Renting Books?

Any student will tell you that the price of textbooks is ridiculous--especially when new versions are published seemingly-annually, making it nearly possible to resell the books. However, according to an article in today's Chronicle of Higher Education, a new company has built itself around the concept of renting textbooks. I have copied the article in its entirety below as it is rather short:

To Avoid High Price of Textbooks, Students Turn to Renting

With a college textbook often costing more than $100, it’s no wonder that students are protesting, and Congress has discussed legislation to lower the price of textbooks.

But what if students rented books instead of buying them? That’s the business model behind a company called Chegg, which was started a year ago and bills itself as “the Netflix for college textbooks.” Students identify the books they want to rent and place their order online. Then, Chegg ships the books to students’ residences. After using the books for a semester, students mail the books back to Chegg with prepaid shipping labels that they download from the Chegg Web site.

Chegg literature says its rental model can save students 60 percent to 80 percent off the price of a book. —Andrea L. Foster

Welcome to Jerusalem

We are very proud of our many study abroad programs, and after eight years, the University has decided to reestablish its undergraduate program in Jerusalem next summer. The program was originally suspended in 2000 because of regional political violence, but the current situation allows for its safe return.

The complete article is here.

I'm back!

I apologize for the lack of posts last week--I was out of town on a family vacation. But, I'm back now and I'll be posting things as I sort through my e-mails and the news from the past week.

Buying the SAT answer sheet

There are three exams from which students may purchase their answer sheets to the SAT: January, May, and October. By purchasing their sheets, students are able to review their answers and work in possible areas of weakness before taking the exam again.

Buying the sheets from the May exam would seem to be best as this would allow a student to practice and study during the summer months.

Picture of the Day - June 19

I took a bike ride around the lake and saw these young guys grooming themselves--and each other!

Five more years of football on NBC

The University and NBC announced today that they have reached an agreement for ND home football games to be on NBC for five more years. The full article is here, and unfortunately, commercials will still be every two minutes during the broadcast.

Picture of the Day - June 18

Flowers by the Grotto.

The new SAT

A recent study by the College Board, the company that owns and administers the SAT, shows that the revised test with a writing section does not predict college success any better than the old exam. The New York Times article is found here.

The SAT is always a great topic of debate, and our office will continue to consider it (or the ACT) as part of each application. We are still mainly considering the two "traditional" Critical Reading and Math sections. While we look at an applicant's writing score, it is not calculated in the composite we use when evaluating applications.

Online publications

It may be helpful to bookmark this website, which provides links to many of the online academic publications from some of the colleges on campus.

The site itself isn't pretty, but it will at least point you in the right direction!

A call for ideas

If you're reading this blog, you're probably one of the more active ASCs out there--thank you! Do you have any good ideas to share with other ASCs? Perhaps some best practices for your contact with admitted students, your club's reception(s) for admitted students, ideas for college fairs, or how you help with info. nights?

I am trying to put together a database of ideas and best practices, so please send anything and everything my way!

Thanks!

Picture of the Day - June 16

The "Gap Year"

I might say this because a student just e-mailed me about one this morning, but "gap years"--taking a year off between high school and college to do service or other related activities--
seem to be growing in popularity. Some students are finding they are not ready for college immediately after high school, and a number of these students choose to productively spend there time elsewhere, usually in some sort of international immersion program.

This New York Times article recounts the experiences of a student who completed a gap year which influenced her degree--and her life's direction.

Picture of the Day - June 13

A field full of squirrels!
Yes, I have some weird obsession with the campus squirrels, but have a great weekend anyway!

Popular professor honored

Professor James McKenna, who teaches an extremely popular first-year anthropology class (I know a number of people who went into the class knowing nothing about anthropology and came out as anthropology majors), recently received the 2008 Anthropology Media Award. The full story is here.

OK, so maybe I'm stretching it a bit by posting this article, but it's the "dog days of summer" and things are pretty quiet here on campus!

The year in review

The featured video on www.nd.edu today is "The Year in Review: 2007-2008". It concentrates a bit too much on "Notre Dame is ranked this" and "such and such is ranked this", but is nevertheless a good review of what has happened in the past twelve months. You can find the video by going to www.nd.edu, or also by clicking this link if you're more of a YouTube fan.

