The words given below are a direct quotation from the Collaborative Thinking Blog. Please visit Mike Gotta's blog for his excellent expanded analysis. It is amazing to learn that the top colleges and the universities in America are using Facebook and mySpace as part of their candidate evaluation process. It makes sense … I just had not realized how pervasive social networks had become. Time to insure my son's high school Facebook entry is "acceptable".

"This post is a follow-up to my previous thoughts regarding social networking and employment. An ongoing study being conducted by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (Center for Marketing Research), has revealed some significant findings. A "sneak peak" report, The Game Has Changed: Web preview (PDF),
indicates how the higher education system (colleges and universities)
are being quite aggressive in their use of social media. The preview
report compares results to a previous study on use of social media by
business organizations. The methodology is based on 450+ detailed
interviews with admissions departments and includes well-known
institutions such as Duke, Carnegie Mellon, University of Arizona and
University of Pennsylvania. What I found striking is the use of social
media as a means of learning more about student applicants."

My previous post, Colleges Don’t Like Being Graded, has generated some good comments from two individuals I highly respect, Stephen Downes and John Hunter. Here are some additional comments about the conflict between the Annapolis Group of College and US News & World Report.

• The Annapolis Group desires to use a ranking system developed and run by Academia. It is difficult (not impossible) to run a self-ranking / grading system and be truly objective.
• US News can provide a benchmark for helping families select schools to visit. For example, my family first became aware of Wartburg College via their US News & World Report’s positive rankings. Thus, while driving home to Minnesota after a visit to Valparaiso University in Indiana, my middle child and I decided to route through Iowa and see Wartburg (link to their admissions page … with rankings). Carl now attends Wartburg.  Everyone in the family is happy with the Wartburg choice, but most importantly Carl!  In my case, I feel the US News rankings were accurate.

As we head into the home stretch this Fall with my youngest child’s follow-up college visits, here are the schools we have chosen … and a few of the reasons why they are on the final list. In Erik’s case, all the schools had to have good engineering programs (listed in alpha order):

• Michigan Tech University (location: Lake Superior and X-Country Skiing)
• Olin School of Engineering (email from an Olin student who read my blog)
• Purdue University (US News Ranking)
• Rose Holman Institute of Technology (US News Ranking)
• Valparaiso University (Christian School, US News Ranking)
• Worcester Polytechnic Institute (new robotics program)

Right now Erik’s preference is towards the schools in this list whose highest degree is an engineering masters, but that could change!

Finally, we all use grades (see Wikipedia’s rather long winded entry). You could get a "00" in Denmark, which would mean completely unacceptable performance. How many of us bloggers use grades? … page hits, Technorati rankings, number of subscribers, recent readers, Google rankings for keywords, etc …

I give the Annapolis Group of colleges an F. This fairly prestigious group of schools doesn’t like the US News and World Report College Rankings. It’s one thing to give grades; it’s another thing, apparently, to be graded!

As my youngest child prepares to finish the college admissions process, I’ll just note that I have always found US News rankings helpful. If you’re curious, read more …

• Annapolis Group Overview
• Annapolis Editorial on US News & World Report Ranking System
• US News & World Report Response to Annapolis

My wife returned recently from a college exploration trip with our son to Michigan Tech in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. As our family works our way past the mid point of our college visits, here is one fact that amazes me. Most kids dress like slobs when they visit colleges, and don’t show much respect for college officials. Let me explain …

The college admissions process is competitive, particularly for scholarship dollars. Thus, my wife and I have insisted that each of children wear nice clothes … and no sneakers, during their visits and meetings with the various colleges. However, most of the other children arrive wearing blue jeans, shorts, t-shirts, and worse. Given that the admissions staff, and professors, are often in coats and ties, shouldn’t it be obvious that one should show respect, and be well dressed in return?

I’ve noticed that the treatment our family receives on visits is often better than other families.  I wonder why? Is it because we respect the process. Given Erik’s background, he will get into most schools to which he applies, but I have to believe our attitude towards these visits will help in the pursuit of scholarship dollars.

In closing, it is almost comical how many times I’ve seen kids wear college sweat shirts from "other schools" while on an admissions visit.  While at Purdue University, one boy showed up wearing a Notre Dame sweat shirt!

Catchy title, huh? However, it’s true. Father and son (the two nerds) discovered that Iowa Rest Stops are equipped with free wireless. Iowa is cool! If you look at the Google Maps image you’ll realize we are smack dab in the middle of nowhere (I-35 in northern Iowa) … both Minneapolis and Des Moines are over 125 miles away each. It’s traditional in the Hoeg family that the returning parent and child from any college visit trip meet at Applebee’s with the parent who stayed home. We could just use my cell phone and call my wife, but that would not be any fun! Instead, both Erik and I agreed we needed to test Iowa’s free wireless rest stops, and send my wife an email with the time to meet for the debriefing session … without the other kids.

Now this is an important point … our college visits always include a debriefing session. In a family of multiple children, it is always a treat to go to a restaurant without the other children. In addition, the parent who made the trip must remain "quiet" (in this case, me) while my son tells my wife of his impressions of each school. You will learn what your child thinks (a novel concept)!

Thank you to everyone for your comments … often with the names of schools we should consider. Over the Easter weekend, Erik and I will do some more research online. To view other posts in the college search series, link here.
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