If you have been paying attention to the news over the past decade, you may have made note of reports about wars. At some point during those stories, there may have also been video of various news conferences with generals and other high-ranking military personnel. Eventually, you would have heard the term “exit strategy.” Thus the point of what we’ll discuss today.

For those of you parents who either have a child in college currently or will have one enrolled this fall or next, it would serve you well to think about their exit strategy. In many cases these days, making the transition into college is significantly easier than crossing the bridge out of college into the so-called real world of jobs, debt, and career development.

Unfortunately, many parents think that once the college admissions process battle is over, things will pretty much be on cruise control straight through graduation and into the post-grad world. That’s not what usually happens, though. According to Jane Horowitz of morethanaresume.com, “A full 71% of parents were involved or highly involved in their child’s college admission process, with one-third paying for outside resources, including exam prep courses, tutoring, essay coaches and application consultants, according to interviews and a national survey of 250 parents of college students and recent graduates.” Well, we all should know about helicopter parents.

But what should parents be doing to assist their child when it comes time to leave college and begin a life outside of those ivy covered ivory towers? Read the rest of this entry »

A while back, I wrote a post here entitled B.R.O.K.E.N.In it, I railed about why the ideal of college has become corrupted and is slouching toward irrelevance. At the risk of quoting myself, I made some points to support my thesis:

Generally, I’m not big on cute acronyms, but I thought I would coin one (the one in my title above) to set the tone for my opinion piece today. I’ve been an avid observer and professional/parental participant in all things higher education for going on three decades now. At this advanced stage of my observational participation, I’m convinced of one thing: the higher education system (perhaps better said as “industry”) is heading for a major crash and culture change. Thus, B.R.O.K.E.N. — Berry’s Ruminations On Killing Education’s Nexus. …

… What’s killing it? That’s easy: unaffordability. Granted, there will always be those who can afford it, or as the assassin, Joubert said in Three Days of the Condor, “Someone is always willing to pay.” However, the staggering student loan debt in this country speaks to the simple fact that far more are willing to go into debt, sometimes a lifetime of debt, in order to gain entrance into those (at least for now) hallowed halls of ivy. I won’t burden you here with the familiar data that show how college costs have far outstripped inflation and even medical costs across the decades. You can take my word for it or, as legendary Yankee manager Casey Stengel use to say, you can “Look it up!”

Apparently, others out there share this sentiment. Some, though, are far more articulate than I am, plus they have additional points of view that exceed my cost concerns.

In case you’re curious, the pictured professor here is Animal House‘s Prof. David Jennings, who, in his own way, speaks to some of the issues regarding my alleged “tarnished” college concept. Another spokesperson for the current college conundrum is Nick Romeo, a nationally published journalist, former hedge-fund staffer, and author of the internationally published humor book 11,002 Things to Be Miserable About. One of the more prominent things Nick is miserable about is higher education.  Read the rest of this entry »

Our local paper has been filled with news about the local high school and college graduations going on in our area. With every article, there is always a brief sound bite from either the valedictorian’s or main speaker’s address. Some of these excerpts can seem pretty much alike or even trite. “Don’t be afraid of life!” one proclaims. “You’ve only just begun!” another one urges, stealing from the Carpenters’ song. Unfortunately, most of these challenging utterances are soon forgotten and their exhortational rush fades fast.

However, some graduation addresses remain memorable for a variety of reasons. One graduation speech from last year caused a national stir. It wasn’t from Princeton or Yale. It was from a formerly relatively unknown high school in Massachusetts. I wrote about this here on Admit This! and said:

Being a commencement speaker can also be a bully-pulpit opportunity. You may recall last year’s “excitement” about one high school graduation speaker. David McCullough Jr., speaking at Wellesley High School in Massachusetts told students “you’re not special” nine times and said that he was shocked by all the attention his “tough-love” address received.

