Ah, high school summers. How well I recall. Gas was $0.30 per gallon and the livin’ was easy . . . until I needed to buy some gas, get new tennis shoes, or go out on a date. So, being the brilliant strategist that I am, I figured out that I needed a summer job. Jobs weren’t as hard to come by back in the mid-’60s, certainly not as hard as it is today. I just sat down and made a list of semi-influential people I knew and checked out the local temp agency (“Manpower” was its name; I wonder if it’s called “Personpower” these days).

Anyway, my high school summer jobs consisted of being a busboy at the local Holiday Inn, where I learned a lot about what happens to restaurant food while it’s being prepared. Trust me; it’s better not to know. I also lugged heavy boxes of Cold Power laundry detergent samples door-to-door in a six-county region of my state. My job was to take one of the small sample boxes of Cold Power, put it into its plastic bag along with the advertising leaflet, hang the bag on the front-door handle and ring the doorbell. These heavy boxes of samples weighed about 35 pounds when full and those of us in the distribution crew carried them with a strap that went around our necks. Maybe that’s why I can’t look to my right.

I also worked as a tennis instructor, which was no doubt my favorite summer job. I got paid for taking care of a country club’s beautiful clay tennis courts as well as showing lovely young ladies the advantages of the drop volley. But I digress.

The point of discussing summer jobs here is to point you to an informative article that explains a dozen solid ideas about what you can do this summer to earn money both for college and general living expenses.

Ideally, you should have been searching for summer jobs already. However, perhaps an idea here will give you a clue as to where to look and you’ll luck out by snagging some paid action. Here are the highlights: More »

The state of the nation’s economy is causing some rather odd decisions concerning college applications and enrollment. Up until now, traditional thinking has been that going to one of your home-state universities was a prudent move, both financially and educationally. That doesn’t seem to be the case any longer. These days, state universities are accepting more and more out-of-state applicants. Are you wondering why?

Well, a recent article in the Sacramento Bee explains that at least in one state, California, more and more students are leaving to enroll in schools located in other states. The reasons are both obvious and complex. Reporter Phillip Reese notes, “Fed up with tuition increases and frustrated by rejection at packed California universities, more high school graduates than ever are ditching the state to attend college.” These two factors are definitely true (more on that below).

Reese also writes, “Several education experts said these trends will continue as long as California’s public colleges raise prices faster than their out-of-state counterparts, and as admissions standards increase due to lack of capacity.”

I posted this article on the College Confidential discussion forum and there were some real-life confirmations of Reese’s contentions. Here are a few samples of what posters said:  More »

Would you be willing to work for nothing to gain an advantage in getting paid employment? That seems to be the case for some college students (and even graduates) who have come head to head with the realities of today’s job market. I’m talking about internships here.

For the uninitiated, an internship is defined as “a system of on-the-job training for white-collar and professional careers. Internships for professional careers are similar to apprenticeships for trade and vocational jobs. Although interns are typically college or university students, they can also be high school students or post-graduate adults. Rarely, they can even be middle school or in some cases elementary students.”

Traditionally, thinking has been that an internship will likely lead to employment with the company for which the intern is working. That sounds good on paper, but the reality today is that there are no guarantees. One source comments that “. . . the internship works as an exchange of services for experience between the student and his or her employer. Students exchange their cheap or free labor to gain experience in a particular field. They can also use an internship to determine if they have an interest in a particular career, create a network of contacts, or gain school credit. Some interns also find permanent, paid employment with the companies in which they interned. Thus, employers also benefit as experienced interns need little or no training when they begin full-time regular employment.”

In a recent New York Times article, Steven Greenhouse discusses the pluses and minuses of using internships to enhance job prospects and even launch a career. Here are some highlights: More »

Attention high school seniors (and parents of those seniors). By now, you seniors have seen the results of your college applications. You probably have a handful of acceptances and maybe some disappoints too. Regardless, your life is about to take a dramatic developmental step: heading off to college on your own. You’ll be making a lot of independent decisions, decisions that could possibly determine some significant directions in your life. Let’s call one of them a “major” decision.

Choosing a college major can be quite difficult. I started out my freshman year majoring in Business Administration, which was simply a default on my part because I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I ended up graduating with a degree in music history and literature, which was essentially a classical liberal arts degree. After many years of moving from job to job, as my life’s circumstances dictated and permitted, I found my wheelhouse here in the world of college counseling and writing. It was a long and winding road, to say the least. I hope that your road won’t be as long or as winding as mine was in order for you to find your wheelhouse work.

