California Changin'?

Movement afoot to go holistic in California...at least that's what a group of reformers is calling upon the University of California system to do.

The group of 40 educators, as reported in the San Jose Mercury News on Saturday, want the state's massive university system to go beyond just grades and SAT scores.

The suggestion is to ask for more than just the numbers -- for instance, if a student has a C+ average (roughly a 2.75, or something in the high 70s on most 100-point scales), they wouldn't be automatically turned down for admission. Instead, their application would be reviewed for extracurriculars, leadership roles, other things that would help add diversity to a Freshman class.

Ditto for an SAT score that would have earlier rendered the student dinged.

Great ideas these and, if approved, they would surely bring a lot more flavor to the admissions process at U of C (and all of its campuses).

The Transfer Game (from the Saturday Wall Street Journal)

U Sphere will save you a little reading -- the guess is that a good chunk of our audience doesn't get The Wall Street Journal, and thus may have missed a piece that ran Saturday. The upshot: students who couldn't get into their first choice of university for this fall would like to transfer next fall.

So these kids are already working on application materials. They're spending their Freshman year at a school that they weren't 100% happy with getting the right extracurriculars so they could land at one that they, presumably, will be 100% happy with.

I'm all for transferring if it's not the right fit. And I have long been a proponent of the community college route for the right student as a precursor to college life.

But come on. Spending your Freshman year planning on transferring defeats the purpose of the Freshman year. Entirely.

I felt worst for one school -- The University of Tulsa. (It's on my list of "underrated.") They scored a prize recruit, who has already decided, while a Freshman at Tulsa, that he HAS to go to the University of Michigan.

Tulsa's too classy a place, and too good a school, to get dragged into some sort of mudslinging, so I hope (rather, I BET) that they'll find another deserving student to take the spot that will be open next year.

How Much DOES it Cost -- The College Board Survey

Great piece in Inside Higher Ed today on the College Board's annual review of college costs and financial aid.

(Note that you can read the content for free at Inside Higher Ed's web page. And they have free daily email alerts too that cover the gamut of Higher Ed topics. Learn more about them at www.insidehighered.com.)

Highlights:

• 4 to 5 percent average increases in tuition (2- or 4-year public school or 4-year private school)
  
• An actual DECREASE in the average amount of the Pell Grant
• This whole thing reminds me of my favorite words of advice to anyone, regardless of situation: "your experience may vary."

There's a huge gap in average numbers between public and private schools. Why? In-state tuition vs. out-of-state tuition.

Is this really an alternative to traditional student loans?

Lots of attention has been given to a company called Prosper, whose peer-to-peer lending model is something in-between microfinance and a traditional bank.

This begs the question: can you use a service like this to pay for college?

The site says the service is open to anyone over 18, they run a credit check, and if you don't have much of a credit history, well, this is one way to actually establish one.

Downside: you miss out on things like deferring payments until you are out of school. But, if you're a "non-traditional" student -- a working parent, or someone who wants to get a degree part-time, or someone looking for an MBA and not getting much of a tuition reimbursement from The Man, Prosper may be able to help.

Finding the right deal

Common question from Mom and Dad of a high school senior: how do we find the best deal? Striking a balance between good program, good value, affordability, and somewhere that Junior wants to attend can be tough.

Here then are a couple links that can help you begin the process of at least understanding which schools may make sense to look at. Note that these are not listings of scholarships, just of different schools and programs you can take advantage of as long as you apply.

Western Undergraduate Exchange. Discounted tuition at participating schools in participating states. You're out of luck if you're from the midwest. Or the East. But that's why they call it what they call it.

Unique out-of-state tuition discounts. We know of quite a few, but here are some of the more blatant ones:

New Mexico State - if you're a transfer student, they'll let you go at in-state rates.

Kent State - They are pretty interested in you if you are from one of the neighboring states to Ohio, or if you're from California.

Montana State - Where Craig Kilborn went to school. Big discount if your scores are good. Discounts even if your scores aren't great.

Know more? Want us to post them? Send a note to info@usphere.com.

