The biggest thing to happen to the college search scene in years just went public, and it’s called Unigo. It is a tremendous new company which I think will really make big waves: it’s essentially an online, user-generated college guide book, though that description sells it short. This weekend’s New York Times Magazine does a good job telling readers all about Unigo, but I’d like to take a moment to share my story about this very exciting enterprise as well.  Unigo is a must-visit site for:

1. anyone applying to college (how I wish I had such a resource!),
2. anyone at college (to tell the true story of your institution), and
3. anyone working at the college (to get an easily accessible angle on what students are thinking and saying).

What makes Unigo so clever and interesting? So slashdot-worthy? Unigo launched last week with tens of thousands of reviews, photos, and videos for a pre-launch list of 225 colleges–30,000 reviews at launch, and that number grows daily. I expect to see a big explosion after this press bump, since these first few ten thousands were just done with the organizational skills of a few interns and the great Unigo team. I know they’re great because I got a chance to visit their NYC office and meet them : )

Unigo’s founder, Jordan Goldman, contacted me out of the blue last spring asking me if I would be interested in a secret project of his. I knew little about Jordan except what I remembered from reading The Gatekeepers, where his college quest was profiled, and from what Google told me. Still, I figured that anyone who insisted I come to New York to learn about their secret internet project must really have had something interesting for me to see, so I hopped on a commuter train as fast as I could to meet with him. And how glad I am that I did! I learned all about Unigo (then going by the stealth name ‘ByStudents’ to collect its reviews) and really just fell in love with the project.

I gladly took a spot on the advisory board and have been really excited over the last few months as I’ve seen the web site transition from wireframes to code and finally to launch. (I even helped contribute some content myself, working with some Unigo staffers to film a series of exceptionally boring videos about Yale.)

So, a little more about Unigo - pulling here from the press release. Unigo features…

Original articles from students and recent grads on every aspect of college admissions and college life;

An Intelligent Calendar to guide students through the search/application process;

“Unigo Match” to help students find the colleges that are right for them, and current students at those colleges with whom they can interact

For 225 top colleges, editorially-written overviews, accompanied by tens of thousands of current student reviews, photos, videos and documents

Ability to search through reviews of every college by each reviewers’ gender, ethnicity, major, political leaning, hometown and more, so you can see every college from a variety of perspectives

All content can be rated, commented on and flagged by other users to ensure truthfulness and accuracy.

Jordan is going a long way towards enabling some of the changes that I have been working towards with my blog. As Chuck Hughes, a former Senior Admissions Officer at Harvard says,

“It’s frankly incredible that this hasn’t been done before. Unigo gives high school students and parents an unprecedented volume of the content they need, centered around one of life’s most stressful decisions.  And it gives college students all the reviewing, video-sharing, photo-sharing, document-sharing and networking capabilities now familiar to web users everywhere – but all in one place, and with a purpose.”

Jordan tested out this approach with some dead-trees guidebooks (Students’ Guide to Colleges) in 2005 and 2006 while at Wesleyan. One visitor to my site was impressed but wrote me to say that they stole my vision — on the contrary, Jordan was already making it happen long before I was even blogging, connecting current students with prospective applicants in an authentic and honest communications channel.

So what makes Unigo different? I went on at length about this with a few reporters this summer, though to my chagrin it looks like none of my interviews were catchy enough to merit printing ; ). In short, Unigo succeeds where many other websites have failed because it goes above and beyond flawed quantitative approaches to college admissions searches. Too many sites ask readers just to crudely rate different aspects of schools and then write a few scant sentences about their entire experience. The brilliance and genius of Unigo is that the questionaires students work from really inspires thoughtful and lengthy responses which are meaningful to readers. It’s not a problem that was easy to solve, as anyone who has administered a survey can attest.

It’s true that Unigo will not be a perfect source of information, and it’s not a replacement for all college admissions rituals. But I think that time spent on Unigo (free!) is much better than time spent supporting distorting publications ($$$ for a yearly update of US News & World Report’s joke of a report). I don’t think that someone should make their entire admissions decision on the basis of what they can see on their screen–how do you average together a few hundred subjective opinions of someplace to make your own judgment?–but I think Unigo will be a great complement. Especially for people who are less able to just up and travel around the country to visit schools, the addition of more photos and videos, and especially more raw footage, is a fantastic boon. Or, in this global world, imagine the international student faced with a one-dimensional college website–where else were they to turn before now?

The fact that Unigo will also have editorial reviews will helpfully add a nice layer of polish to the volumes of user-generated reviews, but just reading through them there is a real amazing quality to the collection. At some schools, more than 10% of the student body contributed! This is a really amazing figure. Can you imagine, even if you went to visit a school, talking to 10% of its student body and asking them how they felt about their experience?

I could write more about Unigo, and would like to continue this conversation with any readers who would like to have it - please comment and tell me what you think, and let Unigo know at their company blog, too. I won’t keep your attention any longer - go ahead and check out Unigo for yourself, maybe look at your own school / alma mater / dream school, then come back here and tell me what you think!

More background about Unigo:

Jordan Goldman, Unigo’s founder/CEO, is now 26 years old.  As a 17 year-old Goldman was featured in a New York Times article on the college admissions process.  Times education reporter Jacques Steinberg began following Goldman, and the specifics of Goldman’s own college search later became the subject of Steinberg’s New York Times bestselling book The Gatekeepers.The next year, as a college freshman, Goldman set out to improve the college search process by creating a series of more accurate, honest and 100% student-written college guidebooks.  Goldman’s Students’ Guide to Colleges went on to be published by Penguin Books in 2005, was updated for publication in 2006, and was featured in Forbes, US News and Time Magazine.

Goldman created Unigo.com and formed a board headed by Frank V. Sica (a private equity investor and board member of JetBlue), and an advisory board that counts Tom Rogers (CEO of Tivo), Bob Chase (former president, National Education Association), Chuck Hughes (former Senior Admissions Officer, Harvard University), Don Ross (Chief Revenue Officer, Bankrate.com) and education blogger Sam Jackson as members.  Goldman’s partners in Unigo include design firm Deepend New York, build firm GotCoders and entertainment firm Autonomy.

