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).

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.

Telecom Loves You

When I received my holiday gift to myself, the EP from the Australian band "Telecom," I started thinking...how did this group find me? Why did I decide to buy this thing? And are there parallels with how kids market themselves to schools? Or how colleges find kids? Read on. If you see more parallels, let me know. If not, at least you can say "I heard these guys before they were huge."

They are legit, or at least someone legit says so. The highly influential KEXP radio station featured their song "Second Feature" as a song of the day a couple weeks back. It had to sound good enough to get someone's attention. I won't ask the band how many different angles they tried to contact people in the industry to get some exposure. It just happened...maybe they made their own luck.

Question for the college-bound: are you making your own luck?

They are a marketing machine. Well, at least they appear to be a marketing machine: take a look at their web page, spin through the various offerings there, look at how it's all consistent. And good.

For instance, I ordered the EP with the special sticker and button, and it was made rather painless in that I used PayPal and it was about 10 bucks US postage-paid.

Question for the college-bound: Do you feel like you're part of something unique when colleges come after you? Or not?

They're good, yet fill a unique niche. This is a band that has a really good sound that might not be easily defined. So they could be branded as yet another band from Australia -- one niche -- or they could be the next "Dinosaur Jr." I don't get the impression that they're all things to all people, but I am left with an indelible image of them as a solid, well-branded group who fit well in my music library.

Question for the college-bound: what makes you unique? Do you know whether you might fit? How are you positioned?