These were my suggestions: Web Tools for Students.

Below are some favorites of Digg users. I havn’t checked any of them out, but will do so soon. Feel free to make more suggestions.

Digg List of Web Tools for Students

mynoteIT
Note sharing.

Facebook
Needs no explanation.

Mayomi
Map your mind. Mapping out papers and brainstorming.

Foonance
Managing personal finances.

ThinkFree
Free online office 1 GB storage.

OpenOffice.org
Free Office suite.

Student Manager
Note taking, file manager, alerts.

Newshutch
Alternative to Bloglines.

37Signals
Sharable lists. Looks very cool.

Emusic
25 songs free. It’s addicitive.

TinyPic
Media site.

FreeTube
TV channels online.

Newsvine
News articles from around the world.

k7.net
Fax and voicemail service.

Sparknotes
Note sharing service.

Koolim
A Web messenger that lets you log in to aol, icq, msn, yahoo, irc, jabber, sametime, etc.

CampusFood.com
Order pizza, wings & chinese food online at 300+ colleges.

Posted by Sindya Bhanoo
College | Web Tools |College Tips

If you aren’t already managing your spreadsheets through Google Spreadsheets (which is linked right off your Gmail) you should be.

There’s more now. In a few short days, you can maintain your word documents through your Google account as well. Writely is moving over to Google Accounts for sign-in.

The best part is that you can share word documents with others, either providing read-only or full access. All changes are real-time and accessible from anywhere.

Tomorrow’s headline? “Students have run out of every imaginable excuse for not being able to finish their homework.” Then again, dogs aren’t really going anywhere.

Posted by Sindya Bhanoo
Online Tools | Google

In the Mind of a High School Senior

Ever wonder what a person decides when they’ve been accepted to Harvard and Princeton? How about Virginia and Brown? Or Darthmouth and Columbia?

Economists have done a study that tell us just that. Didn’t you always want to know that 89% of students who get into Harvard and Brown choose Harvard. Or that 22% of students choosing between Northwestern and Dartmouth choose Northwestern?

All this and more, is available on this chart put out by the New York Times. They also did an article on it.

For the full study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, look here.

Posted by Sindya Bhanoo
College | Choosing Schools

Online Tools for College Students

One of the most cumbersome things about group work is the organization.

Chris from StudentPR@Work offers some great tools that help ease that pain. In this recent post he talks about a few of them.

We already gave you our top 10.

Here are some of Chris’s suggestions:

1) Wikis - “Wikis are an excellent way to get big projects done, especially for school….Everyone involved can write and edit them…there are a number of free ones that you can set up in seconds, such as PBwiki.com, wikispaces.com or wetpaint.com.”

2) Writely - ” Writely allows everyone to edit the same document online – no attachments, no emails…” As I previously mentioned, I also use this all the time. You can download the files in ANY format you want to, including pdf. How cool is that?

3) stu.dicio.us. - “…it’s helpful for any group of people who want to publicly share notes…”

He also recommends del.icio.us, a tool I’ve used to keep bookmark various articles and links by subject.

I haven’t started using wikis for my own work yet, but I almost took an entirely wiki-based class this semester. I think the concept will soon, like blogs, become more or less commonplace.

Posted by Sindya Bhanoo
Online Tools | Wikis

Harvard and Yale have rivaled over everything under the sun for centuries now. Their latest battle is about early admission.

Harvard has decided to discontinue early admission, a process which applicants apply early and find out about their admissions months before others.

The reasoning? It favors the rich, Harvard President Derek Bok said. Yale President Richard Levin is doubtful though, whether Harvard’s move will actually bring in more low-income students. He believes that more financial aid and more active recruiting are better options. But Harvard’s research indicated that higher-income students tended to apply early and were more likely to be admitted.

Both schools want the best students, and both offer incredibly generous scholarship packages to students from low income families.

So which school is right on the early admissions issue? We’ll have to wait and look at the Fall 2008 entering freshmen class at both schools to understand what the significance of this decision is. Harvard’s new policy will go into effect for students who apply in Fall 2007.

If Harvard isn’t happy with their incoming student body, they may resurrect the early admissions option.

