In between newsletters, we come across stories of interest to College Pathfinders clients. Check here for the latest.
May 9th, 2008: Top colleges dig deeper into their waiting lists. For a few lucky seniors, this is good news.
April 29th, 2008: The stress of college admissions takes its toll on students. Read the article in the New York Times.
April 28th, 2008: from Associated Content, some suggestions for parents on how to handle rejection letters.
April 12th, 2008: A story in The New York Times describes the influence of the credit crunch on college financing. The complete article is here.
April 9th, 2008:US News & World Report may be on the verge of changing its methodology. The magazine is often criticized for its rankings of colleges. And article describing the changes is on the InsideHigherEd.com website.
In Boston, meanwhile, high school seniors have found a new way to cope with the pain of rejection letters: they're posting them on a Wall of Shame.
April 2, 2008:What a year for college acceptances! America
graduated 3.3 million seniors---largest class ever---and these three articles
(all from Forbes.com over the past month) explain why there were more rejections than ever before, and how to cope with reality that not every qualified student will be admitted to every campus.
And the voice of currently enrolled students on college campuses: No pamphlets required
February 20th: Stanford University announces it will waive tuition for students from families earning less than $100,000 a year. Read the full story here.
February 10th:USA Today has a comprehensive roundup of changes in college tuition, as schools with big endowments (mostly the traditional Ivy League institutions) are opting to use some of their cash to help middle-class students. The Wall Street Journal had some similar information earlier.
The year started with the quarterly "Education Life" supplement of the New York Timesdevoted to college admissions counseling. (Registration required for full access to the site.) Not much news, but for people who don't understand the system, it might have been an eye-opening, behind-the-scenes look at college admissions.
Some interesting stories followed about privilege and Ivies.
January 17th: a piece in Huffington Post examines legacy preferences at Ivy League schools. January 16th: a woman who guarantees admission to an Ivy League school...for a fee of $35,000.
January 19th The other big story this year is to see how colleges are changing the way they connect with potential new freshmen. Many are luring high school students with social websites like MySpace and Facebook. Here's just one example, from MIT.
More to say about all of this in my book, 25 Months Until College, coming soon!
Read previous News Desk stories and links in the News Desk Archive pages.