But, looking back, there are some truly outstanding commencement addresses that are neither snooze-worthy nor outrageous. Let’s consider a few of them. Read the rest of this entry »

As financial aid letters trickle down from college acceptances all across the nation, students and families begin to see how colleges help with paying for those sky-high fees. There are those wonderful outright grants, which mean that there is no requirement to repay them. They are a gift, free and clear. Some grants are quite significant, depending on a family’s demonstrated need, as assessed by the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), CSS Profile (CSS = College Scholarship Service), and sometimes the college’s own specific financial aid form. Grants can also be considered as a “discount” off of the so-called “sticker price” of college costs.

Then there are the pure scholarships, which are usually awarded based on merit. That means that a college looks at an accepted student’s overall profile, especially academics, and decides how much merit money they would like to offer the student in order to encourage the applicant to enroll. Merit scholarships (sometimes referred to as merit “awards”) can be big. Some colleges award what they refer to as their Presidential Scholarship, which is generally their most prestigious award. It is usually a renewable award, contingent on continued excellent academic performance. Then there are the “weird” scholarships.

I refer to them as weird because they require an odd assortment of applicant qualities in order to qualify for consideration. I found a good review of some of these unique scholarships in an article from TheBestCollege.org site. 15 Of The Weirdest Scholarships In America tells of some truly odd aid awards that are worth noting, even if just out of curiosity. Let’s take a look at some, just for fun.  Read the rest of this entry »

D-Day has come and gone. I’m talking about Decision Day for the Ivy League schools. Those applicants holding their breath for their Regular Decision decisions on March 28 this year were sufficiently nervous to cause server slowdowns on the College Confidential discussion forum. That’s a tribute to their anxiety, eagerness, and just plain curiosity. If you have the time and want to see just how competitive admission has become at the Ivies, click through some of the Ivy schools’ “results” postings to discover (or marvel at) how some of these high school seniors were denied admission. Their profiles read like fiction, in the positive sense. Some of the comments are quite moving.

Several days ago, I did an interview with a reporter from Princeton University’s student newspaper, The Daily Princetonian. The thrust of the reporter’s questions centered around the final acceptance rates for all the Ivies this year, not just Princeton’s. The main question was, “Do you think acceptance rates can get any lower?” Well, in light of the results at Princeton this year, I’d have to say, “It’s possible, but seems unlikely.” Take a look at Princeton’s numbers for the Class of 2017 (“SCEA” = Single Choice Early Action” (December notification); “RD” = Regular Decision (April notification)):

Total Applied: 26498 ; Total Accepted: 1931 ; Acceptance Rate: 7.28%
SCEA Applied: 3810 ; SCEA Accepted: 697 ; Acceptance Rate: 18.29%
RD Applied: 22688 ; RD Accepted : 1234 ; Acceptance Rate: 5.54% (last year: 5.90%)

Okay, you can pick yourself up off the floor now.

Going back to my comments for The Daily Princetonian interview, one of the things I mentioned, in regards to the possibility that Ivy acceptance rates could go even lower was that the rates could actually rise. I said,  “The number of applicants may indeed go down this coming year because of the tremendous discouragement that [students] see with a five or seven percent admissions rate.” By this, I mean that prospective Ivy applicants might view applying to the Ivies the same way a high school gymnast and hopeful future Olympian would feel after watching the competition at the Olympics. Yes, getting into the Ivies appears to be something of an Olympian challenge these days. So you want to go to the Ivy League? As Pink Floyd says, “Welcome to the machine.”   Read the rest of this entry »

Just for fun, let’s talk about college mascots. You’ve seen them cavorting at most every college sports broadcast on TV. They get passed through the stands on the hands of rowdy fans. They wrestle and tease the opposing team’s mascot. They sometimes even toss goodies into the stands for the pleading crowd. In other words, college mascots have a very active and–seemingly–fun life.

I know of one local guy who was his high school’s mascot and his ambition was to go on to college and become the mascot there. He realized his dream and was so good that he became something of a legend among mascot fans. The point of writing about mascots here today is that what meets the eye (about mascots) is not necessarily equal to the reality. Who knows what perils and pleasures dwell within the murky mascot world? Well, Campus Grotto does.