While I would be the last person to try to equate happiness and success with certain college majors, there has been some research into which majors might not provide young people with the most optimal platform from which to jump off into the so-called Real World.

The Daily Beast has posted a very interesting article entitled The 13 Most Useless Majors, From Philosophy to Journalism. It references “new research (PDF) from Georgetown University—which drew from two years of census data to determine the prospects for myriad majors—to narrow down our list to more than three dozen popular college majors. We also used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, equally weighing the following categories to determine current and future employment and earnings potential…”

What are those 13 “useless” majors and what’s the bottom line from the Georgetown study? More »

What do really expect to get from a college education? In dealing with many high school seniors going through the college admissions process, I have found that many of them have unrealistic expectations. By that, I mean that they have this idealized vision of how wonderful life is going to be once they get that “sheepskin” (is that still a PC term?).

You may have seen that Seinfeld episode entitled (the same as Robert Heinlein’s famous sci-fi novel) When Worlds Collide. The episode highlights George Costanza’s two worlds, social and romantic, colliding in a major conflict of lifestyle. Similarly, high school seniors’ “world” vision of post-college happiness can collide with the coldness of the so-called Real World.

The purpose of this opinion piece is to comment upon the current realities for recent college graduates. It’s not a pretty picture in many cases and my hope is that if you’re a high school senior who has been accepted into a “dream” or other desirable college or university (or a parent of such a senior), you will pause to give thought to what your higher education goals and hopes really are. Idealism can be a good thing, but it can cause disappointment.

One of the most sobering articles I’ve seen in a while appeared on CNBC.com. Its headline, 1 in 2 new graduates are jobless or underemployed offers a clue as to today’s real world. In keeping with my challenge for you to examine your college expectations, I offer some highlights from that article in hopes that you’ll read the entire text. I’ll also quote a few comments from parents and students from the College Confidential discussion forum, who have reacted to the article. More »

The dust has pretty much settled on this year’s college admissions season. Of course, there are still some “rolling” admissions schools out there who never seem to establish a hard application deadline, plus there are always those schools who need to fill more spaces in their dorms when they don’t accomplish needed enrollment goals. Those schools will begin soliciting bodies after the May 1 enrollment deadline, which is coming up pretty quick. These days, with dwindling family financial resources and colleges with aid packages that aren’t what they used to be, times are tough for both families and schools.

But what about those of you who have already seen the final results of your application quest? You likely have a pile of “fat” envelopes (big mail packages welcoming you to the Class 0f 2016 (I still can’t get used to seeing years with those high numbers)) and a few “thin” ones that bear the unpleasant news of “rejection.” I prefer the term “denial.” Personally, I would rather be denied something rather than be rejected from it. “Deny” has less sting, I think.

Today, I’d like to address all those of you high school seniors who have some of those skinny envelopes sent from your most highly desired colleges and universities. You may be feeling that you have been dealt a personal blow to your self-worth and self-esteem. That’s only natural. However, you have to take a broader, less-personal view of what an application denial means and what to do next. I’ve discussed this before here on Admit This! but it bears repeating every year. There’s a lot of unnecessary suffering going on among denied seniors right now. If you have been denied and are hurting because of it, let me give you my ongoing advice about how to handle it. More »

When I graduated from college, I moved to another state. I was married and we had a new baby, our first. Life was scary then. The job market may not have been as depressed as it is now. I can’t recall. However, for a young-20s-something, it took courage to pack up everything, rent a U-Haul, and establish residence in another state. We made that decision based entirely on the hopes of my new job, which would end up lasting less than half a year before we returned to our home town, not to either of our parents’ homes.

We could have “boomeranged,” as the common parlance goes these days, but I was perhaps too proud to accept the graciousness and hospitality of my parent (“parent” (singular), as it was back then because my father had passed away before I graduated, leaving my mother on her own). College graduates these days are facing a different world than I did back in the early Seventies. Things are shaky now. They were shaky back then, too, I guess, but the intensity of the shakiness wasn’t as apparent, at least it seems that way to me now as I look back.

If you’re a parent with a college upperclassman, you may have wondered what the future holds for your child after s/he graduates. According to an insightful article, though, there is no shame in boomeranging. Writer Amanda Abella makes some key points. Here are some excerpts. More »

One of the more irrational exercises high school seniors undergo this time of year is trying to figure out why they and some of their peers did or did not get into the colleges to which they applied. Of course, college admissions may well be among the world’s most subjective processes. There are no hard and fast rules and each college uses a different set of criteria and has ever-changing needs from year to year. However, over the past several (or more) years, certain patterns have begun to evolve that could be viewed as disturbing, if not bizarre, or technically illegal.

