Carnival of College Admission: Lucky 13th Edition

Well, folks, we made it to our Lucky 13th Edition of the Carnival of College Admission.  Hard to believe we’ve been running nearly 26 weeks…almost half a year.  What’s more, this Lucky 13 Edition falls near St. Patrick’s Day, when luck is sprinkled about by those jovial Irish.  So we have a lot of good luck to celebrate.

First and foremost, we’re lucky to have such a great bunch of bloggers submitting their best work to the Carnival.  So without further ado, let’s dig in and get lucky (so to speak!).

The College Search

The current recession has made many students re-think their college choices and even transfer to a more affordable school. Student blogger, Ally Demos from myusearch.com, presents a video blog about how the economic crunch is affecting college students.  The post is entitled College Students Feel the Economic Crunch posted at myUsearch blog.

Wassan Humadi offers some excellent advice for international students as they select a college or university in the United States at Al-Jamiat Magazine.

Considering an online course? TJ Hanson advises that you check to see if the class measures up against  The Five Attributes of Excellent Web-based Courses – What a Student Should Expect | The Digital Student Blog posted at The Digital Student Blog.

A family was just asking me today when is the best time to visit colleges.  James Maroney advises that no matter the time of year, you need to focus on Getting the Most out of the College Visit.  You can visit James’ other posts at the CollegeTreasure.com Blog.

Sarah Scrafford presents 100 Awesome Open Courses and Lectures for Digital Artists posted at Online Universities.com.

Finally, Yours Truly has a post about the value of a philosophy major and a liberal arts degree in general.  You can check my blog, well, here!

The Admissions Process

Writing a college admission essay anytime soon?  Tom Tessin advises that you may want to look at some College Application Essays Tools posted at FCC Student Blog.

Linda Abraham, an expert in graduate admissions, presents 4 Steps to Writing About Your Potential to Contribute posted at Accepted Admissions Almanac.

Todd Johnson has some excellent words of advice and caution for students awaiting admissions decisions this month.  He points out that students have rights, and that colleges that put undue pressure on students are violating accepted ethical practices in the profession.  Check out Todd’s blog here.

Video Course for College Admissions

Boarding Schools

Brian Fisher wrote a piece about Gould’s 9th graders visiting China, entitled Gould Academy’s 9th Grade Class Travels to China posted at onBoarding Schools.

Test Prep

Mark Truman summarizes why the College Board, the makers of the SAT, aren’t being completely honest about their new Score Choice program, arguing that the College Board’s SAT Score Choice Debacle Should Make You Want to Take the ACT. You can read Mark’s other posts at Omniac Attack!.

Nate gives counterarguments in his offering,  Five Reasons to Take the SAT, posted at Debt-free College.

Graduate Schools

Khan presents A Higher Degree Can Open Doors to Many Opportunities. posted at Higher Education and Career Blog.  Khan notes that advanced education must be weighed against the real-world experience you might gain during the same amount of time.

Dave Van de Walle notes that chiropractors sometimes get a bad rap. In his offering this week, a D.C. helps us dispel some myths – part of a new blog launched by U Sphere called Med School Sphere. The post is entitled A Chiropractor Answers Questions on “Why Get a Chiropractic Degree?”.

Adam Markus discusses basic MBA Application Interview Strategy.  He makes the case that a proactive approach based not merely on reacting to questions is best. Simply preparing answers to typical interview questions is insufficient. Instead, applicants need to know what they want to say about themselves by focusing on key selling points and stories that will support those selling points. Read more of Adam’s thoughts about B-School admission at Adam Markus: Graduate Admissions Guru.

Dagny presents four sure-shot ways to handle a low GPA in your Business School application. His post, entitled Little Known Ways to Handle Low Grade Point Average (GPA) posted at TotalGadha GMAT. Also offers some success stories of the students who have already made it to Business Schools by overcoming the low GPA hurdle.

Career Planning

Genevieve M. Blaber presents College – U. Got It? Three Careers that Accommodate Busy Lives .  Can you guess which three she focuses upon?  Give her a read at College – U. Got It?.

Financial Aid

Eric Perron, the host of our last edition of the Carnival of College Admission, likes to talk back to the television.  He offers his critique of a recent program on college admission, aptly titled Come On “CBS Early Show”, This Is The Best Advice You Have To Pay For College? posted on his blog, Dream Strategy.

Larry Ferlazzo presents Estimate The Cost Of College posted at Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day….

Wenchypoo presents The Next Collapse: Colleges posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo’s Mental Wastebasket.

Nate presents 4 Debt-free Ways to Pay for College posted at Debt-free Scholar.

