We have our own "mob" - courtesy of Mozes

Christopher Newport University goes "test optional"

An a propos question came in through our U Advisor service today:

M.P. from California asked "I'm a high school Junior, don't know what I'm going to study, but what standardized tests should I take?"

Great question whose answer gets exacerbated (SAT word) by the fact that more schools keep going "test-optional."

On the list of those going some sort of test-optional is Christopher Newport University in Virginia. (NOTE: School with rapidly growing reputation. Nice size -- under 5000 -- great location -- Newport News, VA.)

The school's President, Paul Trible, stated in a news release that the move was because " high school GPAs are a much better indicator of how a student will do academically at CNU than SAT scores."

Among those smiling? Friend of U Sphere and founder of The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, Bob Schaeffer. Their web site finds 740 universities and colleges that do not require the SAT or ACT for admission.

U Sphere presents a guide to acronyms that will become popular

While none of this is LOL funny, some of these can help you during the college application process.

Let's start with the obvious: LOL. Last week, I had to question whether it meant "Laugh out Loud" or "Lots of Luck." Neither...

LOL: "Let (me in) Oh (PLEASE) Let (me in)." An acronym to be used only by the student who cannot accept a denial letter from his or her school of choice.

IMHO: "Ivies Might Help you Out." For instance, if you're the right person at the right time for the right school -- like a left-hander from Wyoming -- then it's a good idea to apply to the Ivy of your choice.

GG: "Don't bother me, the latest edition of US News came out, and I'll just go crazy if the school I've always wanted to go to isn't one of the Top 76 Liberal Arts schools that don't offer Master's East of the Missisippi but still North of the Mason-Dixon Line."

EOM: "Error on my transcript." I didn't really need to take Typing as a Freshman, so the D shouldn't count. (It happened to me. They called it "typing" then. Now, as a Freshman in High School, do you take "Texting?")

And, the most popular one, like, ever:

OMG: While use of this acronym is prevalent, using it on the application process contains this asterisk: *"My use of the term OMG means that I am 100% on board with your school's religious affiliation. For instance, I WILL CONVERT to Wesleyanism to get into Wesleyan. Or Southernism to get into Southern Methodist."

The News Release on Our Brickfish - JMC Academy Partnership

Here's the news release that hit the "wires" yesterday afternoon.

August 21, 2007 05:25 PM Eastern Daylight Time

U Sphere Partners with Brickfish to Send One Digital Design Devotee Down Under with Exclusive Scholarship

College Networking Site Connects Up and Coming Designers with Aussie Art Experts

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Brickfish, the online content marketing platform, today announced a partnership with college networking site U Sphere, Inc. (www.usphere.com) to launch the “U Sphere JMC Design” campaign, a contest inviting students wanting to embark on the world of digital design to enter their art for the chance to win $5,000 in tuition towards a year of study at the accredited JMC Academy in Sydney, Australia. Located at www.brickfish.com/Lifestyles/UsphereScholarship, the contest will award the most artfully-inclined entrant with a week of higher education in the land down under.

“As a global network of students and universities looking to find each other, we understand that digital media is a red hot industry with a vast number of prospective students vying for the chance at a once in a lifetime opportunity,” said Dave Van de Walle, president & CEO, U Sphere. “Aspiring artists are eager for the chance to showcase their work and a user-generated content campaign allows them to share their talents with millions of people globally across the Internet. We can’t wait to whisk one deserving student off to Australia and the exclusive JMC Academy to train alongside the experts.”

The campaign enables entrants to submit online examples of their most creative digitally designed art. Anyone can view, vote on and share their favorite designs and U Sphere will hand select one grand prize winner from the U.S. to receive a $5,000 tuition scholarship towards a year of study at the JMC Academy or a $1,000 scholarship for any educational purpose in the U.S. A second place winner, chosen by top score from the top 50 entries, will receive a week of online design tuition, and the most viral entry will receive a $100 Amazon gift card.