Contact:
Sharon Fuchs
Sharon@unigo.com
(O) 646-861-7845
(C) 917-364-6194

As usual, I am very very very happy to answer any and all questions, so please send them my way - comment here if you have something you’d like me to specifically write about. Thanks!

The program I originally envisioned would be specifically linked to an effort to promote the development of new resources for students in the college admissions / higher ed marketing spaces. I remember how frustrating and painful college admissions was–that’s why I started this blog, and why I continue to work to try to make things better. With my younger sister (now 15) just gearing up to apply to college, and the demographics and admissions figures ever-worsening, there is no better time for a scholarship like this one which will hopefully bring us all some really great new ideas. I am going to work to make sure that the best of these suggestions received get heard by schools.

The scholarship is open to fall ‘08 freshman and those students applying for 2009 (important update as of 5/22!). pursuing an associate or bachelor degree at an accredited U.S. postsecondary institution with a combined household income of $100,000 or less. If that describes you, apply today! If it doesn’t, tell a friend for whom it might be applicable. More rules and instructions after the break in this post.

I will be involved in the judging, and personally I would encourage participants to write about ways that new technology (especially the internet and new media) could help improve the college admissions / higher education process — basically, I’m hoping to see some really great stories and ideas which will then be put into action convincing colleges to make these reforms happen!

I originally wanted to organize a scholarship from the ground up myself, but it turns out that this is quite tricky! Having myUsearch administer the scholarship proved to be a good alternative. I do want to thank all of my friends and colleagues who were ready to put money on the table for my proposed scholarship, and I would say that I hope to be able to do more in this direction, long term. This is going to be a great start.

More details in the days ahead! Complete Press Release and instructions below.

_______________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact:

Elizabeth Kudner, myUsearch, LLC

303-975-6857

ekudner@myusearch.com

myUsearch Announces Scholarship for Students Frustrated With College Admissions

College matching service, myUsearch.com, will award a $1000 scholarship to the student with the best ideas to improve college admissions

(Boulder, CO.) May 7, 2007 – As high school seniors approach graduation, students and parents can finally breathe a sigh of relief. The college admissions process is finally over. Those countless hours spent agonizing over SAT scores, college essays and admissions standards have finally come to an end. Unfortunately, getting accepted to college is only the first battle…figuring out how to pay for it can be even worse. To numb the pain, myUsearch has launched a college scholarship that asks students to tell the story of their excruciating college admissions process and suggest ways for colleges to make it better.

Last year’s college admissions were reported to be more competitive than ever. The acceptance rates at Yale, Harvard, and Columbia fell below 10 percent for fall 2007 admissions and state schools are becoming much more difficult to get into. This has left many students with shattered dreams and dimmed expectations for the 2008 school year.

“The college admissions process has this smoke and mirrors aspect to it”, says Derek Kraus, founder of myUsearch. “Students have to jump through hoops and they are often left with no idea why they did or did not get in to the college of their choice. By offering this scholarship, we will give students a forum to voice their frustrations with the application process, and hopefully this will start the dialogue needed to convince schools to make the appropriate changes.” This 1000 dollar college scholarship will be open to students starting college in 2008. The scholarship is financial need based, requiring a household income of less than 100,000 dollars. To apply for this and any other open scholarships, students must complete the myUsearch questionnaire and meet the requirements of the available scholarships.

About myUsearch, LLC

myUsearch, LLC is an unbiased online resource dedicated to objectively matching students to schools and providing fair and accurate college enrollment information. The myUsearch Smart Questionnaire determines the needs of students in order to accurately match them with any of the 3,400+ colleges in the company database. The myUsearch blog offers an honest view of colleges and the college enrollment process. myUsearch offers students a completely honest and objective match by providing the names of matching colleges regardless of their willingness to pay for a listing, and allowing only the schools that match the students’ criteria to contact them. For further information, please visit www.myUsearch.com.

# # #

Scholarship Application Instructions

There are a few things you need to know before you start the scholarship application:

1) You must first complete the myUsearch questionnaire (www.myusearch.com).

2) After you complete the questionnaire, you can start the application at anytime. You will be emailed login information to allow you to login to “my prior search” and begin the application.

3) ONCE YOU START THE APPLICATION, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SAVE IT TO COME BACK TO IT.

4) For financial need based scholarships, applicants will be asked to certify whether they meet the income requirement. If selected as a finalist, the applicant will be required to provide a copy of their 1040 tax form. Any applicant that cannot provide this information will be disqualified.

4) Since you will be required to write an essay for the scholarship, we recommend you prepare the essay BEFORE YOU START the application.

Scholarship Essay Questions:

College Admissions Reform Scholarship:

You will be asked to compose an essay of 1000 words or less that answers the following questions:

What has been the most frustrating part of your college admissions process? Why is it important for colleges and universities to change this? What suggestions do you have for colleges and universities to try to relieve your frustration and the frustration of your fellow students?

If you have any further questions about the scholarship, please email info@myusearch.com.

# # #

Good luck to all those readers who still have final exams going… more details soon.

In the order that the final exams are due:

• May 2nd (already due): 15-18 page paper for EP&E 353, Critique of Political Violence. I wrote 17 pages exploring the possibility of “nonviolent nonviolence in a violent world.”

• May 5th: 20 page paper for EP&E 440, Nonviolence and Political Power in the Twentieth Century. I am writing a paper questioning the Universality of Eastern European nonviolent movements 1920-1980 and tracing the disconnects between universality in theory and universal practicability, comparing successful 1980s nonviolent movements with unsuccessful antecedents and comparing with Gandhi and MLK.

• May 6th: 3 hour comprehensive French FR139 final, 9 am sharp… on science hill. Why my french final is in Sloane Physics Laboratory, I don’t know. I just resent the fact that it’s about 20 minutes away.

• May 6th: 10-15 page Sociology SOCY015 research paper. This is why I was running that survey for current Yale students. Collected the data, now have to analyze it, compile literature, write about findings.

