be polite.) "Nope." again I responded. "You must not be from around here" he then deduced, to which I really puzzled him with my response. "No, I am, but I attended college in Texas for a bit and received my undergraduate degree in Minneapolis."

I'm not sure if this REALLY puzzled him because he thought about it for a moment, said he had been to Texas before, then asked if we had a business card and then told me to contact a school in California where he had lived once because they have a college in that town. Then without saying another word he left.

Quite frankly, I was left a little puzzled from the whole thing. I wasn't sure if he was looking to find out if we are hiring (He was dressed in a button down shirt and slacks) or was just in the building and decided to see what's on the 7th floor, or something else. I was quite confused, especially as he just out of the blue turned around and left without ever really telling me why he was here.

Occasionally someone from another floor sees our company name on the building directory and will come up and say "I'm Jane from the third floor and we were just wondering what you do up here!" but that's about as random a visitor as we ever get.

So today's odd visit required a blog. Anyone have any ideas as to what he may have been looking for or doing??? Oh Mondays...

Two blogs in one day? Must be something!

I couldn't let this go without sharing it:

The Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design has one of the coolest campus visit ideas I've ever seen. If you live more than 150 miles from the college and schedule a visit, you will get a $300 credit on your first tuition bill.

What a brilliant idea- especially with the economy in the tank right now! And with the reimbursement coming on the tuition bill they ensure that only serious students are taking advantage of it to see the campus. It also gets students who may not come to the campus but are very intersted in the school to really consider making the trip. I'm a believer in once you visit the campus you're interested in you'll be 100% sold on it.

Anyway- kudos to RMCAD for a brilliant idea!

A good run!

It's pretty cool to see when a collegiate sports team does well how the community rallies behind them, especially in the case of a smaller school.

Quick disclaimer: I live in Minnesota, which I believe means I'm pre-disposed to be a huge hockey fan.

The Bemidji State University Beaver's run to the Frozen Four in the NCAA Men's Hockey tournament was incredible and super fun to watch. Once they upset Notre Dame I think the entire state of Minnesota rallied behind them. Suddenly in places that only vaguely knew about BSU were sporting "Beaver Fever" stuff all over the place. I've never seen that happen with the U of MN Gophers or the UND Sioux. Yes people get excited about them when they do well but it's not the little-kid-at-Christmas kind of excitement that I saw across the entire state with BSU's run to the finals. Even my dad called me earlier in the week to ask if I was going to make it a point to watch the game. (Unfortunately due to work and my commute I only caught the 3rd period...)

Anyway, I thought it was super cool, though a little heartbreaking when they lost last night to Miami Ohio. Don't get me wrong though, this Frozen Four has been super cool with all of these lesser known teams in and not the usual suspects. I think this was definitely a great year for college hockey!

And even though they didn't take the title, I think everyone in Minnesota who followed it was pretty excited about the game and the run to the semi finals. It's cool to see how much a collegiate team can bring together people from all over the place, even some who might normally cheer for another team.

I'm excited for the finals tomorrow...

Summer sessions = savings?

Similar to another blog post about the three year plan versus the four year plan for a bachelor's degree, I was presented with the idea of taking summer classes to help reduce costs.

I wonder if that is true?

There is the obvious payment of tuition fees, but I have heard (don't know if it's true) that some schools do reduced tuition to attend summer classes? Anyone else heard this?

The other thing I was thinking of was ability to hold a job while you're in school. If you spread out your credits a little thinner each semester/trimester due to taking classes in the summer while you wouldn't have as much time in the summer you would have more time during the course of the traditional school year enabling you to work more hours during that time than not.

I would think, and of course this depends on what industry you work in and the city, but you would be able to bring in more income during the school year by working a few more hours part time all year than by only working full time in the summer.

In addition, while the summer courses tend to be somewhat accelerated (in my experience) the classes tend to be a little smaller and I found them to have a slightly more engaged group of students. This may have only been my observation, but I always liked my summer classes.

As far as graduating sooner, it would depend on how many classes you took over the summer and how that worked into your overall schedule. I still hear of it happening where a student gets ahead of schedule with class completion only to have to wait until spring semester to take that one last class that is only offered in the spring or every other year... etc.

Anyone else have observations on summer classes? Help/hurt finances?

Sneak Peek at Article

Here's an article that's going to be in the member newsletter for member colleges in April. I've blogged about this in the past but here's the "official" article going to colleges:

The Changing Admissions Funnel

There is no doubt that the ever increasing usage of the internet by high school students is changing the way that admissions personnel are able to predict the enrollment numbers for each semester. With college websites getting more and more informative and students becoming savvier about finding information, response rates to conventional methods of recruiting are quickly declining due to many students choosing not to identify themselves until very late in the decision making process. For many of the 2009 Noel Levitz surveys and white papers the focus has been on helping colleges rethink their admissions funnel from inquiry to enrollee to more accurately predict student numbers going into each college session.