Posted by Sindya Bhanoo
Harvard | Yale | Early Admissions

The Daily Californian reported that graduate school enrollment has reached a nationwide high.

“Nationally, the 643 schools surveyed in the report saw a total enrollment increase of 3 percent among women and 6 percent among black students from fall 2004 to 2005.”

Good news, particularly for minority students, but just a few days later, the New York Times also reported, that graduation rates at colleges nationwide are slipping.

“About 50 colleges across the country have a six-year graduation rate below 20 percent, according to the Education Trust, a nonprofit research group. Many of the institutions serve low-income and minority students.”

A few Chicago schools reported frighteningly low rates:
“At Northeastern Illinois University, a tidy commuter campus on the North Side of Chicago, only 17 percent of students who enroll as full-time freshmen graduate within six years, according to data collected by the federal Department of Education. At Chicago State University on the South Side, the overall graduation rate is 16 percent”

Many of these students who are not graduating are,
“…the first in their families to go to college, they said. Many come ill prepared. Often the students are
older, have children and work full time.”

“It also cited federal statistics showing that only 4 percent of all African-American students at Northeastern Illinois graduated within six years.”

Four percent???

Although this data can’t quite be called contradictory, it is a bit perplexing. What is going “right” and resulting in an increased number of minority and disadvantaged students in graduate school? And what is going so wrong and resulting in shockingly low college graduation rates?

Presumably, everyone who starts college wants to finish college. Why else make the dual investment of time and money? So why aren’t these students able to stay in school? What are the issues (maybe family responsibilities or finanical need) that come up? And what can be done about this?

Meanwhile, strong graduate school enrollment is a great sign.

Posted by Sindya Bhanoo
Graduation Rates | Minority Students

NYU Tackles Suicide, Depression Issues With Theater

NYU has come with a new way to orient freshman to challenges, issues of college life that include “drugs and date rape, drinking and anorexia, depression and suicide.”

Freshman are being shown a musical, written, produced and enacted by faculty and students from the Tisch School of Arts, that serves as “The Reality Show: NYU.”

Some of the scenes are serious and chilling,

One scene that drew gasps was performed by a dark-skinned woman, who announced in a naïve-sounding patter: “So I got this letter the other day telling me to go back to where I came from, and it was all about ‘peace in the Middle East,’ and how my kind isn’t welcome in the United States. But I’m from New Mexico, and I’m not even Middle Eastern. So the letter obviously wasn’t meant for me. Should I pass it along to my friend Radia down the hall? I think she would really appreciate it.”

Another portrays a date rape. At the end the young woman says: “I’m sick from it. I feel so dirty.” The young man echoes: “It’s embarrassing. I feel so dirty.” A narrator sums up: “No always means no, and it’s never the survivor’s fault. But you both have a responsibility to control your actions before they get out of hand.”

Other topics were less so:

There were tamer topics too: how not to worry about getting lost in New York, how to find a cushy couch in the library for a nap. And there was one brief upbeat respite, when a student told how she could “wake up to a view of the Empire State Building, stroll through Washington Square Park with breakfast, attend art history class at the Met, tan in Central Park with friends and Frappuccinos, window-shop on Fifth Avenue, student-rush a Broadway show and enjoy tea and cheesecake at my fave cafe.”

So far, students seem to have taken well to the presentation. It certainly beats long boring speeches and workshops. And hopefully, it drives home the important points more effectively.

Posted by Sindya Bhanoo
College | Freshmen Orientation

onPhilanthropy.com has a helpful article up for those interested in working in non-profit management.

The article discusses the various degree options for anyone striving to work in the public sector or non-profit management.

“More than 100 schools across the country offer graduate degree programs focused on nonprofit management…these schools include some of our nation’s best: from Harvard and Georgetown to the University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern.”

The options include a Masters degrees in Public Administration, Public Policy, Urban Planning, Philanthropic Studies, and Business Administration.

The article discusses, at a basic level, what each type of program offers, what the financial investment is, and what job placements are like.

Posted by Sindya Bhanoo
Non-Profit Sector | Degrees | Management