• May 12th: EVST 245: 3 hour environmental studies final, wherein I will have to come prepared to regurgitate my prepared response on how to develop an effective global environmental governance scheme. So, basically, save the world.

So… that’s why I shouldn’t be blogging right now, why I’m going to stop blogging right now, and why I could be a little bit happier… wish me luck!

0_o

Though we have seen college blog networks come and go over the last few years, there is one especially promising network on my radar that I thought I would share with everyone today. The College Blog Network is a recent entry to the scene but more blogs join daily. It’s intended to facilitate communication between student and other college bloggers (with .edu e-mail address). You can create feeds of the general college blogging firehose, get links to new blogs, compile favorites, vote for the best, etc.

I wanted to encourage all readers with .edu email addresses to both sign up their own blogs, and also to go to the site and give the current Yale blogs a “thumbs up”! You have to register, but it only takes a second to do so.

I saw that TCBN was advertising for “college blogs” on some search engines, and driving traffic in some other ways, and I hope to see some strong growth here. The site is developing a great blog widget, which you can see in action on the homepage and at rocloop.com right now. Once it is less beta-y, I might try to put it up here.

Anyway, classes are over for most people (I have one which meets during reading period) and I have 3, 20 page final papers due in the next week and a half or so, and will have to blog correspondingly less. In the meantime, check out the archives for my blog, and go look for other interesting posts on TCBN! And don’t forget to bump this site and any others you find interesting : )

Step 1: Assign a 20 page long research paper, worth 70% of the course grade. Have it be due May 5th.

Step 2: On April 22nd, send out this e-mail (names changed):

Dear [course] students,

In response to queries:

The paper is due this Thursday. You may bring it to class, or if need be, bring it by 5 pm to room # of [building]. Give it to [name] at the main desk, or, if she is not there, anyone else in the office.

The papers will be graded and returned to [name] by May 11, and will be there in the fall if you don’t get them this spring.

Also — don’t forget! — in addition I want an electronic copy.

Best,

[Professor]

Step 3: Success! Fewer papers to grade because, imagining themselves to have only 2 days to complete their probably unstarted 20 page papers, the students’ heads have all exploded.

Step 4: For plausible deniability, send out another e-mail, a little bit later, acknowledging your mix-up:

Dear [class] Class:

Big mistake on my part! i confounded our due date with that of my other class. The real due date is May 5, with the same procedures to be followed as in the last e-mail. Don’t forget the electronic version.

Sorry!

[Professor]

Aiee!!! In all fairness, this was just a simple mixup between two classes’ final paper due dates, and not some ingenious attempt to drive part of the class insane, but it certainly caused me a fair amount of moral trauma! I read of the message just before going to a meeting with another professor to discuss topics for a separate 18 page paper, and was somewhat visibly shaken… : ( Still, the “oops” e-mail did come only 15 minutes afterwards, so that limited the time in which any drastic actions could have been taken.

Still, a message to all professors around finals time: be careful, please! For the sake of your students. : )

There is a lot going on for Bulldog Days, which happily means I have many opportunities to profit from free improv shows and plentiful other student group-led events designed to entice and enthrall admitted students, catching their interest a year early to cement their favor and boost participation in the fall.

The campus is supposed to be “dry” during BDD, and prefrosh are supposed to be kept too busy with fun events to get into much trouble; hopefully that will for the most part hold true, because people should leave with happy memories, not bitter trauma. So, to the 2012 prospectives: enjoy Yale! Visit classes! Welcome, Hope you like it here! For those of you who couldn’t make it, don’t worry. You’ll have lots of chances to get to know your peers and Yale!

Photo courtesy Anna Ershova

The survey is online at http://www.samjackson.org/privacysurvey/ and I would really appreciate your help. It is completely anonymous, if you want to enter the drawing for the prize only an e-mail address is required and that will be kept separate from survey results too.

I will publish my paper and data when I am done, and it should be interesting! But again, if you are a current Yale University undergraduate, please please please take my survey.

Thank you!

Also, in a random other note, I got added to the Alltop Education page! At the very, very, very bottom. Maybe we’ll get some through traffic from it? Who knows.

I found…

• the Center for Language Study has a blog (and a twitter–language labs are often very trendy)
• A lot of information about Yale’s Windows server infrastructure from Ken, who works for Yale ITS.
• Beth Castle, another person who works at Yale but is not a student
• The best one of all is perhaps this old defunct blog about a Labrador retriever puppy (not to discredit the other blogs, just to showcase my love of puppies)
• Interesting academic blogs (mostly now all abandoned) on projects like ethnographies of Islam in Egypt.
• A very cool art blog called Range of Vision, from Ken, technical director of the Yale center for Digital Media Center for Arts at Yale (I was afraid it was related to DMCA–digital millenium copyright act). Married to Beth, I think? Hasn’t been updated in a year.

… and a few more. But essentially, no one was home. There were a few official blogs for Yale institutions of one or another variety, but nothing really especially active. Does no one know about the blogs? Were all the bloggers abducted by aliens? Anyone with a NetID can make one. They are blocked from being indexed by search engines, which might stop some from getting involved: I know there would be opportunity for abuse, but it can be very limiting. Apparently “This service was developed in response to a number of requests from students, faculty, and staff for a publishing tool kit that would allow people to post and maintain blogs for a variety of topics.” — but I’m not sure where all these people requesting blogs went.

What doesn’t exactly make sense:

What you should know. Privacy, commenting, etc. All accounts on blogs.yale.edu are considered “personal space.” While many bloggers intend for their material to be widely distributed and easily accessible, we need to balance the ability to publish with the privacy of users. In line with this policy, we have disabled search engines from indexing the content of blogs.yale.edu, which means that a Google search will not find your blog. If you would like to publicize your blog you are free to do so. There is, however, an internal search engine that you can use to explore blogs.yale.edu

Why not make this a user-adjustable option? If the privacy is of the utmost concern, what’s the point of enabling an internal search which could turn up results? It just feels like a bit of a strange situation here, where there is clearly uncertainty with what to do with this pilot program.

