We made it through our crazy three weeks of August! Yay! Good luck to everyone starting back at school on Monday.
BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO GEORGE MASON!
Did you know that George Mason is turning 50 this year? Check out Northern Virginia Magazine’s profile of the school’s transformation during that time.
BEST “SUMMER JOB” EVER
A 20-year old USC student just made $110 million on Bed, Bath, and Beyond stock. He explained in a post on Reddit: “The significant appreciation of BBBY’s share price combined with the fact that I am leaving for school tomorrow played critical roles in closing the Position.” That’s some experiential education right there!
CHANGES ON THE HORIZON AS LAWSUITS CONTINUE
We have an update on the financial aid lawsuit we mentioned back in January in which top colleges are being accused of antitrust violations: it looks like it’s moving forward! A federal judge in Chicago is requiring the universities named as defendants to respond to the plaintiffs by September 9. If you’re interested in continuing to learn more about the upcoming Supreme Court case on affirmative action, check out this week’s article from Politico.
PRINCETON REVIEW RANKINGS ARE OUT
My favorite rankings! I love these because of the specific categories in which schools are ranked. This is so much more helpful than a blanket ranking with methodology that may not be relevant to a particular student. Instead, you can pick the categories that matter to you! These are really worth a read. Proud of my alma mater Wash U for once again killing it - #1 in the country for best dorms, #3 for best food and financial aid, #9 for most beautiful campus and #11 for best run colleges. And a whole bunch more but I will stop bragging now :)
COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS LESSEN BUT MONKEYPOX CONCERNS RISE
From WPI to VCU, colleges are continuing to lessen their Covid-19 restrictions. Instead, many colleges have shifted focus and are working hard to educate their students about Monkeypox prevention as the outbreaks spread.
BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK
A Little League player suffered a traumatic brain injury after falling off his bunk bed this week at the Little League World Series. This tragedy has brought bunk bed safety to light, and it’s a particularly timely topic this week as college students are heading back to school. Did you know that there are 36,000 injuries per year related to bunk beds? I think about all the years in boarding school that I slept on top bunks without rails - scary. If you have a student sleeping in a top bunk, make sure to purchase safety rails for them.
The Washington Post offered some great advice to parents this week about making college admissions less stressful. Some of these really resonate with me, although the best piece of advice I would give to parents is to always watch your commentary about various schools. The reality is that you may very well have no concept of where your student can get in today, and a guaranteed way to make a kid feel like a loser is for them to end up at a school their parent badmouthed six months earlier.
We write a lot about the ways that colleges use data to track applicants - but the tracking doesn’t necessarily stop after matriculation! The Wall Street Journal covered the many ways that schools are beginning to use data to change the student experience, from academic advising to identifying at-risk students.
And speaking of data - WalletHub recently put together a set of community college rankings based on methodology that considers cost in relation to career and academic outcomes. You can check out how individual community colleges performed as well as entire state systems.
If you’re wondering our how local options stacked up, Northern Virginia Community College came in at #165 and Montgomery College came in at #7 (impressive!) out of 936 community colleges nationally. Honestly, I think that both NOVA and MC offer INCREDIBLE opportunities for students who want to save some money or take a non-traditional path. Students can land guaranteed admission agreements to UVA, Georgetown, and a number of other great schools - pretty amazing if you ask me.
OFFICE HAPPENINGS
Shannon helped one of our students submit what I believe was our first binding early decision application of the year at the beginning of this past week, which was very exciting! We are all crossing our fingers for him.
Most students in Fairfax County have their senior year schedules now - so it’s a great time to cross-check with the Common App and list of planned AP tests to ensure that none of that information needs to be updated.
Have a great weekend - I will be supervising lots of last-minute summer reading, can’t wait :)
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