One of the Limitations of the Scholarship Search Services

If you are a Latino or Latina, we stumbled upon a scholarship opportunity that might be a good one to look into -- at Robert Morris University, near Pittsburgh (a great college town).

Here's a link to more info.

Now, the limitations of the scholarship search services: either there's too much info that you don't qualify for, or there's the school-by-school scholarship stuff that requires you know about the school AND the specific scholarship.

Where we are, suburban Chicago (Evanston), I can bet that you'll find that students -- Latino and Latina students included -- probably think of the OTHER Robert Morris (Robert Morris College). Another fine school, but one that probably has much more recognition closer to home.

The elevator speech for the college-bound student: You Need One

Yes, that's right. What used to be the mission for dot-com execs and Good Corporate Citizens is now the thing that college-bound students must understand:

You are your elevator speech.

That's correct: you need to be able to sum up yourself in 30 seconds or less. You need a mission statement, or a vision statement, or something similar.

I'm serious here. Colleges are competing for you, sure, but you are competing for their time. Consider this exercise -- great way to spend some time on a rainy afternoon...

1 Develop a mission statement. "I, Mortimer Jones, will apply myself in the classroom and out to learn about biology and life sciences and people." It doesn't have to be anything like that, and it could seem somehow disconnected, too. That's okay.

Best way to develop one is to sit down and brainstorm. Write down what you want to do with your life, or what you want to learn, or what you want to be good at.

2 Develop a vision statement. The difference between this and the mission statement is that the vision is what will happen when you've followed through on your mission statement. (Witness Microsoft, whose vision is "a computer on every desktop.")

A likely vision for Mortimer: "I will develop new drugs to treat mental illnesses in young people."

3 And the elevator speech. The theory is that you get on the elevator and someone asks what you do and you explain it in the time it takes to get to whatever floor you're going to. There's less of a science to it, but you can probably work on 1 & 2 and find yourself at item 3...

"I'm all about understanding science - especially biology and life science - and I want to be at a college with dynamic people that have the same curiosity about life I do. And I want to apply that understanding of science and of people to the development of new drugs and therapies -- focusing on mental illness in children, a cause that's near to my heart."

Give the above a whirl -- even if you're not aiming as high as Mortimer.

Standardized Tests Less Reliable as Predictor; But Grades Still Matter - Study

Bob Schaeffer, Director of FairTest: The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, shared something today that's important to note. (And, since his thoughts on the validity of standardized tests are always on the mark, we thought we'd pass it along.)

A study of students at the University of California campuses (done by a couple UC researchers) tells us that grades in high school are a more accurate predictor of collegiate performance than standardized tests.

You can link to the study here.

BTW, nearly 740 schools are now "test optional."

Original Web 2.0 Offerings -- Or, Other Companies U Sphere Has Had the Pleasure of Meeting

We've been happy to make the acquaintance of a few Web 2.0 enterprises over the past several months, and we thought you'd like to meet a few of them here:

Inkling Markets. Set up your own prediction market...do you think Ron Paul will be the Republican nominee for President? Will Tiger Woods win the British Open? Does that company have ANY chance of success? Lots there -- and there's a complex algorithm involved, too.

PerkSpot. We bumped into founder Chris Hill last week and his portal to the next generation of employee perks is pretty cool.

GrubHub. These folks are going places -- ANY online aggregator of places that deliver food to Evanston can't be all bad. Way way nifty a tool.

The common thread between these businesses? Founders who dare to be great, dare to bootstrap their businesses (that means building smart, efficiently, a ton of sweat equity, not just throwing cash at perceived problems). Their businesses don't look like anything else we've seen...and that's part of what makes them cool.

Their founders happen to be younger than I am, so I like to root for the kids, too.

Congrats to our friends from TutorVista

Great publicity for our friends from TutorVista this morning -- a feature on NBC's Today Show.

The show touched on the power of the Internet and real-time, personalized tutoring -- and looked at a couple case studies from TutorVista clients.

Not bad, gang!

BTW, you can link to our special TutorVista offer here.

Today's blog posting is about the critical need for better connections...

Hi from U Sphere. Our mission is to serve as a vital connection point between you (student, mostly, or parent or other party interested in going to college) and the admissions people who might be looking for you. But the biggest question that has popped up is whether or not you need more connections.

That depends. If you have 10,000 myspace friends and 10,000 people in facebook, odds are you consider yourself CONNECTED. But to whom? And what value do people get from being in your network, or from adding you to theirs?

AND...

The flipside for the college-bound student centers around whether the you that's out there (public profiles on places like facebook and myspace) is being connected to the right people AND that your public persona is actually more valuable than NOT having a public persona.

Give that some thought -- what are you saying and who are you saying it to and is anyone listening?

Spreading the good word -- via Chicago morning radio

U Sphere, or, more specifically, Dave from U Sphere, had the pleasure this morning (Wed, June 13) of being part of WKQX-FM "Q101" and its Morning Fix program.

All in the name of the kids.

It was fun -- even the getting up early part -- but the real mission was to spread the good word about U Sphere. I had to work for the plugs, though, what with 16 traffic reports and a personal grilling session.

Again, all in the name of the kids.

Our thanks to the Morning Fix crew for letting us on the air...

Allow us to recommend another part of the world

Australia is red-hot right now. (Well, in the education space it's red-hot. Actually, it's almost winter there, so it may not be all THAT hot. But you get the idea.)

A mini-trend is emerging, and the folks at JMC Academy in Oz tell us that upwards of 20% of their students come from outside Australia.

JMC, by the way, is on a streak of its own -- they are opening a third campus and their programs in digital media, performing arts, and things like that are catching fire...

Here's a link to their site.

Montana Western Student Weighs In...

As the comments continue on TechCrunch, note that a UMW student decided to comment on why she loves her school.

(BTW - Heather is a real student at Montana Western; and, though I have spoken with a colleague in the UMW administration this week, I don't know Heather and she's not a shill for the U Sphere enterprise. But she is hereby invited to be one of my myspace friends, and if she wants to register with us so we can help her find a grad program, we'd be happy to do that, too.)

Not only does she "get it," but she's exactly the kind of student that we like to work with: fit is more important than US News rankings; class sizes and access to professors and stuff to do outside of the classroom are biggies, too.

And what achieving or ambitious or inquisitive student wouldn't like to have a college like Montana Western swoop in with an offer?

More follow up to TechCrunch blogging about U Sphere (and college admissions)

Greetings from U Sphere.

Of course it's been a busy couple of days -- aren't they all? -- and we're delighted to have heard from so many of you after the TechCrunch posting yesterday.

I have posted a response -- it's comment #29, and you can see all of them at this link.

A couple other notes for you:

The Texas Common Application -- another cool tool and we didn't put up the link on the TechCrunch posting. Sorry.

UCAS is for those heading to a British University. If you want to learn more about British schools, check out the British Council.

Finally, about the Common Application -- and I mean no disrespect, it's a not-for-profit, and its Executive Director, Rob Killion, is very classy AND he responds to his own emails. They are not accepting any more applications on their platform for Fall 2007 admission; they'll be back with their application later in the summer. They process more than 1 million applications, so they're certainly a well-used tool.

We of course encourage students to use the "CommonApp" if a school uses it or asks for it. If they don't...well, that's where we hope to be helpful.

I like your post the best

U Sphere had the pleasure of being written about by a pretty influential tech blog called TechCrunch.

Some of the comments are interesting to say the least. But it's your post that I like best. No, not yours. Yours.

Dave