Here’s the Yale Alumni Magazine’s take on them:

September/October 2005
It’s like traveling back in time to when only geeks knew how to navigate the Internet: in April, the university launched the pilot version of a tool that will host blogs for students, faculty, and staff. As of mid-August, though, the Yale University Weblogs site had not yet been publicized, and the early adopters were mostly IT types from around the campus. But not all the posts are about “OVID interface problems” or “Site e-mail aliases in Sakai”: you can also turn up some nice pictures of a Labrador puppy named Willie and speculation about the plot of the new Dukes of Hazzard movie.

Nothing seems to have changed, although there sadly haven’t been any updates about Willie for several years. Whatever happened to the development of the blogging project? The university needs to move forward in technology adoption. That’s part of why I applied to be on the library policy standing university committee. We’ll see how that goes.

For the first proper inaugural post of this series (part 2 considering the intro), I will start on a positive note and mention current events: Yale organized and over the last two days conducted the 2008 Governors’ Climate Change Conference. I liveblogged it here, if you are interested in a blow-by-blow word-by-word account. It was a gathering of governors, Canadian premiers, foreign ministers and other observers which saw 18 US states representing more than 1/2 of the US population (and more than 1/2 of its emissions) signed an agreement on the 100th anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt’s 1908 Conference of Governors which launched the modern conservation movement with Gifford Pinchot (Yale alum).

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Nobel Laureate Pachauri (chair of the IPCC!) spoke in the final presentation which, combined with the public signing of the declaration, filled up a huge venue on campus, Woolsey hall. Yale’s money and brand power enable it to host large conferences and attract big names which provide exciting opportunities for Yalies to participate and engage with political and thought leaders from around the world. Some would say that today was nothing but grandstanding at that the chance to see famous people talk is not as exciting as it might first appear. After all, it’s not as if students were getting one-on-one time with the Governator or anything like that, right?

Wrong. In addition to Arnold specifically meeting with a bunch of lucky California students, there were significant trickle down effects from this event. For example, the Czech deputy prime minister / environmental minister was present, as was the Czech ambassador. After the conference, I went to a small gathering (15 students) where we spoke with them and talked about issues for climate in the EU and in general. It was a really great opportunity to personally meet with and talk to someone important who has a lot to say about this issue.

The Czech environmental minister would not have shown up to a small college with fewer resources or less national and international clout, because this conference wouldn’t have taken place at all without the significant Yale resources. Dan Esty, lead negotiator in 1992 for the US, introduced things; he teaches at the Law School and Forestry & Environmental Studies school; we read many of his influential papers in my class. My current Environmental Studies professor is also at F&ES school and is on the international policy circuit: the other week, Tamara Stark, of Greenpeace China, came and we had a lecture from her about Chinese forestry issues (the class is on International Environmental Governance). Would she have shown up at a small college without a prestigious forestry school? No.

Just one example from TODAY of the many great opportunities which arise when you are at a school with resources like Yale’s! More on how this comes to play in Master’s Teas and other events in future posts.

Yesterday at the MacMillan center for international studies, there were too many events going on and not enough people to attend them all. I went to a talk by the UK permaent representative to the E.U., but at the same time an expert on policies of preemptive strikes was giving another talk, and immediately following that there was another session with a policy advisor to Obama talking about US-UN relations. That was just one evening at one part of Yale. There is a level of activity going on which really calls for the large scale resources of a university of this size, prestige, and wealth. I’m not saying that this is what is necessary to have an excellent education, I’m just saying that when a student is prepared to take advantage of these resources, they are much appreciated. I have written before about how many students do not.

My final conclusion was that more education and understanding would be better for everyone, since it became clear that both schools were great and had lots to offer and that it was in the best interests of students to find the place that is the best fit for them. (Also, a lot of David’s troubles seemed to stem from his assumption that Harvard = Yale, a common mistake!)

EphBlog is a great community which, as I have written before, convinced me to keep Williams on my college list for much longer than any other small LACs and much longer than really made sense given what I was actually looking for in a school. I find myself in a position where I really value a lot of the benefits of smaller liberal arts schools–intimate communities, lots of faculty interaction, and much more–but at the same time have a compelling need for the resources of a larger school. That’s why I was especially drawn to Yale–I thought it would help me bridge the divide between large and small schools, something of a happy compromise.

So, in the spirit of promoting discussion and communication, I am going to start a series where I discuss some of what Yale has to offer specifically compared to smaller schools, and how it compensates for some of its potential shortcomings in relation to them. Consider this part one, the introduction. Below is the first part of the original post that I wrote in response to David and others at EphBlog; it wasn’t completed and would have been very, very long but you can see the complete discussion at EphBlog.

The second post / first real post is available here: Yale vs. Small Liberal Arts Colleges: part 2 (Money Matters)

David Kane of EphBlog threw down the gauntlet yesterday, insisting that Williams is better than Yale. David says that of the “scores of students that were accepted at both Yale and Williams” a majority of those choosing Yale are making a mistake, and that “most of them would be better off if they chose Williams.” Are students as misinformed as David thinks about what life is like at Yale vs. an excellent, small liberal arts school like Williams? How does Yale compare when looking at the advantages and disadvantages of its size and institutional character?

I am not as quick to David to insist that any school–be it Yale, or anywhere else–is necessarily better for a given student. It’s very important to consider which school is the best fit for a specific individual, and I think that approaching any one applying or matriculating population as homogeneous enough to just be relocated and have across the board better experiences is naive or worse. It smacks of the higher education marketing attitudes that I try so hard to attack here on my blog. I will do my best to demonstrate in this post ways in which for many–not necessarily all but many–a school like Yale can offer more than a small liberal arts college (like Williams) could. I will aim to deconstruct the claims made by David against Yale and also to a certain extent his criticism of Harvard where it overlaps. I am not trying to directly respond to the baiting (trolling?) of some Williams folks–just responding more in general, comparing Yale (FAIRLY) to small liberal arts colleges.

UPDATE: The debate at EphBlog seems to have been largely resolved, obviating much of the need for this post. David Kane, after extensive discussion, revised his original position based on a newfound understanding of life at Yale.

