PsychCentral has published a College Survival Guide that has some good information for students in the middle of the admissions process as well as articles for those already in college.

For those working on finding the best college you can find articles entitled “Are you ready for college? Alternatives for the unsure”, “Keeping the college process sane”, “Waiting for college acceptance letters” and “The summer before college”.

Finding the best college for your needs does not need to stress you out completely. For a touch of reality, head on over to the College Survival Guide.

(We have something special today, a guest blogger. Anne Crossman, who has a new book out on enjoying the college experience, will be talking about extracurricular activities once you get to college. Enjoy. Todd)

From start to finish, the process of finding the “right” college, applying, getting accepted, moving in, and selecting classes is up there on the Richter scale for stress.  Let’s call it a 9.9.  Unfortunately, many students are under the assumption that once they arrive on campus they can catch their breaths and coast, since coursework will be more of the same and residential life will be one continuous hangout session of laughs.  Au contraire.

Don’t get me wrong, college is a blast—and should be after all that effort getting in—but it’s all about intentional fun.  (A prof, a dean and I spent an entire chapter on this subject in our book, Getting the Best Out of College, but I’ll do my best to give you a tasty synopsis here.)

Now that you’ve begun your college career, you stand before a veritable buffet of fun.  More than just your ordinary options from high school (varsity sports, yearbook, debate team, yawn…not that I’m being mean, I once loved them too) you are now faced with the  delectable challenge of choosing between such tempting clubs as a capella rhythm and blues, wilderness survival, fencing, ballroom dancing, synchronized swim team, and a plethora of start-up groups unique to every campus.  And, yes, you must choose.

Unlike high school, you are not expected (nor will you have the time) to pursue four or five extracurricular interests. In fact, your best bet for the first term of freshman year is to join one to three groups and to stay only superficially involved in each until you are able to narrow it down to one or two.  But, in hearing this advice to pare down extracurriculars, please don’t swing to the other extreme and avoid them entirely—especially under the guise of “studying more,” since, even with the best intentions, you can only study so much in one day before your eyes begin to do the limbo under their lids.)

Remember that stress factor I alluded to earlier?  Of course, how could you forget.  Not to get the Richter waving frantically again, but it’s probably best to warn you that classes will give you brain cramps on more than one occasion (since you will be studying with more intelligent peers than you did in high school as well as profs who are some of the leading minds in their fields), your coursework will be heavier (as in, reading a book per week per class plus labs, research papers, and exams), and all that is heaped up along with social stressors of homesickness and getting along with a roommate.  It’s a bit much.  All the more reason to get out and have some fun.

After all, you now have more free time than ever before—and, arguably, ever again—to test flights of fancy.  Beyond joining up with a club that feeds your secret passion to recreate the battle of Bunker Hill, brainstorm with your new friends some ways to make your own fun on campus.

Why join the Nth drunken brawl as yet another obnoxiously plastered undergrad when you can organize a group to go rappelling off the clock tower at midnight?  Or, project widescreen the Lord of the Rings in continuum on the quad walls one night until the wee hours, and perhaps even sell popcorn as a fund-raiser for your favorite charity.  Why not organize a mud bowl with your dormmates (a.k.a. flag-football on the abandoned softball field after a hard rain or generous hosing)?  Or, make the longest conga line on record and shimmy across campus into Guinness book history.  Really, the possibilities are endless.  As long as your stunt is well planned, legal (yes, that excludes Jello-shots, and, no, you won’t regret passing on that one), and is a story you’ll look forward to telling your future spouse or boss (though, maybe not your kids until they’re older) you’re off to a great start.

As I said earlier, it’s all about intentional fun.  Your Scrubs reruns will still be around after you graduate, and there will be plenty of beer to imbibe after a hard day’s work in the cubicle once you’ve gone on to your career, but you have only four years to maximize your fun on campus (while earning a degree worth having, of course).  So, skip the drinking scene; invent your own brand of fun; challenge your noggin in class and out; the energy you invest in creative thrills and extracurriculars will not only be a super stress-reliever and loads of fun in the making but will lead to all sorts of warm fuzzy nostalgia later on.

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Anne Crossman is a co-author of Getting the Best Out of College: A Professor, a Dean, and a Student Tell You How to Maximize Your Experience, published by Ten Speed Press in 2008.  After teaching English in public high schools and military barracks for five years, she is taking time off from her day job to publish a poetry memoir on Alzheimer’s (Trying to Remember) and a humorous educational series addressing life as a high school student.  Anne studied at both Stanford and Duke Universities, earning a BA in English and a Certificate of Education, and currently lives with her husband and sons in Seattle, WA.  For more information about the book visit http://www.GettingTheBestOutOfCollege.com or to contact Anne directly, visit http://www.annecrossman.com/

Legacy admissions, for those of you who don’t know, are the preferences given by some colleges in the admissions process to the children of alumni.  I have reported in the past on some of the issues related to legacy admissions,  Colleges have often defended legacy admissions by claiming that the legacy admits are generally stronger academic students because of the advantages they have been given by their parents. New research out indicates, at least at Duke, that this is not the case.

The research is discussed at Inside Higher Ed in an article entitled: Legacy Admits: More Money, Lower Scores. The study compared legacy students with other applicants whose parents had attended college. Among these students, the legacy students at Duke had lower academic qualifications and did poorer in their freshman year.

The study also found that the legacy students were more likely to be white, protestant and having attended private schools.  Moreover, the family income of the legacy students was substantially greater than that of other students, even those students whose parents had attended college.  The study found that being black, Roman Catholic or Jewish was associated with a substantial decrease in the odds of being a legacy student.