In their just-released article entitled 10 Little Known Facts about your College Mascot, we find some cool insights, some of which go well beyond #1′s obviousness of “The costume smells pretty bad.” Let’s take a closer look (rather than smell) inside the secret world of college mascots.

By way of introduction, Campus Grotto notes, “They entertain crowds with their school spirit and antics. They pump up fans loud enough to help sway momentum in their team’s favor. They pose for thousands of fan photos. But what else goes on in the secret world of a mascot? Here we take an inside look at some things you might not know and see just what it’s like to be a college mascot.”

So, let’s take a look at five of the 10 insightful revelations. Read the rest of this entry »

Generally, I’m not big on cute acronyms, but I thought I would coin one (the one in my title above) to set the tone for my opinion piece today. I’ve been an avid observer and professional/parental participant in all things higher education for going on three decades now. At this advanced stage of my observational participation, I’m convinced of one thing: the higher education system (perhaps better said as “industry”) is heading for a major crash and culture change. Thus, B.R.O.K.E.N. — Berry’s Ruminations On Killing Education’s Nexus.

So, what’s killing it and, perhaps more importantly, what the heck is a “Nexus”? Well, to answer that second question first, a nexus (as described by TheFreeDictionary.com) is “A means of connection; a link or tie” (maybe a ladder to higher learning) or “The core or center.” Therefore, the nexus of education, at least for the purposes of this opinion piece, is America’s higher education system, which is the core or center of tens of thousands of high school students’ and their families’ focus every year here in America.

What’s killing it? That’s easy: unaffordability. Granted, there will always be those who can afford it, or as the assassin, Joubert said in Three Days of the Condor, “Someone is always willing to pay.” However, the staggering student loan debt in this country speaks to the simple fact that far more are willing to go into debt, sometimes a lifetime of debt, in order to gain entrance into those (at least for now) hallowed halls of ivy. I won’t burden you here with the familiar data that show how college costs have far outstripped inflation and even medical costs across the decades. You can take my word for it or, as legendary Yankee manager Casey Stengel use to say, you can “Look it up!”

What inspired my rant today was a link to an article mentioned by Roger Dooley, whose world-class neuromarketing blog has broken, so to speak, new ground in understanding how our brains can make us buy stuff, to put it mildly. Anyway, the article Roger referenced is The Real Winners of the Coming Revolution in Higher Education by Bruce Guile, president and co-founder of Course Gateway, an online education consultancy, and David Teece, executive director of the Institute of Business Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. The keyword in the article’s title is revolution. To that, I shout a hearty double AMEN! The opening paragraph dramatically states: Read the rest of this entry »

Okay. Let’s play “Remember When.” Every time I start to recall how things used to be “back in the day,” or my mind wanders to “the way we were,” I think of Tony Soprano. Why the odd connection? Well, if you are (or were) a Sopranos fan, you may recall (even remember) an episode entitled, appropriately, Remember When. In that episode, Tony and fellow gangster Paulie “Walnuts” are having dinner with an ex-gangster in Miami, when Paulie starts to wax nostalgic about the gang’s good old days. After listening to Paulie prattle on for some time, Tony gets irritated and scolds Paulie with the shows title line by noting that, “Remember when is the lowest form of conversation.”

Well, hey. What does Tony Soprano have to do with college life, anyway? I can explain by first acknowledging that in a number (maybe too many) of past articles here, I have remembered when I was in college (or even high school). The main reason I have looked back across the decades is to draw a contrast between the way things used to be in the collegiate world compared to now. The contrasts sometimes have been quite shocking, particularly in the area of costs. But for today’s writing, I’d like to compare current day-to-day college life with the way things were when I lived in Asbury Hall.

Get ready, then. Here comes the “I remember when” prelude to my post’s punchline. Anyway, back in the day, I bunked in a dorm room that was about the same size as a decent walk-in closet. Spartan would be a great word to describe our (my roommate’s and my) living conditions. On my side of the room was a bed and a chest of drawers. There was a small student desk sandwiched in between and a tiny closet down at the end. My roommate’s side was identical and there was about four feet of space dividing the two sides. We had no phone in the room and no TV. There was a payphone on the wall down the hall, halfway toward the other end of the building. Think of The Waltons.