I stand corrected! My mistake was to assume that the Yale I did not know was similar to the Harvard that I know so well. It isn’t, at least in terms of average class size and faculty interaction. My mistake. And thanks to Sam/Anna/DHD/Yalie for the education.

Conclusions:

1) If you are choosing between Yale and Harvard, choose Yale. You will be happier and get a better education.

2) I agree with Rory that Williams still provides more of the sort of faculty interaction that is the meat of a good undergraduate education then Yale does. But if Yale students really average two faculty-led seminars per semester, then the difference is much smaller than I ever imagined. Kudos to Yale!

3) I agree with current eph that we really need to know about class sizes. But, my main assumption was wrong, so I’ll save the detailed debate for another day.

4) Time for Williams to step up! Besides ending all lectures, we need to increase the number of tutorials, decrease the size of other classes, and so on.

I thank our friends from Yale for participating in this interesting discussion. If any find themselves in Cambridge, lunch is on me.

What follows are the remains of my post responding to David and others–I will salvage more of it and turn it into a post about Yale vs. Small Liberal Arts Colleges in general. David, Anna and I will see you when I’m back in Boston when school gets out ; )

Aside: In a National Bureau of Economic Research study on revealed preference for college admissions, showing a weighting of colleges based on how likely high-achieving applicants were likely to choose a given college given an array of other options, Yale ranks 2nd while Williams ranks 18th (Paper is from 2004 and you should read it). Increasing selectivity may have changed things slightly overall since then, but it gives us a reasonable baseline understanding of how likely someone is to go to Yale over other schools. Specific data for Yale vs. small LACs is available elsewhere, but I just want to establish that in general, people are in most cases highly drawn to Yale over other schools. This was given in the discussion, just wanted to provide data for it quantitatively for our hypothetical high-achieving student group.

The one other point I just want to frame here is the nature of this debate. It is NOT about whether college X is better than college Y for reasons ABC–that is College Confidential talk, that’s not what I want to address. It’s not constructive. What is the case is that one college may be better suited to certain individuals, pursuits, or fields of study. I will try to talk about both my own reasons for coming to Yale, typical reasons, and instances where Yale might not be the best choice compared to say Williams, Amherst, Wesleyan, Haverford, Swarthmore, etc. On to the comparisons..

Let’s start with academics. David Kane insists that the quality of education can be measured based on how much direct tenured faculty interaction there is for a student over his/her career. He breaks this down into three points.

How many professors know by name the typical student? By “professors,” I mean tenured or tenure track faculty. I think that, for the average first year at Williams, this is at least 4 if not 6. At Yale, I predict 1 or 2.

How much written feedback does the typical student receive on his papers from professors? At Williams, this must be in the thousands of words. At Yale, very little. Most/all of the written feedback is from poorly-paid and harried graduate students. Some is from lecturers and adjuncts of various sorts. I bet Sam has received written feedback from no more than two professors in his first year.

How much one-on-one conversation does the typical student have with professors? At Williams, this varies dramatically by student and does depend on how often you seek out faculty members outside of class. The same is true at Yale. But the average Eph gets around 10 times more direct interaction with faculty. The average Williams student in a single tutorial exchanges more words with that one professor in a semester than Sam Jackson will exchange with all his professors put together over the course of four years.

The market failure is that the typical high school student has no idea about this reality. She thinks that her interactions with professors at Yale would be, more or less, just like her interactions with professors at Williams, the only difference being that the Williams professors assign the books written by the Yale professors. If students really knew what they were getting, more would choose Williams.

Re: 1. How many professors know Yalies’ names? I have taken 9 courses this year, 3 lectures last term. Anna Ershova answers for herself:

I took 4 classes last term and I am taking 5 classes this term; since I took German both terms with the same professor, there are only 8 professors total. Out of these 8 classes, 4 are lectures (by the way, I could have had more seminars, but chose to attend these truly amazing lectures instead). Three of my professors in these lecture classes *know* my name and *know* who I am (not just what my name is, but where I am from and what my academic interests are; furthermore, they say Hi when I run into them on the street).

My other 4 classes are seminars and my professors know me really well. The professors from last semester sometimes e-mail me personally to let me know if there is something going on/if they came across an article or a book that may pertain to my ethnic background/academic interests. For instance, I just received an e-mail from my Politics of South and North Korea seminar from last term informing me there was an event coming up that is related to the topic of my final paper.

Friday’s gathering will also celebrate the centennial of President Theodore Roosevelt’s landmark 1908 Conference of Governors, which launched the modern conservation movement, planted the seed for the National Parks System, and inspired significant state efforts to protect land. The event will celebrate 100 years of state leadership on critical environmental issues, confront the present climate challenge, and set out a vision of a federal-state partnership for future action.

3:05 : MYTHBUSTERS! Crazy guys. Talk about how mythbusters is cool on discovery channel. Buster should go into politics. They should invest in the myth that businesses and republicans are obstacle to progress on environment, greenhouse gases. I say this is a myth. [bla bla bla] Democrats are obstacle as well, even if rhetorically they are trying to slow down the approval process-schizophrenic. People don’t want to let solar plants go up in Mojave desert because of the transmission lines; it’s not just businesses, it’s also environmentalists and environmental agencies. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of possible. We need transmission lines, battery cars need batteries and electricity, hydrogen cars need fuel, nuclear power has waste, biofuels can lead to deforestation–no silver bullets, only silver buckshot.

Engangered squirrel–which MIGHT like to live in the area near a power plant–stops solar plant, hypothetical squirrel is stopping up environmental progress. Environmental regulation can hold up environmental progress.

Relax, exhale, let things move forward. Good that there are young people here.

I am optimistic, despite obstacles. Very optimistic. young people have new ideas. Movement must reach critical mass. You can feel the big things moving and coming together. You can feel the momentum. Don’t be downhearted. Every day I see in CA what is happening, and say things are about to move our way. Thanks! APPLAUSE, OVATION.

