the Sam Jackson College Experience

I know I mark myself by saying that I just got this from Slashdot, but… the BBC reports that Google is going to soon drop ads from agencies which sell essays and papers online. I had a personal scuffle with this just a few days ago when an online paper selling organization asked to buy an ad through Text Link Ads on my site. My credibility can not be sold for so little, you’ll be happy to hear, and I denied the ad… looks like Google is at least still not doing evil some of the time, too.

BBC reporter Sean Coughlan writes:

Google is to ban adverts for essay writing services – following claims that plagiarism is threatening the integrity of university degrees.

There have been complaints from universities about students being sold customised essays on the internet. The advert ban from the Google search engine has been “warmly welcomed” by university authorities. But it has angered essay writing firms which say this will unfairly punish legitimate businesses. From next month, Google will no longer take adverts from companies which sell essays and dissertations – and the internet company has written to advertisers to tell them about the policy. [more]

Hooray! If you are not an essay-selling company, but are interested in advertising on the site, feel free to contact me. If you want to buy some Text Link Ads, head for that link here. Plus, you can feel good about sponsoring this site, since tuition continues to rise faster than inflationandthe consumer price index.

Alexa Harrington over at EducatedNation refers us to a SF Examiner story about a San Francisco psych class which decided to have a competition with their rejection letters, ranking them for superlatives like “Least original rejection” and “Least number of words you need to read before you know you are being rejected.”

The story concludes by offering some tips on how to soften the blow for students; the whole read is funny and novel, but this last part struck me as particularly keen. Patrick Mattimore writes:

Students have crafted psychological tips colleges might adopt instead of telling applicants about the other “talented and highly qualified” students they rejected or the fact that the admissions office is comforted in knowing that “you will have many other fine choices” of colleges. Assuaging the colleges’ guilt is not what the process is about.

The best student sensitivity suggestion this year advised admissions’ offices to adopt the relationship break-up line, “it’s not you, it’s us.” The recipient of “He’s a deny” sent a raft of improvement suggestions to Reed and concluded his five pages of suggestions by letting the school know that they should feel “free to send apology or ‘he’s an admit’” letter. He got the apology only.

No mention of Yale, though Harvard was included for “most obsequious while maintaining utter insincerity.” Kudos to them, I suppose.

I only got an invitation to fill out one survey, personally: Tufts asked me to fill out a survey explaining why I asked for information and all but then never applied. Yale hasn’t sent me anything yet, so I assume they aren’t going to be sending one at all. However, I have been talking with many friends who applied to more schools than I did (# > 1 ) and they related their experiences dealing with the forms.

Here’s the long and the short of it, and this mirrors my experience just with the tufts survey: they are not only very long, but they are tediously long. People seemed to be genuinely interested in filling out these surveys and helping out, but help us help you. Long forms with redundant questions are a no-no. Complex matrix-like button pushing is also out. I think if the survey entry process could be simplified and brought up to a more professional, 2007 standard, there would be less angst on the part of participants. Throw some AJAX in, make it look less like SurveyMonkey, and you’re set. Shortening and tightening the questions wouldn’t hurt, either.

But please–no surveys asking for feedback about the feedback surveys.

I just got back late last night from a trip back home and to Exeter, which was quite good but didn’t last nearly long enough. I do miss all my friends at home and at school who are not with me here in D.C. But, back on topic:

A few weeks ago Yale had us send in our online housing forms from whence they would somehow divine our room / suite pairings for freshman year. I had envisioned this as a lengthy and arcane form which would require days of thought. To my relief and dismay, it was short and sweet. It’s not that I was looking for a painful experience, but I was somewhat incredulous that so short a series of questions could make for good match ups. We will see. In the meanwhile, you may imagine who I might end up with from my answers, posted below. Bolded are my reactions to what I perceive to be shortcomings in the questions, or a lack of granularity.

