Email Etiquette

This article I think is fabulous. As the recipient of the mail@anycollege.com email address and a former college counselor whose email was given out to every single student upon starting classes (I'd average over 100 emails per day coming in) this is a pet subject of mine. However, I believe that if you need something/want something/need to get your point across you cannot risk a poorly written email.

I am guilty of receiving emails that are poorly written and immediately blowing off the sender because of it. Any request in the email goes unanswered for some time and I won't take the time with it that I normally would. Why? I have felt that if you are asking me to take some of my time to assist you with something, you can at least take the time to use correct spelling and grammar in the email, especially that most email systems have not only a spell checker but a grammar checker.

A few of my own comments on the article:

E-Mail is forever. Once you send it off, you can't get it back. Once your professor has it, he or she owns it and can save it or, in the worst case, forward it onto colleagues for a good laugh—at your expense. (Call us at the college heartless, but this absolutely does happen- usually preceded by "Look at what this student wrote- can you believe it? Should I reply?" And believe me- the temptation to write back a smart *** response is strong.)

Professors might not be using the cruddy university E-mail system. So, send to the address they actually use, not the one on the university directory. (Check the syllabus or assignment sheet for clues.) (In the student's defense, shame on the professor if he/she does not regularly check the University email. When you can't find your syllabus at 2 AM and all you have is the University directory then you email the listed address there. That's why there is a University Directory and as much as they may hate the University standard email they should use it.)

Professors might not open mail sent from luckydogpig@thepound.com. They prefer to open mail sent from more reputable addresses, like you@theCruddyUniversityE-mailSystem.edu.
Subject lines are for subjects. Put a brief explanation of the nature of the E-mail (like "question about paper") in the subject line. And never include demands such as "urgent request—immediate response needed." That's the surest way to get your request "Pluto-ed." (Half the time when I would receive an email from randomwordshere@whateveremailaddress.com the student would also forget to sign it... and when I can't tell who emailed me and that person is asking for help there isn't a whole lot I can do. This would be up there when I would get a phone message from "John" asking me to call him back urgently... with no phone number in a student body of 1,400)


Salutations matter. The safest way to start is with "Dear Professor So and So" (using their last name). That way you won't be getting into the issue of whether the prof has a Ph.D. or not, and you won't seem sexist when you address your female professor as "Ms." or, worse yet, "Mrs. This and That." (Worse yet: salutations of "Hey you", "Dude" "Yo-" or none at all... your professors are not "dude" or any variation thereof, no matter how cool they are.

Clear and concise is best. Your prof might get 25 or 30 E-mails in a day. (If they're lucky. Most of my professor friends get over 100 per day. PER DAY!) So, it's best if you ask your questions in as focused and succinct a way as possible (hint: it's often good to number your questions). And, if your questions are very elaborate or multifaceted, it's best to hoof over to an in-person office hour. You'll get better service that way. (You will also get a quicker answer to your questions. Trust me, professors don't want to play email tag for three days for a question that could have been answered in two minutes in person.)

This is not IM-ing. So pls dun wrte yor profeSR lIk ur txtN. uz abbrz @ yor own rsk. coRec me f Im wrng. (Please, please don't do this. Most professors do not speak this language!) (So true. I often have sent emails back to students simply saying "Dear Student, I do not understand what you are saying. Thank you.-Nikki" This also goes for acronyms that I don't understand. It's one thing if I can generally sound it out but when you add JTEJW into your email or some other acronym (half the time not capitalized either so I'm really not sure what that word is) you've just doubly confused me. Even if I do understand, this is just simply inappropriate to write to any one at the college in.)

This is not College Humor. So resist the temptation to talk about the "bad ass" paper you need help with, your "loser" TA who didn't teach you what you needed to know, or the "cruddy" grade you just got on the midterm. (See above comments. Again, this is not a language professors speak. While they are human, they do take their work seriously. You should too. )

This is not Dr. Phil. Avoid sending long excuses about why you missed class. No professor wants to hear about how your grandfather just died (even if it's true—which it never is), how your Jeep got totaled, or why you just spent three days in the hoosegow. (If you absolutely have to send an excuse (and yes, even if your grandfather who was your best friend just died it's still seen as an excuse) keep it succinct. "Personal matters" cover everything from car problems to getting tossed in the slammer for a DUI. "Family emergency" covers mom in the hospital and little brother going AWOL. If you end up talking to the professor a few more details can come out in person, but please not in the email.)