Although this study is limited to Duke, many of the same types of findings were addressed several years ago in the 2006 book “The Price of Admission”. If you are interested in the many under the table advantages in college admisisons, this is a must read book.

I was recently provided a copy of the book “Getting to the Quad: Your Guide for the College Experience” by the creator, Michael Bergman.  The book is designed to help high school graduates manage the transition from high school into college. The book is a collaboration of college and high school faculty, staff and alumni who all helped provide ideas, tips and suggestions for making the college process as simple as possible.

The book starts with a section called “Going to College-That Whole Application and Choosing Thing”.  This section is a broad overview of some of the issues students need to consider in finding the right college. Although the section is not meant to be comprehensive, it suffers from an overly general approach to what should be a careful approach to finding the best college. However, the book improves after the first section with a great deal of helpful information including practical information not general seen in other books.

For example, in section 5, there is a real world discussion of summer internships, cover letter tips and resume tips. Section 7 has advice on choosing classes, time management and note taking tips, among other suggestions.

More information about the book, including the table of contents,  is available on the website GettingToTheQuad. You can also buy the book through the website.

With everything else students have on their plate to find the right college, making the transition from high school to college need not be one of the things students need to worry about.  With a list price of $14.95 I would recommend the book to make the whole transition smoother.

This time of year many families are trying to figure out how to pay for the cost of college. One of the most common options are loans but not all loans are created equal. The Federal Trade Commission has a new fact sheet out called “Student Loans: Avoiding Deceptive Offers“.  This fact sheet reviews the two basic types of loans, federal loans and private loans, and discusses how to avoid a number of problems that may occur with private loans and with loan consolidation.

I always encourage families to consider federal loans before turning to the private loan market, but sometimes, there is a need for private loans. All families considering taking out a private loan, or doing a loan consolidation, should review this helpful fact sheet.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about how 529 plans can be used to reduce the cost of some colleges. 529 plans, for those unfamiliar with them, are savings plans which provide certain benefits for families saving for the cost of higher education. For more information on 529 plans go to savingforcollege.

With the high cost of college most families are looking for ways to reduce their out of pocket costs. Most of you know that I am not a huge fan of outside scholarships for most students since the real benefit of such scholarships often goes to the colleges and not the students. However, if one of the college in which you are interested participates in one of these 529 plan reductions, that can be a real savings. Always ask the colleges financial aid office if they participate in such a program. It may save you some money.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the College Board, the administrator of the SAT, will once again allow students to decide which SAT scores to submit to colleges.  This new policy will go into effect for the class of 2010. This policy previously existed under the name of score choice and was eliminated by the College Board several years ago. Currently, all SAT scores are submitted to a college when the student applies. At this time, there is no information on the College Board site confirming this report.

The ACT allows students to choose which scores to send and it is logical to assume that the College Board is changing their policy to compete with the ACT which has been gaining in popularity in the past few years.

The reality is that for most students the ability to withhold certain scores has no effect on their admissions chances. Virtually all colleges will take the students highest test score if multiple scores are submitted. Moreover, the withholding of scores may work to the disadvantage of some students since most colleges take the highest sub scores on the SAT to reach a composite score. If a student has a great math score on one test but a better critical reading on another test, most colleges will combine those sub scores to reach a higher overall score. If the student withholds one of those exams, their overall scores will be viewed by the colleges as lower.

The ability to withhold scores also arguable works to the disadvantage of less affluant students who can’t afford to take the SAT multiple times.

Bottom line? This announcement, if true, appears to be nothing more than a new marketing ploy from the College Board that adds no real benefit to the students taking the exam.

There are a variety of resources available to help students in the search for the right college. One of the resources I have not talked about before are the blogs of students who have just been through the college admissions process. Although there are limits to any resource, the student blogs provides a different prospective than that provided by professional college counselors like myself.

Among the better student blogs are those of The College Student Blog, written by Parker, a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and The Free College Counselor, a blog by Daniel, Yale class of 2012. These blogs are fairly new but many of the entries I have seen would be helpful for students in the college search process.

Yale College has officially announced that they are increasing the enrollment by 15% by creating two new residential colleges.  The new colleges are expected in open in 2013.  I first reported on the possibility of Yale expanding back in September 2007.

For those students for whom Yale would be a good option, this is great news. However, as I have said repeatedly, not every college is appropriate for every student, even if you can gain admission. Yale is a wonderful college but there are many wonderful colleges throughout this country. And yes, even many in other countries.

Community colleges are a great choice for many students who either are interested in a technical type program or who want to save some money the first two years of college. But there are some little known problems that can occur with those students wishing to transfer to a four year college after a community college.

Jay Matthews, and education columnist for the Washington Post, highlighted some of those problems in an article entitled Community College Transfer Mess. One particular problem, that I have also seen among students with whom I work, is the failure of four year institutions to fully recognize all of the work done at the two year college. A related problem is that the four year institutions will often have requirements for a particular major that mandates a student take the course at the four year college and will not fully recognize a similar course taken at the community college.

There are also often concerns about financial aid for students transferring to a four year college since some four year colleges will reserve their best aid for incoming freshman, leaving less aid for transfer students. The result is that the last two years of college can often cost more than they would have if the student had started at the four year college initially. This offsets some, or all, of the savings a student receives from initially attending a community college. The New York Times also an article today discussing the problems with getting loans that some students at community colleges are having.

I have written about many of these issues in my college transfer help article. Transferring from one college to another can work great for some students but like most things related to college admissions, you need to know all of the issues before making a choice.