Jim presents FAFSA State Grant Deadlines posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

College Life

Carleigh presents The art of electives posted at Cramster.com Study Blog.

Deryl L. Sweeney II offers a little advice about getting creative when the parents shut off that allowance. Appropriately enough, his post is titled, Creativity Is Key If You Want to Survive the Recession on a College Campus , and you can find it at 2East: The College Living Blog.

For College Admissions Officers

Cort Johnson and his colleagues at goSwoop focus on helping colleges improve their ability to reach out to international students. He asks,  Is your International Student Marketing Remarkable? , and he helps to provide some answers at The goSwoop Blog.

Other Cool Stuff

If going back to school has been on the back burner for a while because of other commitments, it might be time to look into online learning. Dawn Papandrea presents Dust Off Your Back-To-School Dreams posted at CollegeSurfing Insider.

On To Number 14…

That wraps up this edition of the Carnival of College Admission. I’d like to thank last week’s host, Eric Perron, for doing a “dreamy” job.

The next edition will be hosted by Dave Van de Walle of Usphere, and will go live on March 25th.  So get your submissions in early by posting to our handy dandy form .

For those who would like to have a look at past editions, visit our Carnival Homepage and Archives.

Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant

Technorati Tags: college consultant, college admission, financial aid, college selection, college life, graduate school, boarding school, test prep Del.icio.us Tags: college consultant, college admission, financial aid, college selection, college life, graduate school, boarding school, test prep

Carnival of College Admission | Third Thrilling Edition

The Third Edition of the Carnival of College Admission is our best yet.  We continue to receive more and better submissions with each edition, and I’m happy that we are building a community of bloggers that want to share their content related to the transition between high school and college.  If you missed the first two editions, you can view Number One here and Number Two here.


And now, on with the fun!


Admissions

Andy Burns is the director of admission at Fort Lewis College, a publicly-funded liberal arts college in the funky, hip mountain town of Durango, Colorado.  If you love to ski and hike and raft and kayak and bike–this is someplace you ought to consider.  Andy travels a good bit to meet high school students from all over the country, and in this post he shares some tips on  Writing your personal essay posted at Transitioning to College.  If you’re still trying to figure out how to begin that essay, start with Andy’s advice.


The CollegeBound Network presents some hints on how to use all those college guidebooks clogging the shelves at your local bookstore.  This post, entitled College Guidebook Facts: What They Really Tell You , helps to cut through the good and bad information presented in those hefty tomes.  Some of that information contained in the books is better ignored.  Check out the CollegeBound Network blog at College – U. Got It?.


Elizabeth Kudner, co-founder of myUsearch, an unbiased online service that matches students to colleges, presents College Search Sites: Web Surfers Beware posted on the myUsearch Blog. This post explains how to avoid deceiving college search sites that prey on the curiosity of college-seekers.


Sometimes, Mother Knows Best.  O. Daille Nation-Ashley, a mom who knows, presents Get Cracking With College Applications posted at CEOmum – Parenting is a Full Time Job.  She includes some links to helpful resources.


What’s your stereotype of an admissions officer? Some stodgy, old guy in a tweed jacket and bow tie pouring over your application with a frown on his face?  Adam Epstein destroys this image in his post  All work and no play… , which he describes a prank he and his colleagues played on another staffer in Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s office of admissions.  Check out Adam’s other posts at Adamissions.


Blake Spiers presents a few key words of wisdom regarding the college search and admissions proces in a post entitled “College Comes Quickly!”  You can read the rest of Blake’s posts at My Messy Dorm Room.


Sometimes you just have to talk to students if you want to learn about the admissions process.  In this post, Jeff presents Interview with a Recent College Grad posted at Campus Bound.  In case you’re wondering, the grad in question graduated from Simmons College in Boston.


Todd Johnson is like most college counselors: he doesn’t like to use rankings because they provide too narrow a set of criteria to be able to tell if this or that college is right for you.  However, everyone seems to be getting into the ratings game.  Todd points us to a set of  World wide college rankings posted at College Admissions Counseling.  Everything you wanted to learn about colleges around the world…and more!


Ian at Step Into College has just published a new magazine on college admissions that goes out to high schools, so that students and families can have access to great information.  (Shameless plug–I wrote an article for the magazine.)


And yours truly, Mark Montgomery, respectfully submits advice on When to Visit a College Campus.  My one word of wisdom:  a college is a community, not a set of buildings.  Just as you choose a doctor or lawyer based on their competence and records of success, you want to take the time to get to know the people that make up the community…the community you may call “home” for the next four years.  If you want to read more of my posts, well, you’re already visiting my blog…so go ahead!  Make my day!