3 : CA is giving the nation and world a push, UN wanted to have CA keynote to give the world a push! CA is at the leading edge of the environment economy of green, clean technology. Even besides global warming,incentives for new energy sources–environmental cause would be unwinnable without capitalism! Shift is happening all over the world. Leading german consulting firm says that german clean green industry will be greater than auto industry before next decade is out there. Time for environmental revolution.

2:50: Worked out with President Levin earlier, he is very buff–benchpressed a sophomore. There is a connection between bodybuilders and environmentalists. A long time ago people were embarrassed to talk about weight lifting–Kirk Douglas and others did not want to be associated with weird people in spandex dungeons. When asked how they got their bodies, “we were born like this.” A book, Pumping Iron came out, and then a movie : ) and this changed things (dir. George Butler is here). Sport became more and more popular, and the perception of bodybuilding changes, and now there are gymnasiums everywhere and people talking about abs and delts and six packs.

Like bodybuilders, environmentalists are thought to be weird fanatics. For too long, environmental movement has been powered by guilt. Smokestacks powering out hot tubs and big screen TVs. If only we could live like monks on straw mats. People are not going to give up plasma TVs. Ladies and gentlemen, movements don’t make progress based on passive guilt. Successful movements are built on passion, critical mass, an element of alarm to galvanize action. Environmental movement is switching from guilt-power to some newer and more dynamic. Image is also changing from one of hand-wringing and whining to something hip, cutting edge–even sexy!

CA does not wait until Washington–they are asleep at the wheel. We are working to change things. Can protect the environment and economy at the same time.

California is 7th largest global economy, tiny spot on globe, but influence of a continent.

Arnold to Michigan: get off your butt! CA may be doing more to save US auto industry than anyone else, by pushing them to change!

Govt can’t get us where we need to go on its own, I am a believer in technology. Tesla auto is great! 0-60 in 4 seconds, 140 mph– Levin, you should get one, girls will go crazy!

2:45 : Pleasure to introduce Arnold. Levin loves to see CA play a leadership role, reinforced by Governator’s take on global warming. Big ups for telling the EPA to take action or get out of the way. Standing ovation.

2:40 : Developing countries should not replicate what the developed countries have done, don’t repeat their mistakes! In recognition of this fact, I launched a program… we have 1.6 billion people today who don’t have access to modern electricity. 400 million are in India. Should we wait for coal plants? Kerosene? Or should we look for other approaches. Made solar lantern and flashlight.

All must face challenge together, Applause + standing ovation.

2:35 : Definite threat to peace and stability. That’s why IPCC got nobel, perhaps. Even if we stopped now, climate change will continue for decades at least. Some countries are trying to change now, but that’s not enough! We really have to mitigate greenhouse gases before we exceed the capacity of human society to adapt to the changes we will see. Mitigation is not an expensive proposition–see the scenarios of states here. Some scenarios IPCC sees stabilization possible with a short window of 7 years, emissions peaking in 2015. Cost of mitigation is not very high. 2030 cost might be 3% GDP, but not a high cost to avoid the future damage. These mitigation measures carry with them other benefits. Less air pollution, rural jobs, better health–might mean that society could just benefit from these measures! We must explode the idea that this is all bad for jobs etc.

Final points: US has been the leader in several areas, but today the President is not upholding high standards of the past. Good state initiatives, but we need countrywide initiatives. Companies that have a reason to look to the future, and are investing in good technology, will be winners. The same argument applies to winners.

Technology change can only follow policy. Need a price on carbon so that companies will have an incentive to invest in low carbon solutions.

2:30 : Also, possible collapse of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. There would be an increase in sea level of several meters. Hundreds of millions of humans will be put at risk. Small island states, Bangladesh, low-lying parts of America.

What constitutes dangerous? Depends who you ask. Maldives president will say that it already happened. Megacities around the world are in trouble, too. Shanghai, others. But isn’t it the shining example of modern China? Maybe so, but it’s in danger.

2:20 : Thanks to CT and CA so that I have something nice to say about US. Also, Climate Change is one part of a greater problem. Unsustainable development and industrialization have led to this problem, climate change is not a theory but observable fact. See 4th assessment report of IPCC. You would have to be very naive to conclude anything but warming. That rate is on an increase. It is not just a straight linear relationship. It is also accompanied by other changes–precipitation changes, other changes.

Russia story with Putin. Is climate change good for Russia? Uh, not necessarily. More extreme storms and things. Changes in the availability of water. Coming from Indian subcontinent, there is a lot to worry about. 500 million people in S. Asia, 250 million in China, would be affected by those kinds of precipitation changes directly.

Agriculture decline. We know what is happening now about food prices worldwide. Demand is up, supply is not keeping up. In poor countries today we have riots, starvation, etc. This will increase in the future. No part of the world that can live immune.

More disease vectors, more droughts, more heat waves (see France / Europe when 30,000 died). Health, mortality, morbidity will be problem in the future. By 2100, low end of scenario is 1.8 degrees celsius, upper estimate is 4 degrees. We can’t really do so well under 1.8 degrees increase. That’s over 2.5 degree celsius since industrialization began. Agriculture will be severely affected, massive species loss and endangerment, etc. 20-30% of species are in danger of extinction at 1-1.5 degree celsius increase.

2:16 : Levin introduces Nobel Laureate Pachauri, chair of the IPCC. BTW, humans are causing climate change, in case you forgot. He is coming in the fall to teach again. Welcome! [applause, standing ovation]

2:10 : Arnold time! Levin notes that Yale is proud, that Gus Speth and Esty are cool (yep) and that Yale is generally great. Also, climate change needs to be addressed by the whole world. Wait! Yale is not enough to solve climate challenge (really?). -10% of 1990 by 2020, -45% from 2005. We are trying to lead by example. In last 2 years, we are -17% from 2005. Another -17% in 3 years. It is feasible and affordable. Yale is doing this at less than 1% or .5% of operating expenses (Yale is perhaps not the most energy intensive of industries, though).

2:08: Thanks to Mexico, Canada, Czech environment minister and others for being here. Do they get any attention? Governors come take a picture with the president. Hold this pose… keep holding. Ok. Now everyone can come have a picture together!