Much of this change is a side effect of a good website. Having a website that allows students to not only learn about entrance requirements but also student life and make a connection to the school before ever telling the school s/he is interested can be good and bad for the admissions department. On one hand the school is unaware of the student and cannot reach out to him/her, but on the other hand the student is already making the connection via blogs, videos and other media on the website as well as ultimately reducing the workload in the admissions office. The NRCCUA president, Don Munce said of this change: “Student search must shift from being a feedback mechanism to a brand awareness initiative that uses a multi-year, multi-pronged approach— rather than a single search campaign—to identify and communicate with students in target markets.” (2009) According to the latest Noel Levitz Survey (2009) students are less likely to send in a feedback inquiry based on the information they find on the web, and there has been a 10% increase in the past year to an average 57% of students who do not identify themselves before starting the enrollment process. (Noel Levitz, 2009)

Another effect of the web is the online application. The ease of which this can be filled out and submitted is changing the nature of how they are processed at the college end. Results are beginning to show that the web applicant is a less committed applicant, but this is offset by a larger number of web applicants. Another 18% of the students who begin a web application do not return to the website to finish it. (Noel Levitz, 2009) In this new application funnel Noel Levitz has found a slightly different set of numbers compared to the traditional admissions funnel using conventional recruiting practices. The new average benchmarks for each step in the admissions process they found were: 23% went from inquiry to application, of those applications 68.5% were admitted, and of those admitted 34.5% enrolled in classes. (2009) Looking at this a different way it could be said that in a pool of 100 web based inquiries, 23 applied, 15.75 were admitted and 5.4 actually started classes. (Incidentally, this is close to what many colleges with Anycollege.com are reporting from Information Request results. A school receiving between 90-120 Information Requests in a year can get around 5-6 enrollments from that lead source alone. Depending on the institution of course, this can be more or less- we would love to hear your results!)

In conclusion, much of the conversation in 2009 not only through Noel Levitz but also on blogs and Twitter for higher education admissions and marketing has been on trying to figure out how to accurately predict how many students will actually shake out of the online inquiries or applications. Many of the highly active higher-ed bloggers agree with Noel Levitz in recommending that online inquiries and applicants be subjected into a different funnel than the students who have been conventionally recruited. This seems to make sense, as the students has a completely different sense of the college when they finally choose to make their presence known to the school, and will be an interesting field to watch as colleges adapt to this type of prospective student!


Sources:

Noel Levitz. Retooling the Enrollment Funnel. (2009) Retrieved on March 30th from: https://www.noellevitz.com/Papers+and+Research/Papers+and+Reports/Campuswide+Issues.htm

Noel Levitz. Fall 2008 Funnel Benchmarks. (2009) Retrieved on March 31st from https://www.noellevitz.com/Papers+and+Research/Papers+and+Reports/ResearchLibrary/Fall+2008+Admissions+Funnel+Benchmarks.htm

Ruben, Rachel. Blog. (2009) Retrieved on March 31st from: https://www.noellevitz.com/Papers+and+Research/Papers+and+Reports/Campuswide+Issues.htm

Insider Lingo

Finally back in the office! Even the dog was sick of me being at home, yesterday she went back into the basement and put herself into her kennel to sleep of her own accord rather than her bed in the living room. (She normally never goes there without prompting unless she has done something bad.)

Anyway- I just read a summary of the new Noel Levitz Class of 2009 E Expectations that they do each year to determine how internet marketing is affecting current high school seniors in their search for a college. (This is one of those really nerdy publications I look forward to reading and comparing to the previous year...)

One of their suggestions was not to use "Inside Lingo" when talking to students. I was reminded of this when at the college I previously worked for I would often hear admissions representatives refer to various programs/segements of the school by initials... "Oh, you're interested in CJ but you're not sure about your FA?" (CJ= Criminal Justice, FA=Financial Aid). The best one though was when I heard one of the receptionists answer the phone right after I started working there- when she was asked to speak with an admissions rep, she asked "An inside rep?" to which she got the response "Well, yes one that is inside would be preferable... do you have admissions reps outside?" Inside Admissions was anyone dealing with students in the immediate locale of the school who could come in to talk about the school rather than via phone... but she didn't really know how to explain this so she told him "We have inside, national or high school admissions, which do you want"... which really ticked the person off because they had no clue what the definitions of each were.

Occasionally I notice there is a difference between schools as well as to how they refer to prospective students... and when I cross lingo between schools they get confused too.

So moral of the story... know who you're talking to and speak their language. It's not fun to be on the receiving end of someone not making a whole lot of sense. Students, any experience with having no clue what your admissions person is talking about?

Watching the River Rise...

Sorry I've been quiet on the blog this week... (two weeks in a row! Eek! Was in Europe last week, visited Queen's University in Belfast and Oslo University in, well, Oslo. :))

As you may have figured out from previous blogs we're located in Moorhead, MN and less than a block from the rapidly rising Red River of the North. A few of our staff have homes directly in the flood path (who wouldn't want a home on the river, right?) and the rest of us have friends and family directly affected by this so we've been out filling, tying and lifting sandbags all week.

It's been amazing- the comradarie among everyone out helping out, and the THOUSANDS of college students out giving all they've got to the effort. Frankly, a few of us worried that some college students would see this as a free week off and not come out and help but that has not been the case at all. At one point I was the oldest person in my sandbagging line! (I'm only in my late twenties!) So, like a local said in the Fargo Forum, "I'm going to throw a sandbag at the next person who complains about the college kids in the area and ask anyone who complains about high school kids to kiss my wet, muddy, sandy @$$".

See a view of the river from our office: http://www.inforum.com/pages/floodcam

We're waiting now for a load of sandbags to be delivered across the street from the office and are going to head out and start piling them up... I don't want to swim to work this week! :)