Rad Plaid Can Be Had at Mizzou

This is the kind of stuff we like to see: A school with a really good Textile program says it's time for its school to have its own tartan.

Words don't do this justice -- take a look at the University of Missouri web page, where MU shows the brand-new, student-created design.

See it here and you'll ask the question: where the heck can I buy this?

Victor Kiam Redux

At the risk of sounding like Dennis Miller, what with an obscure reference in the headline, a news item from yesterday bears mention in this space.

The Arizona Cardinals (football team) announced that their cutting-edge stadium -- which opened in August -- will be known as University of Phoenix Stadium. Official AZ Cards propaganda link here.

Way back when, in an ad campaign that was kitschy before kitschy was cool, Victor Kiam claimed to have liked the Remington Micro-Screen (a brand of electric razor, sortof like the Fusion meets Mach3 meets Dyson vacuum cleaner) so much that he "bought the company."

UoP likes the new stadium so much that they bought the naming rights. (If my math is correct, 7 million a year for 20 years is a lot of money.)

What does this mean for kids who are going to college? Or for parents? Or the education community?

We've decided to come up with a list of winners and losers. Here goes:

Winners:

• The University of Chicago. Time to revisit the Cardinals' link to the City of Chicago (where they played a long time ago) AND the University of Chicago. Legend has it that the Cardinals wanted to be called the Maroons but someone screwed up the laundry and bleached the jerseys. They came out a shade of red that was, well, Cardinal in color.
• The People of Arizona.
• Distance learning.
• Shaquille O'Neal.
  

Losers:

• The geographically challenged. University of Phoenix Stadium is the home of the Arizona Cardinals, who play in Glendale, Arizona. They used to play in St. Louis, Missouri and, before that, Chicago. Cardinals are also a baseball team in St. Louis. The Cardinal is the nickname for Stanford. And UoP has campuses everywhere.
  
• The guy who has to cost-justify this expenditure. Public school, private school, not-for-profit, for-profit: $140MM is a lot to spend on name recognition.
• The poor sportscaster who gets to interview Mr. Phoenix about how great it is to be a part of such a great new building and a wonderful team. Having a PR background, let me take a stab at what the quote would be: "We see great synergies between an up-and-coming team, a gem of a new stadium, and a ubiquitous online higher education presence."

Oh, and a quick list of things that aren't going away anytime soon: naming rights to pro stadiums, naming rights to University buildings, University of Phoenix and its for-profit cohorts.

Shock and Aw, Shucks

Daniel Golden's book is out, it's called "The Price of Admission," and it's been written about all over the place, including (GASP) The Economist.

(You can link here to Amazon for more info about the book. I'm not trying to sell you on it, nor am I trying to dissuade you from purchasing it or reading it. Link as a public service.)

The crux of the book is that selective colleges and universities go out of their way to get the right kids, but the definition of right kids may vary depending upon what cache (or cash) these students can bring with them.

According to the book, some shocking things go on. Children of Congressmen getting admitted to selective schools because of who they are. Schools courting students because they have wealthy or name parents -- and these parents may be apt to donate to the school down the road.

What's shocking is that people don't know this kind of thing happens.

The backlash should be a series of shoulder shrugs, followed by a collective "yeah, and?"

Let's put one issue to rest once and for all: higher education is a business. Welcome to the real world, where companies hire star performers to be rainmaker sales people because they have a good track record and might bring clients with them. Or where it's highly probable that the actress on television is actually easy on the eyes.

Here's another secret, and one that we hope all kids and all parents will use to their advantage in the college search process. This could be your year. Yes, that's right, if you are a person of color, if you are from Wyoming, if you are 7 feet tall, if you are the best fencer in the USA. This could be your year -- where the right school might just save a slot for you, even if you wouldn't qualify otherwise, just because of what you bring with you. Yes, you might bring dollars with you down the road, and that's great. But, actually, you might be the right person for another reason entirely, and you'll add to the image of the University, and that's a good thing.

And someone may well resent you for it. Bummer.

Now, it's Princeton's turn

Princeton has joined Harvard, ending its early admissions process starting next year. See the story.

So that makes two biggies.

A separate note: if you're looking for a good resource on schools that have made test scores optional, be sure to visit Fair Test.

According to the Wall Street Journal...

No sooner did we post our tome on getting kids (and their parents) to stop thinking about the same ten schools to attend (that was Sunday), then the Wall Street Journal (something a lot of parents read) decides to look at where CEOs of the 50 biggest public companies went to school.

Don't be surprised when you read Carol Hymowitz's article (link here).

Also great to see Warren Buffet's alma mater listed -- it's the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Happened to be a U Sphere "College of the Day" over the weekend.

Choosing a College? Relax.

It’s open season on the rankings again. Parents of high school seniors know the ones: the books, put out by large magazines or SAT test-prep companies. The ones that tell you that this college or university is better than that school because of some such reason – like better alumni or a better reputation.