Picture of the Day - June 10

Research on the "Millennials" generation

The College Board recently conducted research concerning the "Millennials" generation, made up of those students who entered college at the beginning of this decade/century/millennium.

We have all heard the stories of how this generation (my generation!) is disinterested, lethargic, apathetic, selfish, etc., especially in comparison to the immediately preceding generations. However, the College Board research concluded that the "Millennials" are more like their parents than many believed.

You can find the research and its conclusions here. Of particular interest are the findings about "Factors in College Choice", "Purpose of a College Education" and "Factors in the College Environment".

More on the CommonApp

In less than a month (July 1), the Common Application will be available online for students, although they will not be able to apply to Notre Dame until they complete our supplement which will be available on August 1.

In the meantime, I encourage you to familiarize yourself with the Common App. Those of you who had children apply to the colleges in the past few years probably know it pretty well, but below are some links to different pages and forms with relevant Common App information.

Main site: www.commonapp.org

Forms: https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/DownloadForms.aspx (as you see on this page, students are encouraged to apply online, but clicking on the different forms will give you an idea of what is asked of them)

Common questions: https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/FAQ.aspx

List of Common App members: https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Members.aspx (Notre Dame is considered an "Exclusive Member" because we accept only the Common App--we do not have our own application in addition to the Common App).

Please let me know if you have any questions!

A feel good story

A few weeks ago, Julie Hermann, the ASC for the ND Club of Dubuque, Iowa , dropped me an e-mail with a story about the Notre Dame/Navy game last year. That's right, this was the game where we lost for the first time in 43 years to the Midshipmen. But, while we may have left the stadium (or couch for those of you watching at home) feeling empty, Julie's story reminds us why we love Notre Dame and why we're so proud to be Domers.

Julie's e-mail was a little long to post on the blog, so I uploaded it as a .pdf file which you can find here.

Thanks, Julie!

Common App FAQ

As I promised in today's e-mail, here is a copy of the Common Application FAQ. Let me know if you cannot download the file or if you have any questions!

Picture of the Day - June 5

Professors as Pitchmen

When students come to visit campus, they often request visits with professors and other academic individuals on campus. This article, originally published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, discusses the role of professors in the recruitment process.

Each spring, we hold admitted student receptions on select Thursday nights. These are open houses for admitted students where they can meet professors and other staff members from campus in an informal setting. The programs allow the students to see the personal and caring side of some of the leading academics on campus.

We found a planet!

OK, the title to this post is a bit misleading, but if you ever get the question, "When was the last time a scientist from Notre Dame discovered a planet?", you now have an answer: Monday.

On Monday, Notre Dame's David Bennett and his international team presented their discovery of MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb, which is only about 3,000 light years away. What is remarkable about this finding is that MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb orbits a star with an incredibly low mass--something scientists did not know was possible until now.

You can read the complete article and some of the technical descriptions here.

I don't know about you, but I think I would have named the star something more exciting than MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb...

Coming to campus this summer?

If you are coming back to campus this summer and want to relive the glory days of dorm life, then I have just the thing for you! The University has opened St. Ed's Hall (not as nice, good, cool, awesome, etc. as Knott Hall, but I think we all have our opinions on these things) for summer visitors.

Sure, it's not the Morris Inn, and I encourage you to come when it is not extremely hot and humid outside (this weekend would not be ideal), but who could pass up this opportunity?!?

Zorich back on campus

Former football player Chris Zorich will be returning to campus, but this time as an employee of the University.

Zorich will be working in the Athletic Department as the manager of student welfare and development. A tad bit more information can be found in this article.

Not only was Zorich a great football player, but he's also an outstanding person, and it will be wonderful to have him back on campus.

Basilica repairs

Things tend to slow down quite a bit during this time of the year, and as a result, we get posts like this:

You may remember hearing about a pretty bad storm that ripped through campus last year. Some of the older trees on campus were uprooted and there was some damage done to the Basilica. It was actually pretty scary to watch-I'm not sure I've ever seen winds as strong as that day.

Now, a year later, the repairs are being made to the Basilica--you can see some of the scaffolding in place in the picture to the left. This work is just one of many projects currently in progress on campus: Cavanaugh is currently under renovation and new sewers are being installed under North Quad to name a few.

While summer may be quiet for us, that does not mean things stop happening on campus!