Boarding School

Peter Baron, the major domo of boarding schools over at AdmissionsQuest, offers up a post by Tom O’Dell, has been fretting–as we all have–about what the financial downturn will mean for the education sector.  Tom tells us that we shouldn’t count chickens before they come home to roost.  Or rather, don’t hesitate to apply to the school of your dreams, because you just might get a good financial aid package.


Test Prep

Dave Van de Walle reveals the SAT scores of President George W. Bush in his post,  Fresh New Going to College Content – for the test-takers posted at U Sphere Blog.  Dave also reminds us that there are hundreds of schools for which test scores are considered optional in the admissions process.


Happy Schools presents 10 Steps to Improve Your GRE Score posted at Happy Schools Blog. Good GRE Score is required to get into college of your dream. Good study plan and practice will improve GRE Score over time. 10 Steps listed helped me to improve my GRE Score by 40% from the first practice test I took to Actual GRE test Score. There are many GRE Exam strategies available, but from what I have seen with my friends and from my experience, steps listed here will definitely improve your GRE Scores.


College Life

Moving off to college can be stressful. What do I need?  What do I not need? Brett J Callahan helps us out, by warning us not to be whipped into a frenzy about buying sheets to fit those longer dorm beds.  Brent has plenty of other shopping advice at 2East: The College Living Blog


Ali Hale is the Alpha Student.  She gives college student advice on  Organising your lecture notes .  If you have heaps of indistinguishable bits of paper all over your desk (or worse, under your bed) then you need to learn how to organize your lecture notes with a minimum of effort.


AndrewB presents Forget Success – Try to Fail Instead | Personal Hack posted at Personal Hack. Say what? This is a great piece of advice AndrewBI heard originally from Steve Pavlina the Personal Development expert. He was asked how being an authority on personal development impacts his own personal growth? If he ever feels intimidated, as if he can’t fail and always has to be successful to be a good role model.


I used to be heavily into the textbook industry, and constantly lamented the high cost of worthless textbooks.  But, for better or worse, textbooks are here to stay.  College Degrees notes that the cost of books is a big-ticket item in a student’s budget (anywhere from $300-$500 per semester).  However, there are ways to cut the cost, and College Degrees tells you  How to Find Free Textbooks For College posted at the Degree Talk Blog.  If you’re ready to stop shelling out for this exorbitant cost each year, read on!


Tom Tessin advises students that there are 5 Things Every College Student Must Have when they head off to college. Can you guess what they are?  Check out Tom’s blog at FCC Student Blog.



Choosing a Major or Degree Program

College Degrees presents Distance Learning: Does it Make the Grade? posted at Degree Talk Blog. Have you wondered how distance degrees really stack up in real life? Does anyone actually take distance learning seriously? Can anyone really earn a college degree at home and find a worthwhile job?


Dawn Papandrea presents Beat the Economic Crisis: 5 “Safe” Careers posted at CollegeSurfing Insider. The economic crisis is giving college students (and career changers) something new to consider when choosing a field of study: which college majors and their corresponding careers have staying power? Find out about 5 “safe” ones.


Heather Johnson presents 100 Free Self-Assessment Tools to Choose Your College, Major, and Career posted at eLearning Gurus.



Financial Aid

Marwan reminds us that there can be a lot of hidden costs in preparing to go to college for the first time, in this post, entitled Tuition Tales: The Expensive First Month of College gives the parent’s perspective on all these extra purchases.  Check out more stories at Tuition Tales.


Graduate School

Khan, who writes for the Higher Education and Career Blog, presents a very comprehensive view of The Law School Admissions Game .  As with undergraduate admission, there is a fair amount of strategy involved in how you fill out the application. You won’t want to miss this one.


Other Cool Stuff

John presents Einstein’s 5 Maxims for Creative Excellence posted at Ace Online Schools.


Need a brain break?  Alvaro Fernandez presents Brainy Haikus for brain training posted at SharpBrains.


Spanish Learner presents Using Connecting Words In Spanish posted at Learn Spanish Blog.  This is quite relevant for me, as my family is spending the year learning Spanish in Baja California.  They blog here.  I go down occasionally, but I hold down the fort, work, and put together Blog Carnivals!


Joseph presents Learn English Articles » Blog Archive » Some Tips for Navigating Nouns in English posted at Learning English.



And that’s a wrap, folks!  Which posts did you like best?  Leave a comment and let us know!


Thanks to all our participants, as well as our readers.  If you’d like to include a post in our next edition, scheduled for November 12th, just fill out our handy-dandy submission form.  If you want to check out all the past editions of the Carnival, you can visit the Index Page.