Hello, MST...

Got a note from one of my friends in the blogosphere, who pointed out some of the interesting things going on at the University of Missouri-Rolla...which is changing its name to Missouri University of Science and Technology.

Say hello to MST, which begins the process of introducing itself at this web page:

hello.mst.edu

On NAU - responding to some comments...

Northern Arizona University's ad campaign continues to be a topic of discussion -- mostly from PARENTS who read this blog. Here's a smattering:

Troy from Colorado says:

Dave -

As a college recruiter who regularly visits campuses and hires new grads, I must admit I'm not impressed by the NAU ads. As a father with a high-school aged daughter, I know I'm not impressed by them. My kid and my jobs will be going elsewhere.

Bravo, Troy.

N.B. When Troy says "college recruiter" he means that he is someone who gets EMPLOYEES for companies by visiting college campuses. So, wearing his "HR" hat, he doesn't like what he sees.

Gail, parts unknown, asks:


Hi, my daughter is a prospective NAU student and would like to meet current students to see what life is all about in Flagstaff, and on campus. Is there a site where she can meet current students?

That's a really good question. Facebook? Well, if she's not there, then I'm sure she can ask around. Bear in mind that you'll get unvarnished truth, and you may have to ask around a lot, and some people may be taken aback.

Schools like NAU do form Facebook groups for the inbound student. Go to Facebook (Gail, anyone can join, even you) and search under groups and type in NAU. You could also type "Flagstaff" for a more townie-feel to the comments.

The admissions site at NAU seems to be lacking in one respect: Meet Current Students. Lots of schools have students blog -- as a work-study gig, it's not bad work -- on what really goes on at school, what they like, what they don't. MIT's admissions group does this pretty well.

Finally, this one from me:

Dear NAU:

Why do you keep running the SAME AD? I know repetition is key, but poor Sunday may be graduating soon.

No Lame Excuses -- We're Announcing the Winners ASAP

We could say we've been busy with things like talking to colleges and kids and counselors. We've also been doing interesting things like listening to the new Radiohead release.

No Lame Excuses from here -- we're a little late with the announcement and we apologize. BUT it's coming...

Watch this space -- we'll announce the winner of our Brickfish/JMC Academy Sponsorship...

In one week. Yes, on October 16, after culling through ALL of the entries and sitting down with the team of experts at JMC Academy, we'll announce winners.

Watch this space!

Define, please, top tier...

Spinning through some of my favorite sites over the weekend, and I bumped into Mint -- www.mint.com -- as a unique money management tool. It's a great interface, very consumer-friendly, cool Web 2.0 thing and all that...

BUT we found something interesting, and puzzling for a startup to ask:

Take a look at this link to their job opportunities -- Mint Job Opps -- where they say they are looking for people to join their team with a "BS from a top tier school."

So, while I like what they're doing and it's always interesting to see what a startup is looking for when they hire employees, since "top tier" escapes definition, I'd suggest being a little more specific. In fact, maybe the job description should look a little more like this:

Needed: people who got a degree, from anywhere that encouraged them to learn how to think for themselves, how to be independent but still be part of a team, how to challenge their world view, how to argue, become critical, use logic to their advantage and still be a nice person who is capable of hard work.

How's that? Probably opens them up to candidates who might be better fits. Nothing against the top tier schools.

An Interesting Twist from Texas: College, or a Car?

Fans of this blog know that we make a lot of comparisons between the process of car-shopping and that of picking, applying to, and ultimately deciding on which college or university makes sense for the student (and family).

We found a site from Texas -- Texas College Money -- that actually takes the whole thing a step further.

Click on the left hand button that says "Invest in College." For purpose of this comparison, we went with a good, affordable family car (Hyundai Elantra) vs. a good, quality, institution that's part of the UT System (in this case, UTEP).

Though it can be a lot more expensive to pay for college when compared to an automobile, they actually compare the value of the car 4 years later vs. the value of the degree.

Great way of looking at this whole comparison -- in ways that (maybe) the average family might relate to.

tks 4 all the traffic & questions

Hey -

It's apparent that we're in the process of making a TON of connections, and my in box is filled, and things are buzzing...

So, here are the answers to a few questions on people's minds:

Who won the contest?

We'll know the answer to that question in a couple weeks -- we're wading through all of the entries, and there's of course a time difference between the USA and Australia. So stay tuned.

What about the International schools in your network?

That's a good question -- we've heard from a bunch of students who worry that their application info will end up in the hands of some random schools in some country that they won't want to end up in. Trust us that one of the things we aim to do is ONLY make connections where they make sense. (Or, as Stephen T. of Louisville, Kentucky told us: "I don't want to end up in the middle of nowhere, unless the middle of nowhere sounds really good." Okay, Stephen...)

BTW, when you're talking about International schools:

We've found a few links you may want to check out -- for instance, there's a group of schools called the "Canadian Ivies" -- which we've mentioned before, sure. But there's an official site here. And an unofficial site here. Check em out...