According to Van de Walle, the Brickfish user-generated content (UGC) platform creates the perfect opportunity for students and aspiring designers to broadcast their talent over the Internet by enabling users to share their favorites through email, Instant Messaging and hundreds of Internet sites around the world. In addition, it provides a way for entrants to obtain direct and useable feedback on their work because anyone can view and vote on entries.

“Good education has become increasingly coveted as students vie for that one-of-a-kind experience,” said Shahi Ghanem, CEO of Brickfish. “UGC creates a unique way for educational institutions to preview potential students and secure feedback from outsiders. We are very excited to work with U Sphere to make one student’s dream take off with an incredible scholarship to a leading international design school.”

The “U Sphere JMC Design” campaign ends September 28. For contest rules and more information about Brickfish, visit www.Brickfish.com.

About U Sphere, Inc.

U Sphere, Inc., headquartered in Evanston, Illinois, works with students throughout the globe to match them with the colleges and universities that are appropriate for them. The company's proprietary platform includes an application tool and "Personality Profile," which aims to get at the character traits that are most in line with the needs of U Sphere's college and university clients (in North America and around the world). Schools can then make an offer of admission to those students who they think will fit in best on campus.

About Brickfish

Brickfish is an online marketing company that has created a new platform for driving consumer interaction and response through User Generated Content (UGC). Companies use the Brickfish platform to launch advertising and marketing campaigns that spark the creation of brand-relevant UGC, such as blogs, images, video and audio. Campaign content is shared in a peer-to-peer fashion via email, IM and thousands of sites across the Web and campaign participants are rewarded for creating, voting, reviewing and sharing campaign content. Brickfish tracks consumer interactions with this content and then provides customers with comprehensive analytics on campaign reach and performance. This approach provides better value than traditional online marketing approaches such as display-based advertising and key word buys. Brickfish is headquartered in San Diego, Calif. with personnel in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Contacts

Brickfish
Rachel Kay, 858-587-2530
Rachel.Kay@Brickfish.com

| Business Wire 2007

Which Comes First: The College Application OR The College Visit?

Great question from the peanut gallery -- specifically, the parent of a high schooler in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. (Or Obamaville to some.)

Jill F. of Chicago asks: "What's your view on visiting colleges before you apply vs. after you've been accepted?"

Pluses on visiting before you apply:

1. Many schools consider that "first contact" and track your interest when you visit. So you can be on their radar screen early.
2. Some schools will throw you a bone if you visit first -- Florida Institute of Technology drops about 3000 bucks off tuition if you have visited the school. (Goofy, I know, but true.)
3. Good to winnow down your list before you apply...a Saturday spent touring a school that you thought you'd like might yield a big fat "NO" from the student -- before you have to waste time on the application.

Pluses on waiting til after you accepted:

1. The first contact thing above is becoming less of a factor -- one school (a selective private one in Indiana, name withheld) reported that 30% of their applicants' first contact with the school was the application itself.
2. Leverage. Your interest in the school is hereby confirmed if you walk into their Financial Aid office with the acceptance letter in tow.
3. If you wait til afterwards, it becomes MORE about "fit." I think that's a big plus -- instead of thinking "could I get in here?," the pressure is off and the visit becomes all about "will I fit in here?"

GREAT question (thanks Jill).

Beloit College and the Annual 'Mindset List'

This time of year Beloit College (Beloit, Wisconsin, USA) releases its "Mindset List" -- explaining the mindset of the entering Freshman Class at the school (and Freshmen in college or university everywhere).

One that jumped out at me, as someone who was in college when the Berlin Wall came down, is #55: MTV doesn't play a lot of music videos.

Here's a link to the list.

And thanks to the fine people at Beloit for doing this again. It looks like they've inspired a few others, like one in New Zealand at that country's Massey University.

Thanks for all the entries so far -- and keep 'em comin!

Wow...the U Sphere community (or world, or universe...we're still working on the name of what we call everyone...just not U Sphere Nation...) is really rallying around the Brickfish contest. AND the JMC Academy team can't wait to start sinking their teeth into the entries.

