colleges have eliminated them as requirements. Admission people look just as carefully—even more so—at your grades, your rank in class, the courses you’ve taken, extracurricular activities, essay, recommendations and the whole admission package.

Associate Degree (AS) A degree earned by completing at least two, but less than four years of study, often in a specific or technical area, typically at community colleges or other two-year schools. A few four-year colleges offer an AS for two years of courses in a specialized field.

Bachelor’s Degree in Science or Arts (BS or BA) This is your reward for completing a series of prescribed courses, both a major and minors, in a four-year college or university. It is your diploma for the first phase of higher education.

Deferred Admissions Some colleges allow you to post-pone your attendance for one year after you’ve been accepted. This gives you a chance to earn money.

Early Admission At some colleges, you can be admitted at the end of your junior year if you have exceptional abilities and grades, and the permission of your high school.

Early Decision Let’s say that you know exactly which college you want to attend and are reasonably sure you will be accepted. You contact the college and apply for early decision. They then notify you of their decision, usually by December 1 of your senior year. Once accepted, you must attend that college and withdraw your applications to other schools. Not every college has this policy, and those that do must be very sure that you want to attend.

your “admissibility” without obliging you to attend the college you’ve contacted.

Matriculated A matriculated college student is one who takes classes and courses toward a degree. A non-matriculated student takes courses but is not working toward a degree.

Rolling Admissions Colleges that make their admission decision and notify the student soon after receiving the application. In contrast, some colleges have specific dates—usually in the spring—when they notify all students of their admission decisions, regardless of when they received the application.

Undergraduate Anything to do with students, courses or social events prior to the BA or BS degree—as in “undergraduate student” or “undergraduate course in biology” or “undergraduate get-acquainted party.”

University There are colleges, and there are universities, and, frankly, the distinction between them blurs. Universities are organized around different “colleges” or “schools”, and each of these has a focused field of study—such as liberal arts, business, health sciences, agriculture and communications—with programs for both undergraduate and graduate students. Colleges may concentrate more on undergraduate education with fewer graduate programs.

There is nothing that can replace “time and effort” when it comes to finding and applying for scholarships. Using the resources available in the Guidance Office, checking the information contained in the MHSN Scholarship Guidelines (also available on North’s website, www.mtbenorth.org) and in the Counselors’ Roarrrrr, visiting the homepage of specific colleges/universities, checking with groups/organizations to which family members belong, applying for local scholarships offered through the high school, and being aware of reading or hearing about available scholarships advertised in the media, will help families as they plan for financing a college education.

Watch out for the following claims companies will make in an effort to scam families:

“For a fee, we provide a comprehensive list of scholarships.” Don’t spend money on a fee-based matching service. The biggest and best scholarship databases are available, at no charge, on the web.

“Billions of dollars of award monies going unclaimed” Statements about funds going unclaimed are simply untrue. If funds are available, students will compete for them.

“We have a money-back guarantee” Legitimate scholarships are always competitive. No one can guarantee that you will win a scholarship.

“We need your credit card or bank account number” No legitimate scholarship should require this information.

 But the experience turned out so badly—his son transferred after just a year—that he vowed never to do it that way again.

So his daughter Sumi, a senior at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Prince George’s County, Md., and he have adopted a different approach to the college search and have found a number of useful sources of information, including some intriguing, if acerbic, Web sites, that Pollyannas like me would never consider. Call it the Pessimist’s Paradigm. For those of you who are still looking for a good school, or will be doing so eventually, I want to share the Carters’ view of the darker side of undergraduate education.”

"In a very competitive market place,” Carter says, “most colleges have marketing specialists in their admissions department to sell their schools. Every college wants to put its best face forward. So every glossy college brochure looks wonderful. Autumn leaves. Smiling college students. Classes outdoors under trees. U.S. News & World Report rankings. It is mostly crapola.”

He considers the U.S. News list “a beauty contest where only college presidents vote.” I would not go that far. The list measures some objective criteria, but as the  Washington Post pointed out in a recent story, ratings by college administrators get the heaviest weight in the U.S. News system, and college administrators who want to rise in the ranking have taken to lobbying each other, even giving gifts, in hopes of getting friendlier reviews when the U.S. News survey comes around.