2:06 : Go Kansas, “greetings from the heartland.’ Sebelius is happy to be a signatory. Important step forward.

2:05 : Jodi Rell signs the document. Applause! Corzine (NJ) is here. Greetings from Princeton!

2:02 : 18 states, 1/2+ population, more than 1/2 emissions, here today signing a declaration about emissions. Esty says it promises a real step forward. Not in theory, but in practice. States are committing to action, if they were countries, it would be like France, Britain, Italy, Germany. South North, East West, Republican and Democrat. “New Way Forward” on climate change.

1. commits states to pushing for federal level regulation and state implementation
2. to be cost-effecftive, must build on state experience
3. talks about getting the incentives right. must engage industry and individuals.

Where are the teeth? Is it binding? More on this later when I can have a look at the document.

1:50 : Enter distinguished guests! More organ and applause. People are just looking around for Schwarzenegger, I think people recognized President Levin but not anyone else. Here’s Connecticut governor Jodi Rell. Sge begins praising Yale, Yale students, Yale President. Go Yale. Oh, and we’re gracious hosts, too. Have a good taste of nutmeg hospitality while here in Connecticut. Roosevelt’s great-grandson and Pinchot’s grandson (?) are both here, let’s clap.

Sustainable sustainable sustainable. No bioenvironmentalists talking, it would seem–these people are very big into the “sustainable development.” Oh, and of course, Connecticut will be fun of green collar jobs. Stop talking about the money and start talking about the changes you want to actually make! “Believe we can” is good, show me how you can do something, how about pushing hard for the CT house climate bill?

Jodi Rell asked CT people to do one thing each day to save energy. Unplug your blackberry / phone. Yeah, the thing is, Governor Rell, Al Gore is out there campaigning about how it is NOT JUST ABOUT INDIVIDUAL ACTION. We need to pressure Congress, STATE legislatures, and other actions. Thank you for changing the discourse here.

1:45 pm: Don’t forget about Yale! 100 years ago, Pinchot was at Roosevelt’s side–and Pinchot was a Yale man. Pinchot was pretty awesome, as I discovered in my research on the National Parks / Forest System. He was important in founding Yale Forestry / Environmental Studies, also. Sage hall art. Hooray for FES (clapping).

1:40 pm: Dan Esty is introducing things! It’s cool because we read his papers (Law School, Forestry / Environment) for my Environmental Studies class. Praise for Teddy R., focus on critical issue of today, climate change. Good that states are safety net (really?) against federal inaction. Best practices, models, etc.

1:30 pm: Event is supposed to begin now. Press and schoolchildren have been all over the area since this morning. They opened up the top decks of Woolsey, to the press’ chagrin, because of the swelling crowds. The line was a few blocks long and stalled for a while. Organist is doing a nice job.

1:00 pm: Because of the “Abortion Art” debacle yesterday, we have some nice pro-choicers pamphleting outside. Also, meat is murder folks. Some ‘press’ guy was also giving out anti-nuclear stuff.

Governors who plan to attend the event include Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, Jon Corzine of New Jersey, M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut, Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and Rod Blagojevich of Illinois.

In addition, Christine Todd Whitman, Quebec Premier Jean Charest, Manitoba Premier Gary Doer and Nobel Laureate Dr. R. K. Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will participate.

Several of the governors will sign a climate change declaration that will highlight the need for “partnership” between the federal and state government.

Yale has affirmed its commitment to sustainability, especially in reducing the university’s carbon footprint with an initiative to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 10 percent below the 1990 level by 2020. Yale has already taken steps to improve the energy efficiency of its buildings, use renewable fuels, reduce electricity use, and invest in alternative energy.
Friday’s gathering will also celebrate the centennial of President Theodore Roosevelt’s landmark 1908 Conference of Governors, which launched the modern conservation movement, planted the seed for the National Parks System, and inspired significant state efforts to protect land. The event will celebrate 100 years of state leadership on critical environmental issues, confront the present climate challenge, and set out a vision of a federal-state partnership for future action.

“Roosevelt showed remarkable foresight a century ago in engaging the states’ chief executive officers to preserve and protect the nation’s natural resources,” said Levin. “Now, we face a new and critical challenge—global climate change—and leadership in the United States is coming from visionary state governors.”

Woolsey Hall
Grove and College Streets

Declaration Signing:

• Welcome addresses by President Levin and Governor Rell
• Governors Blagojevich, Corzine, Rell, Schwarzenegger and Sebelius
• Observers: Premiers Charest and Doer, Czech Environment Minister Martin Bursík, Sonoran Minister of Ecology Angel Lopez Guzman

Public Address:

• Introduction by Yale President Richard C. Levin
• Nobel Laureate Pachauri
• Governor Schwarzenegger

Governors Participating:

• California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell
• Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich
• Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius
• New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine

Special Guests:

• Nobel Laureate R. K. Pachauri
• Quebec Premier Jean Charest
• Manitoba Premier Gary Doer
• Czech Republic Deputy Prime Minister Martin Bursik
• Former EPA administrator and 50th Governor of NJ, Christine Todd Whitman
• Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes

States sending representatives on behalf of their Governors:
Arizona, Maine, New Mexico, New York, Washington

States Signing the Policy Declaration:

1. Arizona
2. California
3. Colorado
4. Connecticut
5. Delaware
6. Florida
7. Illinois
8. Kansas
9. Maine
10. Maryland
11. Massachusetts
12. Michigan
13. New Jersey
14. New Mexico
15. New York
16. Oregon
17. Virginia

Washington

Secondly, I have overhauled the way that the site displays advertising. Instead of hardcoding in ad code into widgets, I have put in some dynamic javascript (to be replaced with PHP later when I have time to work out bugs, likely this weekend) tied to an OpenX ad server I just installed. This means that I now have a better ability to track and analyze the clicks / impressions on the ads of our amazing current advertising partners, Campus Explorer and The University Review. In any event, I saw that this was displaying weirdly on some old versions of Internet Explorer but not too many of you use that so hopefully things should look OK. But let me know if there are problems.