Name: Samuel Alexander Berge Jackson

Check those characteristics that apply to you:
Go to bed early (before midnight):
Often stay up late at night: yes
Here begins the sinking feeling upon realizing that ‘late’ has many different definitions…
Unusually neat:
Is this OCD, or hygienic? Teenager standards, or parental?
Unusually sloppy:
Play music: yes
Type of music: eclectic, world

Check those characteristics that would bother you in a roommate:
Go to bed early (before midnight): yes
Often stay up late at night:
Unusually neat:
Unusually sloppy: yes
Play music:
see, it’s not that I want them not to play music, but rather that I don’t want them to play bad music. but how do I describe that?
Type of music: country

Oh, right.

Do you smoke?: no

This is how my mom answered her freshman year. She got a smoker who wanted a nonsmoker so it would be easier for her to quit.

Which description most closely approximates your expectations for your suite?: 2
1 = A quiet zone used almost exclusively for studying, resting, and sleeping.
2 = A generally calm environment where traffic is limited during peak study hours but is more active on weekends.
3 = A spontaneously social space; neither a study hall, nor a regular hive of activity.
4 = A vibrant social hub that other students visit throughout the week, with residents studying outside the room.
5 = None of the above.

How do you think others would describe you?:
Eccentric, good-humored, sarcastic, liberal, passionate, honest, inquisitive, curious, cynical

Describe your extracurricular interests:

Hobbies:
Bonsai, POLITICS, bocce, hiking, dogs, social justice, comedy, nature, trees, environment, learning, writing

do capital letters make it through the paperwork?

Sports:
Intermurals: soccer, mountain biking, hiking

Student groups:
Debate, Political Union, Newspaper, student government

Describe your academic interests:
My interests are inherently interdisciplinary, but within my very broad interests I have a specific passion for politics, writing, and also science and technology.

Wish me luck, which in this context I suppose means make sacrifices of animal entrails to the fickle matchmaking gods.

I caught this April 16 article (“College blogs tell it like it is“) when it first came out in newsprint, but this was during my blogging downtime so I just filed it away somewhere to gather dust. I was reminded of it again when TargetX mentioned it in their Email Minute last week.

Remember how I spent all of August screaming at the top of my lungs about how it was crucial that blogs be uncensored and authentic?

> The Power of Public Perception: Colleges use Blogging;
> Authentic? Questioning the value of student blogging;
> Donor dollars trump interests of prospective students in student blogging arena.

and don’t forget the article I wrote for Stein Communications about student blogging…

Anyhow, it looks like the Globe caught on, at least a little bit.

Marcella Bombardieri, Boston Globe 4/16/2007

The message from student bloggers isn’t always pretty, yet college officials say the blogs are worth the risk. High school students can get unvarnished views of any colleges from Facebook, MySpace, or unsanctioned student blogs. They may be more inclined to trust a school they think is willing to show them real campus life, officials say. Plus, the technology gives colleges another tool to help applicants make the best decision, especially if they cannot afford to fly in for an overnight stay.

In contrast to Liu’s, some of these blogs come off as cloyingly cheerful, like a college brochure in modern disguise. “I have always been really impressed with the spirit of volunteerism at our school,” raves a Dartmouth senior.

Still, even the blogs that come off as promotional are often filled with talk of too much work, not enough sleep, and frightening weather. “So, you know it’s cold in Ithaca when your whole body gets so chapped and dried out that you need to apply liberal amounts of PURE VASELINE to your body twice a day just to keep your skin from cracking,” writes Cornell senior Ben Crovella .

“We all have these glossy brochures, and most of them are trying to be as much like Harvard as possible,” said Matt McGann , an admissions officer and blogger at MIT. “We see blogs as a way we can say, ‘This is what a university really is.’ There’s some good and some bad. There is no perfect university, so we want to show a little bit of what makes MIT interesting and unique.”

Matt and the whole MIT crew are really great with their attitude towards blogs, but it’s one that I am not yet seeing reflected nationwide–at least not so far as actions are concerned. “One-quarter of all college admissions offices offer blogs written by students or admissions personnel, according to a forthcoming study from the National Association for College Admission Counseling.” If that study is true, then that’s an exceedingly well hidden quarter. All the same, it’s good to see some mainstream media sources validating what I have been saying for the whole time I have been thinking about college admissions!

Catch the whole Globe article here; I would highly recommend interested persons read the pieces of mine I linked above, too.

: )