(Source: CNNMoney)Would you attend Trump University? You might get the chance.
According to CNN, donald trump has filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to secure a trademark for the name Trump University. The site speculates that Trump might be considering an online business school.
I wonder if it'll offer a course in casino management.
So the suspense ends. Here are the 2005 rankings courtesy of U.S. News:
National Universities1.Harvard University
Princeton University
3.Yale University
4. University of Pennsylvania
5. Duke University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stanford University
8. California Institute of Technology
9. Columbia University
Dartmouth College
National Liberal Arts Colleges1. Williams College
2. Amherst College
Swarthmore College
4. Wellesley College
5. Carleton College
Pomona College
7. Bowdoin College
Davidson College
9. Haverford College
Wesleyan University
Speaking of liberal arts colleges, here's a piece discussing how presidents of 15 of them joined forces to renounce the U.S. News rankings. Some of them refused to participate in the survey. You'll see the usual carping: quality can't be quantified; rankings mislead students and parents; numbers can't capture the quality of classroom instruction; and reputation rankings favor the brand names.
New year, same complaints.
The 2005 edition of "America's Best Colleges," the annual rankings issue published by U.S. News and World Report, isn't out yet, but I have an advance copy of the results. I'm sworn to secrecy, but I can reveal a few tidbits.
Among national universities, the top four are Ivies. There's some movement within the top 10, but the membership is essentially the same. The best public university checks in at number 21.
Similarly, the top 10 national liberal Arts colleges remain more or less intact. But there's now a tie at number two and one Maine institution inched up a bit.
The rankings issue should hit the newsstands next month. Stay tuned.
The new Princeton Review rankings are out, and are again attracting controversy, much like the U.S. News rankings. In particular, colleges are a bit prickly about being named on the "top party schools" list.
This year's "winner" is SUNY-Albany, on the list for the ninth time. Number one in 1998, Albany jumped back to the top from last year's 14th place finish. University officials aren't pleased.
From the AP:
"If this were a term paper, it would get an "F" in methodology," university spokeswoman Lisa James-Goldsberry said in a statement. "The rankings are not to be taken seriously, and are certainly not reflective of the serious, hardworking students at Albany."Who said any publicity is good?
Here's a twist on the legacy admissions debate, courtesy of the L.A. Times. In a recent commentary, the Times reflects on President Bush's denouncement of legacy admissions (even though he benefited from the practice), noting that by admitting children of alumni, universities encourage donations. Those donations, the argument goes, help to fund scholarships that support under-privileged students, many of whom are minorities. As a result, then, "legacy admissions subsidize diversity."
The piece goes on to address the argument that legacy admissions violate the concept of a meritocracy. What is merit, anyway? the asks. How do you measure it? You can't because "merit in this world is elusive, and the mechanisms for assessing it can be quixotic."
To be perfectly blunt, the author presents a weak case. Defending legacy admissions by claiming that happy alumni will give money to underwrite scholarship aid and make the place more diverse is na–ve. Will alumni not give if their kids aren't admitted? What percentage of scholarship aid comes from these happy folks? Don't many of these scholarships involve restrictions that might in fact disqualify minorities, at least implicitly? Where are the facts to support these assertions?
It's fairly easy to defend legacy admissions, at least at private universities. These institutions have great latitude in choosing whom to admit, and they do take many characteristics into account in that decision. Legacy status is one among several. If that status happens to tip the decision in the applicant's favor, so be it. It's the university's prerogative. Is it fair? Tell me what in the admissions game is.
(Source: University of Pennsylvania)According to the chronicle of higher education, applications to full-time M.B.A. programs have dropped. The article (here, for subscribers) says the following:
More than three-quarters of the two-year, full-time M.B.A. programs surveyed received fewer applications for the 2003-4 academic year than they had for 2002-3. In 41 percent of the programs, the slide was more than 20 percent.Compared with the peak year of 2002, the Chronicle reports, the numbers are down 25 percent. Here's one take on why:
Two years ago, when the American economy was in a slump, M.B.A. programs were at the height of their popularity. But now that the economy appears to be improving, more students are entering the job market rather than heading to professional schools, experts say.In response, many leading business schools are recruiting more aggressively. As this Business Week piece points out, even such luminaries as Penn's Wharton School and Duke's Fuqua School are reaching out earlier to applicants and making last-minute recruitment pushes.
The upshot? Now may be a great time to think about that M.B.A.
President Bush decried the practice of legacy admissions before a group of minority journalists in Washington. He said admissions should reward merit and not create "a special exception for certain people in a system that's supposed to be fair."
Bush also said that he supports "colleges affirmatively taking action to get more minorities in their school."
What about his own legacy status? Isn't that how he got into Yale?
"Well, in my case," Bush said, "I had to knock on a lot of doors to follow the old man's footsteps."
Bush's comments on legacies made news, but his views on sovereign nations, also revealed at this conference, made headlines.
Here's how it unfolded:
Q: What do you think tribal sovereignty means in the 21st century, and how do we resolve conflicts between tribes and the federal and the state governments?
A: Tribal sovereignty means that, it's sovereign. You're a—you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. [Audience snickering....] And, therefore, the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Colleges always tout their geographic diversity, so applicants and families naturally think that being remote gives them a better shot at getting in. So if you hope to get into Williams, is it better to be from Dubuque or Williamstown? All things equal, probably the latter.
As this Boston Globe article suggests, many colleges favor students from their own town or neighborhood. Accepting the locals, assuming they're qualified, aids town-gown relations and generates good publicity. In some cases, students may qualify for certain scholarships earmarked for graduates of nearby schools.
So if you're living in New Haven or Amherst or Hanover, don't presume you have to seek elsewhere.