We're only two days in, and, at the time of this writing, we have 40 entries.

So, unlike a scholarship essay thing where you have to write a few words, this involves actual WORK. Like artwork or design or animation.

40 entries is about one an hour, and we're going to run the contest for 6 weeks, and I don't have higher math skills.

But I can count to $5000 -- which is the amount that the winner will get in tuition to study at JMC. Cool stuff -- can't wait to see more entries!

Like 'em, lump 'em, or something in between -- US News' rankings are out

A surefire sign that Fall is upon us: the US News & World Report rankings are out. Congratulations to all the schools that were listed.

That is a tongue-in-cheek comment, by the way. Pretty much every school in the USA got listed.

Our advice -- head to your local bookstore, preferably an independent one. Look at the magazine, but don't buy it.

Even better, head to the library and read the magazine, maybe even get permission to make copies. But don't buy it.

Or go back to our old advice -- which is soak up information from wherever you can find it and learn about schools however you like. Visit their web sites. Talk to people. Go visit schools. Make your own rankings. Or not.

If this seems to lack a point, so then is all the hubub.

Peace.

Hey, Check Out Our Re-Launched Blog

Today, we're pleased to relaunch our blog -- complete with a cool new template.

The flow of information should get more rapid, too -- in addition to the hundreds of facebook friends we've made and the thousands of visitors we've had over the summer, U Sphere is working on a few more super-secret things as part of our commitment to U -- the college-bound student, the parent of the college-bound student, and the university looking to find U.

We're also pretty pumped about a couple partnerships we'll be announcing in the next few weeks.

Stay tuned: and you can always send us a note if you want to weigh in on something.

Introducing Brickfish

We'd like to introduce you to our friends at Brickfish, and a really unique, ground-breaking contest that we're running, in conjunction with them AND JMC Academy in Australia.

Of course you'll want to learn more: there's a $5000 scholarship in the mix.

Huh?

Click here.

Back to School from A to Z, starting with U Sphere

LOVE this blog: b-side.com. And not just because ours is one of the first tools mentioned on this posting about back to school tools. (Thanks, guys.)

This social networking phenomenon is the most dynamic thing since Web 1.0. Groups coming and going. Sites that we didn't even know about dropping in and dropping by and dropping out.

Sure, we know about some of the other groups that are out there in the admissions matchmaking space -- duh -- and it's nifty to see that some of our friends got props on this site. (BeRecruited, for instance.)

Also learned of a site that's, as they say in other countries (outside the USA), "spot on." Visit Zeeya and see what you think -- if you're an international student, or follow the international thing at all. (Which you should.)

Now, back to spending time on facebook.

Wired weighs in on Social Networks for the college-bound

Great post on Wired magazine that talks about the Social Networks and their use by the college-bound in a whole host of ways.

What I found most interesting is that LinkedIn is actually mentioned by Wired. Sensible, in that LinkedIn was popular with the tech types a long time ago, but Facebook (which grew up on college campuses) and MySpace (which grew up more with the high school crows) are both where the students are. And Bebo is probably more popular for students to use than LinkedIn.

(That being said, if you're a student and you want to join my LinkedIn network...oh, never mind.)

U Sphere's Stuff for Guidance Counselors

The guidance counselors in the audience are nearing the first day back (to a job that, for many, never stops).

We've been getting a group of counselors together (informally, via email, and using LinkedIn as opposed to facebook, for semi-obvious reasons) to share ideas AND to get folks on board using U Sphere's "stuff."

Among the things counselors can do through U Sphere:

• Connect with each other to share ideas
• Upload forms like letters of recommendation and transcripts through a confidential, password-protected, counselor specific backpack
• And check in on their students' progress.

It's been progressing toward an "open source" counselors' toolkit, and we'd of course like to get you (if you're a counselor) on board as part of this group.

Just send a note to info at usphere.com if you want to know more.