“Even visiting a college or staying overnight can be deceptive,” Carter says. “The schools only use the most positive and most successful students as campus guides, so their opinions are uniformly positive. The schools put on the Ritz when prospective students are expected, upgrading the food in the cafeteria, planting extra flowers, painting dorms and generally cleaning up.”

I found some entertainingly candid campus tour guides when I accompanied Katie to some colleges, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with tidying up for guests, but Carter’s basic point is irrefutable: This is big business, and the colleges are unlikely to advertise their problems.

So how can we innocents keep from being fooled? The Carters recommend a Web site called www.studentsreview.com, created by MIT students and full of youthful insider advice. “It is a very interesting site and has helped me in determining which school is best for me,” Sumi Carter says. “It also helped me eliminate a couple of schools that were on my list. It is very interesting to see what the undergrad students think. I was considering Rensselaer (Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, NY), but after searching the site and looking at comments I changed my mind and decided to look elsewhere.”

The Carters emphasize that they are not looking just for problems, and that they found many positive reviews on www.studentsreview.com. I tried it and liked it, although some schools did not get enough reviews to allow the reader to draw any valid conclusions.

For fun, I looked at schools that graduated recent US presidents. Here are some quick student comments found on the Web site:

• Whittier (Nixon)—The faculty is “friendly, helpful, encouraging, challenging” but unless you have a car “don’t even bother attending.”

• US Naval Academy (Carter)—“A very cut and dry place. Either you know your stuff or you do not.”
  

• Yale (the Bushes)—“A wonderful place” but “students tend to be nerds and are often spending sunny days in the library.”
  

• Georgetown (Clinton)—The gym “is an eyesore” and being in the library “is absolutely depressing” but “my peers are just as intelligent as my professors.”

report bad news, with helpful details. I like the “Unofficial, Biased Insider’s Guide to the 320 Most Interesting Colleges.” Here is what co-author Seppy Basili, Kaplan Inc. vice-president for learning and assessment, says in that guide about Rensselaer, the school Sumi Carter removed from her list after checking with www.studentsreview.com: “Brains and Greeks, no liberal arts, and there is a 3:1 male/female ratio. Try dating a critical reactor (if you haven’t already).”

Basili says one of the most important sources for his guide, co-authored with Trent Anderson, are student newspapers. “They are up-to-date and unfiltered by the college’s public relations team,” he says.

The Carters and I agree. Many of my relatives and friends, as well as me, have worked on college papers. We were always eager to demonstrate our courageous objectivity with stories about frequently absent faculty members, cruel dormitory proctors, and obfuscating university publicists. T. H. Carter recommends stopping by the office of the campus newspaper if a school is at or near the top of your list and “ask for the latest dirt—school scandals, stories done on professors, campus crime, date rape, corruption in the administration, drug and alcohol use and abuse, etc.”

Since this is still my column, I insist on ending with a positive note. Despite her high standards, Sumi Carter found seven schools that, although not perfect, she has enough confidence in to risk paying an application fee. They are: Vassar, Haverford, Williams, Susquehanna, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, University of Pittsburgh, and Johns Hopkins.

by Jay Mathews
Washington Post  

On November 14^th, a mix of 45 juniors and seniors attended the First Annual Atlantic City College Fair. The students had the opportunity to meet with representatives from over 250 colleges and universities. In addition, the students had the opportunity to attend various workshops, including: financial aid, NCAA, writing the college essay, and selecting a college that fits.

On December 2^nd, 40 students went to Rutgers University to talk to representatives from the school, tour the school, and to meet with Middletown North Alumni that are in their freshman year at Rutgers.

On December 10^th, a special representative from Adelphi University came to our school to meet with seniors. He spoke about the many scholarships and programs offered at Adelphi. In addition, he left a great deal of literature about Adelphi in the College and Career Center (room 110).

Sophomores and Juniors met with their counselors over the past few weeks to go over their PSAT scores.