And you'll also find this story, posted Sunday afternoon by the Associated Press, of interest.

YouTube, not U Sphere, purchased by Google

Just a quick note to answer your questions. YouTube was purchased by Google earlier this week.

NOT U Sphere, YouTube.

Apologies for any confusion in the marketplace.

Tools We've Unearthed to Help Your Search

U Sphere just returned from the annual NACAC convention. This group brings together two sides of the college admissions equation: college and university admissions directors, and guidance counselors who work at high schools.

(This creates an interesting exchange -- especially at the "Counselors' College Fair," where the universities and colleges set up booths and conduct a college fair for the counselors. It's the same thing you would see at a college fair if you were a high school student, except there are no students.)

Lots of companies were there; we found a few that have pretty nifty things that can help you with the process. Here are three:

Bar Z Adventures. Show up at a college campus on a random afternoon and ask for a tour. No one available in the admissions office, or you're unscheduled, or whatever. So the college hands you a rugged device that is about the size of a PSP. As you walk the campus, the GPS-enabled thingy tells you where you are. Who designed this building? Click on a button. How many people study engineering? Click here. School gets their message out and you get to play with a neat toy. Rarely have we seen so much "why didn't I think of that?" buzz.

British Council USA. Forgotten in the kids-meet-colleges exchange is the role of schools from the United Kingdom. Great schools, and many of them are winning battles for high-performing students.

College Prowler. Witty guidebooks that feature unfiltered comments from students about what schools are really like. Great if you're looking for any of the mainstream schools. 237 different guides written "by students for students." And everyone at their booth wore some shade of orange. (Note: it appeared that they had 15 people working their booth at all times. Semi-intimidating.)

More on the schools themselves in the coming days.

Nation of Leagues

There was a legend somewhere, and maybe you can learn about it on Snopes, that the "Ivy League" got its nickname because there were just four schools, and they decided to go by Roman Numerals, and that of course is "IV."

Which reminds me that I need an IV drip of something to allow me to survive list season. "New Ivies." "Best Liberal Arts Schools." "Top Party Schools."

So here, direct from U Sphere World Headquarters, is our latest list of lists -- or a list of what should be lists. Enjoy.

The Ivan League. There's a story here, of course, when two high school kids from Mishawaka, Indiana, decided to visit Northwestern University on a college tour. Sleep-deprived youngsters who laugh too much at just about anything will make up names for stuff, and we figured that Northwestern should have been an Ivy League school, but for some reason wasn't. So we coined "The Ivan League." We thought we spotted genuine Ivan leaves climbing up the walls. We added Syracuse (my eventual alma mater) to the list. We had no science to it -- just schools in environments where Ivan grows freely. (Only two members were named. Other schools welcome to apply.)

The Flivy League. Schools that happen to be in Florida. Eckerd College. New College. University of Miami. University of Florida. Jacksonville. Nova Southeastern.

The Eh?-vy League. Oh, Canada? We here in America forget that not only is there a Canada, there are many quality schools north of the border. (And, if you want to get technical, about 80% of the country lives south of the 49th parallel.) I share a few: McGill. York. U Toronto. U Guelph. UBC. Simon Fraser. Calgary. (I haven't mentioned price at all.)

Four-Letter League. Will Shortz's favorites, but you'll have to Google these acronyms to figure out what they stand for. FGCU. NJIT. UOIT. CSEB. OCAC.

There could be more: I'm envisioning a "Haiku League" and a "See Spot Run League." (Hint: some colleges and universities can actually be verbs. Like "Knox." And "New.") Feel free to post your ideas.

U of the Day

Among the questions we've been asked here at U Sphere HQ: "What's the deal with the U of the Day?"

It's quite simple, really. Feedback from people in higher education has told us that there's a desire to get students to think about applying to more than just the same 50 schools. We're happy to help you know about a few more.

To get it you need a mobile phone and you can simply send a text message with the word UTEXT to this number: 68247. (Right now, it just works in the USA. More countries to come.)

Note that we archive them all on the U Sphere site. Check out the list here.