Also, with the new OpenX installed I can now display advertising on a CPC or CPM basis… though I think I will just continue to offer monthly slots. As usual, let me know if you are interested, and check out my advertising page.

More tweaks to come in the near future! I am confident of this because I have a huge amount of work and tend to do wonderfully constructive web design and backend stuff when I really, really shouldn’t…

New Haven, Conn. — April 17, 2008

Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art. Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials. She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.

She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art.

Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.

So there you have it: the University offered a quick explanation after initiating an investigation. Original post follows.

I will be watching to see how Yale deals with what will certainly explode (is exploding) into a huge controversy: as reported by the Yale Daily News, a senior art project is soon to be presented in which a student continually inseminated herself and then forced miscarriages, preserving the blood and filming the process.

Beginning next Tuesday, Aliza Shvarts ‘08 will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body. But her project has already provoked more than just debate, inciting, for instance, outcry at a forum for fellow senior art majors held last week. And when told about Shvarts’ project, students on both ends of the abortion debate have expressed shock — saying the project does everything from violate moral code to trivialize abortion.

No, not a joke. {Update, 10 hours after the fact: Yes, actually a hoax! Thankfully.}

I tuned into a webinar about crisis management over the summer hosted by Karine Joly’s Higher Ed Experts, and saw some interesting insight into how schools can manage crises.

Too bad that Michael Dame, director of Web and Communications at Virginia Tech, won’t be giving his webinar about online crisis management for a few weeks. Yale could use some advice right about now, I think. This story has already hit Drudge report, and the YDN has been having some trouble with the traffic.

Oh, also? Yale is just about to host a big climate change conference with governors from the US, premiers from Canada, nobel laureates, etc.

Let’s watch the ensuing negative PR explosion… more on this as things develop.

If you want to check the temperature of the blogosphere or interwebs at large, you can see just a really, really furious reaction bubbling up. Antisemitic pro-choicers seem to be some of the nastiest commentators.

Because the YDN site is having problems with traffic, the full article is available after the break. For a sample of her other artwork, check a piece in Dimensions magazine (Yale publication) from January.

UPDATE: In addition to Drudge, it is now on the front page of Fox News, under “Outrage Over ‘Self-Abortion Art’” — fantastic. Lots of quotes from the National Right to Life Committee people.
UPDATE2: In addition, I should add that it’s also been on Jezebel (more than once), Gawker, Perez Hilton, … and many more. That’s a lot of eyeballs.
UPDATE3: I would additionally note that it is still worth considering the plausibility of this account, effectiveness rates for the herbs in question, and general health risks rendering it more or less likely that it was possible to undertake this. However, the YDN is not one to make up stories like this, so I am going to wait and see how it plays out more before calling “hoax” on it.

Martine Powers, Staff Reporter, Thursday April 17, 2008. “For senior, abortion a medium for art, political discourse.”

Art major Aliza Shvarts ‘08 wants to make a statement.

Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

The goal in creating the art exhibition, Shvarts said, was to spark conversation and debate on the relationship between art and the human body. But her project has already provoked more than just debate, inciting, for instance, outcry at a forum for fellow senior art majors held last week. And when told about Shvarts’ project, students on both ends of the abortion debate have expressed shock . saying the project does everything from violate moral code to trivialize abortion.

But Shvarts insists her concept was not designed for “shock value.”

“I hope it inspires some sort of discourse,” Shvarts said. “Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it, but it’s not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone.”

The “fabricators,” or donors, of the sperm were not paid for their services, but Shvarts required them to periodically take tests for sexually transmitted diseases. She said she was not concerned about any medical effects the forced miscarriages may have had on her body. The abortifacient drugs she took were legal and herbal, she said, and she did not feel the need to consult a doctor about her repeated miscarriages.

Shvarts declined to specify the number of sperm donors she used, as well as the number of times she inseminated herself.

Art major Juan Castillo ‘08 said that although he was intrigued by the creativity and beauty of her senior project, not everyone was as thrilled as he was by the concept and the means by which she attained the result.

“I really loved the idea of this project, but a lot other people didn’t,” Castillo said. “I think that most people were very resistant to thinking about what the project was really about. [The senior-art-project forum] stopped being a conversation on the work itself.”

Although Shvarts said she does not remember the class being quite as hostile as Castillo described, she said she believes it is the nature of her piece to “provoke inquiry.”

“I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity,” Shvarts said. “I think that I’m creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be.”

The display of Schvarts’ project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Schvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Schvarts’ self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.

Schvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.

School of Art lecturer Pia Lindman, Schvarts’ senior-project advisor, could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

Few people outside of Yale’s undergraduate art department have heard about Shvarts’ exhibition. Members of two campus abortion-activist groups . Choose Life at Yale, a pro-life group, and the Reproductive Rights Action League of Yale, a pro-choice group . said they were not previously aware of Schvarts’ project.

Alice Buttrick ‘10, an officer of RALY, said the group was in no way involved with the art exhibition and had no official opinion on the matter.

Sara Rahman ‘09 said, in her opinion, Shvarts is abusing her constitutional right to do what she chooses with her body.

“[Shvarts' exhibit] turns what is a serious decision for women into an absurdism,” Rahman said. “It discounts the gravity of the situation that is abortion.”

CLAY member Jonathan Serrato ‘09 said he does not think CLAY has an official response to Schvarts’ exhibition. But personally, Serrato said he found the concept of the senior art project “surprising” and unethical.

“I feel that she’s manipulating life for the benefit of her art, and I definitely don’t support it,” Serrato said. “I think it’s morally wrong.”

Shvarts emphasized that she is not ashamed of her exhibition, and she has become increasingly comfortable discussing her miscarriage experiences with her peers.

“It was a private and personal endeavor, but also a transparent one for the most part,” Shvarts said. “This isn’t something I’ve been hiding.”

The official reception for the Undergraduate Senior Art Show will be from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on April 25. The exhibition will be on public display from April 22 to May 1. The art exhibition is set to premiere alongside the projects of other art seniors this Tuesday, April 22 at the gallery of Holcombe T. Green Jr. Hall on Chapel Street.