The epicenter of the bizarro college admissions world is the Ivy League. With all but two of the Ivies now sporting single-digit acceptance rates, the competition is ferocious. Again, the hot issue is why some applicants are admitted while others, with seemingly superior qualifications, are denied. First of all, it’s clear that these top schools simply don’t have enough room to accommodate everyone who is “qualified.” Those quotation marks mean that what qualifies an applicant for admission varies from school to school. And then, of course, there’s always the ever-popular “institutional priorities” at work, which no one ever really understands. Those are the various key needs from year to year that excite admissions committees: tuba players one year, basketball centers another year, and so on.

Every year, my counseling clients ask me unanswerable questions. The standard one is: “Why did so-and-so get in and I didn’t?”  I can only offer tea and sympathy because the true answer will never be known.

This conundrum is getting more and more media attention. While researching the Web for insights into this bizarro world, I came across an interesting column by Washington Post education writer, Jay Matthews. It sheds some unusual light on this situation and I’d like to highlight key parts of it here, for our mutual edification. Read and learn. More »

My post today is aimed more at parents of high school juniors and sophomores. For the most part, parents of seniors are over the hump. Admissions decisions are out now. However, for Moms and Dads of this year’s senior class, there may still be some anxieties operating. Waitlists, enrollment decisions, visits, and financial aid negotiations might yet loom on the docket. So, there is angst in the springtime air.

Thinking back to my own Era of Angst, I recall my hopes for my son’s and daughter’s admissions chances rising and falling even between consecutive stoplights on a drive through the city. I was on a parental roller coaster, being seized at the throat by the whims of admissions committees, only occasionally being able to gasp a much needed breath of objectivity.

Go ahead and laugh, all you who have never gone through this. I call as substantiating witnesses any parent who has already or is currently enduring the college admissions/financial aid wash-rinse-and-dry cycle. It may appear to be amusing to those not involved, but take my word for it, it can be nerve wracking. On the brighter side it can also have dietary implications. In some extreme cases, weight loss can occur, which, for those of us in violation of those Nazi-like insurance company height-weight charts, can be a positive outcome.

We’re talking about neurotic parents here. I wish that certain resources had been available to me back in my saw-tooth-chart mood days. One such resource that is available today for parents is The Neurotic Parent blog, written by J.D. Rothman. You may find some comfort (and laughs) there.

Lily Altavena, writing in Jacques Steinberg The Choice blog, talks about some suggestions solicited by Ms. Rothman from a panel of high school college counselors and admissions directors who offered solutions for neurotic parents and anxious applicants. Here are some highlights: More »

Okay, seniors. Most of you who have applied to college have received your acceptances, denials, waitlistings, or deferred enrollment notices by now. The time has come to make your decision about where you will attend, come this fall. As entering first-year college students, you’ll have much to learn, and that will involve a lot of non-academic areas, such as roommate dynamics, social circumstances, and other crucial college lifestyle elements.

Perhaps one of the most important (in the long run) issues that will help you is knowing which professors to take for which courses. Granted, in some cases, you won’t have a choice, depending on your major and distribution requirements. Those distribution requirements sometimes offer your best shot at “shopping” for a particular professor. After all, we live in a consumer age and reports from college “consumers” can be a very helpful tool.

Have you ever heard of RateMyProfessors.com? This appears to be the Web’s best source for comments and evaluations of specific professors, a kind of Consumer Reports of college teaching. One has to be careful about taking every comment as gospel, though. Who knows what motives are behind the comments registered there? In my experience, however, I have found the tone and content of most of the student comments there to be sincere. It’s reasonably easy to detect a “revenge” comment, so don’t worry too much about being duped.

If you’re interested in finding out about your possible professors in from a hardcopy document, you may be interested in a new book that just came out. The Princeton Review’s The Best 300 Professors relies on a somewhat expanded methodology and approach than partnering RateMy Professor.com uses. For example, here’s a sample comment:

Univ. of Georgia Prof. John Knox – The sole Geography professor in the book, Prof. Knox is an award-winning teacher, meteorologist, and published poet. His courses – including Weather Forecasting and Atmospheric Hazards — are described as “chock-full of compelling material that keeps students interested…years after the course has ended.”  “If you are not excited about geography after his class,” wrote one of his students, “you are not breathing.”

And, here’s some deeper background about this new resource, excerpted from the press release: More »