Colleges demands for disciplinary records creates dilemma for students, counselors

30 Nov

Posted by Sam Jackson as Admissions, College, Teenagers

How can we untangle good intentions from invasive tendencies when it comes to college admissions? This is a question that can be asked on many fronts, but has added relevance this year with the addition of a question on the common application about disciplinary and criminal records.
The Boston Globe ran a piece two weeks ago […]

1 Comment

Should I publish an OPML file of my RSS subscriptions?

27 Nov

Posted by Sam Jackson as Blogging, Esoterotica, Internets, Irrelevance, Poll, personal

Reader Jay Collier recently contacted me and asked if I had ever considered publishing an OPML file of all my feed reader feeds. Feed Demon has such a feature, but I had never been able to really accurate gauge the ratio of reader-utility to pointless-egoism and had therefore refrained from posting one. But Jay inspired […]

1 Comment

Why students keep flunking school sites [Reality Check!]

09 Nov

Posted by Sam Jackson as Admissions, Internets, Teenagers, marketing

College websites were rated worse this year than the last–I’m not surprised that this is the ninth straight year of decline, and you shouldn’t be either.
TargetX is generally pretty spot-on with their weekly e-mail minute (though not always) and a few weeks ago they wrote about a survey of 100,000+ college-bound students polled by the […]

3 Comments

“Admissions in the Internet Age” : my College Board Forum presentation reaction

05 Nov

Posted by Sam Jackson as Admissions, College Board, Internets, Teenagers, education, personal

Two weekends ago I was in New York because I was part of a panel about “Admissions in the Internet Age.” My part was a very compressed summary of my general admissions-internet-teenagers philosophy with some examples of blogs and other online tools which appeal to students and are also great for schools. I said I […]

2 Comments

College Board Forum!

25 Oct

Posted by Sam Jackson as Admissions, College Board, personal

Hey all,
Midterms have consumed my life for the last couple weeks, and continue to do so, but as soon as I finish writing some papers I will be taking a train to New York for the College Board forum, where I am doing a little presentation on Saturday! Come visit me if you are there, […]

5 Comments

« Previous Entries Next Entries »

Who is Sam Jackson?

I'm currently a freshman at Yale University and I've been blogging about college admissions and higher education marketing trends since I began my college application process in 2005. I now also write about my experience here at Yale, and am an official Yale blogger. Click here to read my 'about' page.

Kind words about my blog:

Andrew Careaga calls it “a service to all of us in the higher ed marketing business.”

Christian Long says it has “dramatically inspired college admissions folks to take notice”

Bob Johnson says “I like [it] because I agree with so much of what he says.” and that “Paying attention what Sam writes will let you focus more closely on students who will actually attend your school.”

Karine Joly says my witty and fresh style “offers a rare glimpse at the mind of our elusive prospective students”

and TargetX calls my blog “good reading” and me “wise-beyond-my-years.”