In this week’s episode you will hear

In the News (9:55) : Mark and Dave discuss an article by Kevin Carey, that appeared on July 25, 2022 in Slate.org entitled: “The Single biggest thing to know about financial aid: It’s a Sham”. Mark and Dave talk about why financial aid is controversial and then they have one of their knock down drag out debates. https://slate.com/business/2022/07/college-financial-aid-sham.html (Length 43 minutes)

This week’s question (52:50) For our question from a listener, Lisa and Mark answer a question about what should a student do if they ask for a recommendation and they are told, “you write it and I will sign it”. Do they proceed and write the letter?

(Length 11 minutes)

This week’s interview (1:03:40) Our interview is with Jon Boeckenstedt, the Vice Provost of Oregon State University . In this two-part interview Jon will answer questions about whether certain practices are ethical or unethical in college admissions. Part 2 of 2 – Preview of Part 2 : (1) Jon rates taking a large number of student through Early Decision, (2) Jon shares when ED feels appropriate and when it isn’t, (3) Jon talks about using Early Action as a tool to flip students to commit Early Decision, (4) Jon talks about learning from how a college treats you in the application process,

(5) Jon comments on his perspective on the propriety or impropriety of saying that a college meets 100% of need, (6) Jon also comments on whether any college is really need blind, (7) Jon talks why he likes the term “FAFSA-blind” better than “need-blind”, (8) Jon talks about what he means by saying, graduation rates are more input than output data, (9) Jon tells us a responsible way to use graduation rate as a statistical metric, (10) Jon tells us why IPEDS is such a great source of data (Length 25 minutes)

Mark’s recommended resource of the week (1:16:00) The recommended resource looks at Bethesda Magazine’s annual look at which colleges students from six local high schools applied, were admitted and where they enrolled: https://bethesdamagazine.com/2022/09/13/here-are-the-colleges-where-bethesda-area-high-school-grads-applied-got-accepted-and-enrolled/

College Spotlight (1:28:56): There is no college Spotlight this week but Dave and Mark give you a bonus, “in the News” as they discuss Columbia’s fall from 2 to 18 the rankings. The article is called, “Columbia whistleblower on exposing college rankings: “They are Worthless” This article appeared in the Guardian and it is an interview with Michael Thaddeus, the Columbian professor who blew the whistle on Columbia. This is a fascinating article: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/16/columbia-whistleblower-us-news-rankings-michael-thaddeus.

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