Spelling mistakes make you look like a doofis, so always use the spell check. And while your at it, it wouldn't hurt to proofread your E-mail, two. (Please please please please please)


There are more details and suggestions in the article. I highly recommend reading it and putting the tips to good use when you're in college, and those good habits will eventually transfer into good email skills at your job.

Trust me, fewer things will become more annoying than poorly written email when you've got someone asking you for something.

If You Want Free Money...

Anycollege.com has a scholarship.

If you go to the Anycollege.com website you will see a large link on the upper right corner that says "Win a Scholarship". That is what you click to find the application. It's on the front page... not hidden at all. If there are questions you can email mail@anycollege.com and I will be able to respond to any questions about the scholarship.

That being said, I do receive a few questions each day about the scholarship: how it is paid out (directly to the college), the dates for the drawing (The 30th/31st of March, June, September and December) and whether an essay needs to be submitted (no). That's fine, those are legit questions.

Then I also receive emails from students who want an application. Again, this is fine, I'm pleased to help students who have heard of us.

I also receive quite a few emails that claim to not be able to find the scholarship application on our site. This concerns me a bit because it's pretty obvious, and anyone who has spent 15 seconds on our home page should be able to see it. One today was sent to 5-10 other places that offer scholarships, but said "I was recently viewing your web site and encountered problems finding the application section." What?! OK, that's fine that the email is sent to several places, but this clearly isn't true. Something tells me that if this student actually looked at any of these sites that he/she would have found the scholarship page on at least a few.

Now, this does not mean I won't respond to the student. He/she will receive the same email that everyone else does- "Here's the link, thanks for your interest, etc etc etc..." But I can't help at being irked a little bit that the student had to include something about not being able to find the scholarship- why couldn't the email have simply said "I am interested in your scholarship, can you please send me an application." It's a little more truthful and really, simple and direct is the way to go with something like this.

I won't get into the requests that I get for an application that have a poorly written essay attached... actually on second thought I don't know if I can resist saying a little something... I understand trying to get an edge on the competition for a scholarship (never mind that we have a random drawing), but please note: if you are going to send an essay there are three things to remember. #1: Grammar. This includes correct word usage, punctuation and CAPITALIZATION! #2 Spelling. You typed it on a computer which I'm pretty sure has spellcheck. Use it! #3: Sob Story. I'm glad you're good at dealing with adversity, that you're putting yourself through college and that you are bettering yourself. That truly is wonderful. But do I need to get 3 pages of that wonderful? As Shakespeare said, "Brevity is the soul of wit". Thankfully, I'm not doing the scholarship award based on essays, though I appreciate the literature.

So what's the moral here? Be simple and direct when asking for scholarship applications. It's OK to simply say "I need an application" without telling me that your dog died of a horrible disease and you're traumatized for life which caused you to search for three hours on our website and not find the scholarship application. I'll still give it to you, but you won't be the subject of a blog with a simple request. :)

Have a great weekend!

Admin and Profs Are Human Too...

Continuing on last week's blog about students writing silly things, let's move on to the college staff.

I came across this blog today (see? there's that blog addiction again) and almost fell out of my chair laughing. Turns out the prof writing an email to a student had a little typo (or Freudian slip... depends on your point of view) that said: You don’t need to apologize for emailing me two hours after class about an assignment not due until [much later]. It shows that you’re on top of things, and professors love stupids who are on top of things.

Oh goodness. Stupids?

Now, that's not to say I've never done that myself. I have a tendency to miss the "c" key on my keyboard so occasionally I have found in an email of my own to various colleges informing them of how many "licks" they received on their website the week or month before. Maybe I've got some odd repressed desire to lick a college? I'm not sure about that one.

Well, the point of this whole thing is that the staff at the college is human too... and despite the fact that these folks are the ones grading papers on grammar they are not immune to mistakes themselves. But they're usually pretty funny when they happen!

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?

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!