Just a quick post to tell you about some fun things I found.
The first one is Movie Review FAQs, a nice little site that gives you the basics on films so you can decide if you want to see it or not. I think it’s a good resource, especially for ESL learners who want to use films to practice listening.
The second one is a post on Translating Letters of Recommendation. Very funny, but also very apt. Be careful when you read letters of rec written for you, because colleges …Continue

Campus Squeeze, “a site dedicated to making the whole college experience much, much less serious than it should be,” has published their list of the 20 Most Beautiful College Campuses and the 20 Ugliest in the US. The methodology has been questioned as the reviewers apparently didn’t actually visit any of these schools and are only going by website pictures. Some may regard such a survey as ridiculous and unnecessary but there is something to be said for a university campus being pleasant and comfortable. It makes studying easier. And …Continue

An interesting piece in the news: The University of Southern Maine has banned 462 students who didn’t get up to date mumps shots. The students can remain in college housing apparently, but they are forbidden from coming to class. The measure was taken to avoid an outbreak of mumps on campus. In the state of Maine, authorities believe that 35 people have the mumps, including one university student.
So get your vaccinations. It’s serious business.

This article is part of a series on rankings. Part 1 talked about critiques of the US News ratings. Part 2 talked about the methodology of the US New rankings and Part 3 offered alternatives for finding the university or program of your dreams without rankings.
This article will look at the methodology of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University rankings, which rate universities all over the world and show that the ratings are based on information that for the most part is of no use to students.
A lot of talk is …Continue

European universities have been going through severe crises in the past years. Unlike America where the best schools are private, most European countries have maintained government control over their top schools, if not all higher education institutions.
In France, home of Le Sorbonne, widely regarded as one of the best universities in the world, many have complained that too much government control has led to stagnation and lack of innovation. A law was recently proposed to allow universities to raise funds from private sources with more freedom. This would allow French …Continue

I somehow missed the scandal over the new US News rankings which came out in August of this year. My views on these rankings have been made pretty clear.
First of all participation in the survey they send college and university administrators is falling to 51% return rate from 58% last year. And even 58% is pretty low, indicating that many people do not consider the rankings to be a high priority. The reputation survey asks university presidents, deans, and admissions officials to rank other universities based on their reputation. It …Continue

The ETS TOEFL newsletter popped in my inbox today, and there was a short article that I thought might be of interest to some students on Applying to MBA programs. It’s just some common sense advice but for foreign students where the process is so different, it’s worth listening to. For example in Kazakhstan, starting to look for schools a year ahead of time is not common but in the US it is. Which means that admissions officials assume you have been thinking about business school (or university or another …Continue

I recently came across an article in ETS’ TOEFL Access Newsletter, featuring a typical schedule in the day of the life of an American undergraduate university student entitled Everyday Life. It certainly was one take on American university life and may give you some idea of the rhythm of universities here. However for a counterpoint, I thought I would present my typical day at school and I would love to hear from you gentle readers. What is your typical day at school like? It would be great to hear from …Continue

If there’s a sign of the times in college admissions, it may be this: Steven Roy Goodman, an independent college counselor, tells clients to make a small mistake somewhere in their application on purpose.
“Sometimes it’s a typo,” he says. “I don’t want my students to sound like robots. It’s pretty easy to fall into that trap of trying to do everything perfectly and there’s no spark left.”
This advice to deliberately make a mistake in your application comes from a story on ABC News, Colleges Seek ‘Authenticity’ in Hopefuls. Controversial advice, …Continue

A new project by ETS, the makers of the TOEFL, GRE, and SAT exams, will attempt to measure candidates for graduate school in a more accurate way, by standardizing measures of subjective merit.
One of the biggest problems graduate programs face is just that: getting the ultimately subjective information they need about a candidate’s personality, academic qualifications and ability to study in a way that is easy to evaluate. The GRE test is one measure of academic ability and skill but that is only part of what a graduate program needs …Continue

Inside Higher Ed is reporting on a settlement in the SAT Errors suit. On the October 2005 test, a number of test takers claimed that their test scores were incorrect, and filed a class-action suit against ETS, the creator of the SAT and other standardized tests like the TOEFL, GRE, MCAT and GMAT as well as NCS Pearson, which scores the SAT.
Last week, the lawyers representing around 4 400 test-takers and ETS and Pearson settled and the test centers have agreed to pay 285 million dollars. The victims can either …Continue

I know how it is. You really want to go to an elite school. Your parents are pushing you to go to Harvard or MIT or Stanford. Your friend got into Duke and he thinks he’s so much cooler than you. But maybe your grades aren’t good enough, or you can’t afford to go. That’s not a problem apparently.
One student just decided to show up to classes at Stanford and hope no one noticed that she wasn’t actually enrolled or registered. She even lived in the dorms with a …Continue

KIMEP is considered one of the best universities in Kazakhstan, a private venture supported by the government and foreign institutions. It offers degrees in business, management, and other professional fields as well as running a consulting company. Courses are taught in English along the American system and the President is an American citizen. However, The Kimep Blog paints a different picture, with accusations of corruption, mismanagement, and mistreatment of the foreigners who teach there. Check it out for another side of the story, though obviously I cannot verify the truth …Continue

What is the difference between the IELTS and TOEFL? Which one should you take? This article will try to help you make that decision and give a brief intro to each test.
Admissions
The IELTS test is administrated by the British Councils, the University of Cambridge, and IELTS Australia. That is to say, it is associated with the British government and traditionally was used by British universities, as well as New Zealand and Australian universities to determine the language capability of foreign students. TOEFL is administered by ETS, a US-based non-profit and …Continue

There is a site called Rate My Professor which allows students to rate their professors by university, subject and name. In principle this is not a bad idea. Before taking a class with a new professor, I always tried to find a few people who knew the prof so I had an idea of whether he/she was a good lecturer, what kind of workload was expected, how accessible the prof was outside of class. A professor makes or breaks a class, without question so knowing something about the prof. is …Continue