We had to walk everywhere, even for pizza (no dorm deliveries), and it was a significant hoof to go into town for a decent sit-down meal or retail store. There were no malls, no laundry services, and we had no cars. There was one meal plan and no organic fruit in the food line. In other words, it was sort of like an army base with professors and a football team.

Well, I’m hearing shouts of “Get to the point!” so I will. A recent Wall Street Journal article by Melissa Korn points out in great detail the tremendous differences between today’s college life and the way it was when I remember when. The title, Forget the Old College Try, Ring the Concierge – Students Hire Pros to Do Their Bidding; Getting a Bidet in a Hurry, alludes to what’s happening. Here are a few highlights along with some comments from the related College Confidential discussion forum thread. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, we just said Happy New Year! Now it’s time to start thinking about how to put the “happy” into your new year. I’m aiming this post at college students, but you high schoolers out there are going to get a spring break too, just like your collegiate buddies. Plus, if you’re a fortunate high schooler, you may even be going away somewhere, either with Mom and Dad, or possibly on your own. There are a lot of intrepid high school students who have freedom-minded parents.

Most colleges schedule their spring breaks around early March. If you want to see when some of the top colleges have scheduled spring break, take a look at Student City’s helpful listing. Also, if you think it’s way too early to start planning for spring break, you might want to check these suggestions. For example:

Plan Ahead

Note that in order to prepare for a Spring Break vacation you need to allow yourself adequate time and resources to make your trip possible. At least 5 months prior to your Spring Break you should begin to think about the location that you want to visit.

That’s right. These experts suggest starting your planning process five months ahead of spring break. So, let’s say your spring break happens the first week of March. According to this planning approach, if you haven’t yet done anything about arranging your break details, you’re already several months behind schedule! Time to get with it, people!

So, let’s see what some others have to say about planning (timely or otherwise) for that spring break. Read the rest of this entry »

Food ranks high on teenagers’ priority lists. I can’t document this statement, but I’m willing to bet that more than one high school senior has made a college enrollment decision based on his or her reaction to the quality of food encountered on a campus visit. Trust me; there is a huge variation in the appeal of food across the thousands of schools out there. I can’t help but be reminded of the cafeteria scene in Animal House, when Bluto goes through the chow line at Faber College. He loads his tray with what looks like seven metric tons of every conceivable food item (all of which look rather appetizing), and he even samples some of the day’s menu while loading up.

This scene reminds me of my own college-food days, which were positively prehistoric by today’s gourmet standards. As a side note, you might want to check out the name of the person in charge of campus food services. During my freshman year, there was a gentleman in charge whose last name was Bloodgood. Hmm. Not that appealing in relation to salads and meatballs, but today (if he were still in charge) he may have a kind of cultish appeal for all those students who love the movie Twilight. As if Mr. Bloodgood (why do I keep thinking of “Mr. Goodwrench”?) wasn’t edgy enough, one elite university has (or maybe had) a food services director by the name of Orifice. Another interesting connection.

Well, regardless of who may be in charge of your college’s food services, you may be interested to know which colleges are judged to have the best food for its students. Popular food and beverage website, The Daily Meal, has just unveiled its premier list of the 52 Best Colleges for Food in America.

The compilation was measured against several tiers of criteria, including:

• Healthy Food: Meals that are fresh, made from scratch, and cooked in small batches,
• Events: Themed dinners, picnics, cooking classes — anything to engage undergrads,
• Local: Programs that support the community with local purchases,
• Sustainable: Incorporating eco-friendly practices into the dining program,
• Accessibility and Service: How easy it is for students to connect with dining services, and how well they are taken care of, and
• The X Factor: Something that made our jaws drop.

So, before you finish your college search, you may care to explore where the good eats are. Here are some highlights to help your search: Read the rest of this entry »