Or more selective enrollment; or higher yield: those are two stats that any high-performing high-schooler knows well.

We’ve got an estimated 1.5 million high school seniors who will apply to a college or university in America this year. And, for a lot of them, the rankings serve their purpose. It’s nice to know that the school you thought you wanted to go to really is highly ranked in business, or engineering, or animal husbandry. It’s great to get into a top program at a top school.

I’m not going to suggest doing away with these rankings, as I am delighted to see people talking about choosing a college or university to spend the next four years. And if these rankings make your kid feel better, or more organized, or whatever, great. (I know, though, that the rankings are all about the Joneses being able to surpass each other with better window stickers.)

From my own experience (running a company that’s shaking up this college admissions process), I would say it’s tough for students to really fumble this selection thing as long as they trust their gut and remember these three words: Just go somewhere.

Sorry, Mom and Dad, if you think I’m trivializing what is probably a high-stress time. But I’m actually doing this for your benefit.

I can give you a couple real-world examples, from my own pre-entrepreneurial life as a Fortune 500 PR guy. My last boss had a degree from the University of Southern California. He took over for a guy who went to Virginia Commonwealth. Before that, I reported into a Holy Cross grad (the one in Worcester), and before him a Purdue-Calumet grad (the school’s satellite campus in Northwest Indiana).

They all worked at a company that is now headed up by a guy who did his undergrad in Manhattan. The other Manhattan: Kansas State University.

I’ve got a brother who’s doing fine work in IT, after getting a degree in business from Tri-State University (Angola, Indiana). I married into a family with three graduates of Illinois State University – fine women who got a great education and didn’t break the bank in the process.

I’ve worked for grads of Western Illinois and Mizzou. I’ve been at companies headed by people who went to Arkansas State, where my Mom was once offered a tiny scholarship.

Are you seeing a pattern here? No? Neither am I.

I’m not at all dismissing Ivies. Or selective liberal arts schools. And heck, I went to a school for three reasons – it is the cradle of sportscasters, it had a good basketball team, and I wanted to be Bob Costas. (For the uninitiated, the school is Syracuse, and I highly recommend it for the right kind of kid.)

I’m also not dismissing the rankings: I love the guidebooks, I love the books that dismiss the guidebooks. I love seeing where Montana-Western is (literally, it’s in Dillon, MT; figuratively, it’s a small liberal arts campus that’s a hidden gem and it’s really good in animal husbandry). I love this whole early decision vs. early action vs. open admission vs. wait list vs. double deposit discussion.

I just don’t like where it’s taking our highly stressed-out kids.

Instead, I’d offer a collective chill pill, in the form of this three-step plan:

1. Test-drive, early and often, all types of campuses and a bunch of different experiences. This means that you should (borrowing from my own experience again) attend Shakespeare plays at Notre Dame and spend three weeks out of your summer at Indiana State, even if you’re doing it to prove that you wouldn’t fit in there.

2. Ignore all that advice about having x number of reach schools and making sure that your safeties are still safe. One of the ranking books talks about some girl who filled out 31 applications. She’s my hero, but that’s probably overkill. You should pick whatever number of schools and apply to them for all the reasons that make sense for you. (I applied early, went one-for-one, and called it a day.) Is five or six too many? Too few? Who cares? Do what makes sense.

3. Negotiate. With your parents. For a car, or a trip, or something. Dad offered me a car if I got a full ride somewhere. I didn’t, and it wasn’t until after I got out of school that I realized that HE would have gotten the better end of the deal.

This is a time for Seniors to assert themselves. That could mean getting into a school that only admits 10% of its applicants and has a yield of above 80%, if that’s what’s important. Or it could mean loading up the brand-new Toyota and heading for State U, knowing that, 4 years later, the car will still be running, and there’s more money in the bank.

You’ll of course need that money to buy my book on the Top Graduate Schools for You. (To be published in the fall of 2010.)

Harvard's Early Show (or Lack Thereof)

News from Harvard yesterday is that they're planning on dropping out of the early admissions game. You can learn more in the (Sept. 12) front page article from the Harvard school paper (The Harvard Crimson).

Harvard's bound to receive its share of plaudits for this decision: if you think you're having a hard time navigating through the differences between Early Action, Early Decision, Rolling Admission, etc., well, so apparently did Harvard. (Want a primer on the whole thing, in very nifty chart form? Visit this link from NACAC.)

Or, more to the point, Harvard is Harvard. If you apply to Harvard and you get in to Harvard, you go to Harvard.

The peril of the Early programs is that you pretty much have to tip your hand. "I really really want to go to your school. So bad that I'll enter into a possibly binding decision with you if you let me in early." But, again, if you apply to Harvard and you aren't planning on going there if you get in, why apply?

We're going to follow this and its ripple effects closely.