It's Friiiday, Friiiiday, Friiiiday [This Just In: Saturday Comes Next]!

Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun (yeah!)--you know what fun is! Take some time this weekend to have some! Forget the important decisions, like whether to take the front seat or the back seat. Just kick back, relax, and "party" like a tone deaf 13 year-old.

Here's some good news to assuage your worries and ease your troubled mind into weekend mode: we haven't lost your application. If you haven't heard from us yet, it doesn't mean that something is wrong. We're still admitting for fall, we're still giving out financial aid, we're still accepting applications for housing. We have a record number of applications, and we're committed to making sure that each applicant gets the same careful consideration that we've always given in the past. It might take a little longer, but don't worry. You'll hear from us. We promise.

So, now you can breathe a big sigh of relief and start planning your weekend festivities. Read on after the jump for our top ten list of things to do in the Marymount (South Bay) area.

WIAD And The Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls Strikes Back (With Leprechauns) Pt. 4 - 3/18/11

Yep. We're having another Walk-In Application Day tomorrow, Friday March 18th. Yes, as usual I'm going to try to make it relate to this month's holiday, namely St. Patrick's Day. No, I don't know if I am going to succeed, but it was better than trying to tie it to the Ides of March (Et tu, Brute?). 

And here we go...

What is WIAD, you (who have not been reading this blog) ask? Well, it's a magical day. You can come in anytime from 9am to 5pm, with your completed application and required transcripts, and...um...a cadre of leprechauns [student workers] take you on a mystical tour of the verdant, emerald isle that we call Marymount College [it isn't really an island...but you can see one from here.]. When you get back, you can nibble some fairy cakes and sip on a cuppa while our counselors [uh, Druid Apostates? Cut me some slack here...] process your file faster than you can lilt, "Hearts, stars, and horseshoes, clovers and blue moons, pots of gold and rainbows, and a red balloon." 

Then, if you've got the luck of the Irish, St. Patrick [our not-quite beatified assistant dean of enrollment] might deliver the pot o' gold at the end of the admission rainbow: a same-day admission decision (whether or not she'll drive snakes from California afterward remains to be seen). If there's a double rainbow (all the way across the sky!), you might even get a double pot o' gold: a scholarship on top of your decision! Of course, we'll need your SAT/ACT scores for that.

Click here for detailed information on what you need to bring.

RSVP by commenting below or on our Facebook page and (as long as you didn't do it anonymously) we'll have a present waiting for you tomorrow! 



Check back next month as we bring back yet another WIAD and I try to find an obscure holiday that isn't Easter to which I can compare it. Any suggestions?

How You Can Benefit From Spring Travel (And Why My Sweater Is All Wet...)

He appears innocent, but you're looking at a tactical pee assassin.

My dog thinks I am an absent father. He is showing all the textbook signs of teenage rebellion--though last I checked human teens don't express their displeasure by relieving themselves on their dad's dry cleaning. I must admit that it's an effective form of inter-species communication, but I'm running out of sweaters...

And it's not just the dog.

The auto-mailer at Facebook seems to be worried that I've died. I keep getting emails asking passive-aggressive questions about why I haven't updated my page recently (I think after two weeks of inactivity they start "poking" your next of kin). The new message light on my office phone is flashing with the urgency of an S.O.S. beacon, my expired list of Outlook reminders is about the length of the fourth Twilight novel (and reads at a similar pace), and my email inbox is stuffed with more time-sensitive information than a government intelligence leak.

It must be travel season. 

Writing A Good Admission Essay - 10 Cliché and Ineffective Essay Topics That You Should Avoid At All Cost

There is a panic that afflicts many students when they sit down to write their college admission essay. The blank page mocks them. "Fill me," it taunts. "Cover my crisp white emptiness with a 250-750 word distillation of the value of your entire life. Be brilliant, or you'll be deep-frying frozen potatoes for the rest of your sorry existence." 

Under the hostile, reproving glare of their computer screen, the student's brain suddenly does its best Windows Vista® impression and years of valuable life experiences are replaced by a mental "blue screen" of despair. It becomes all too easy to rush it; just hammer away on the keyboard and hope that something worthwhile trickles out.

It usually doesn't. Instead, the essay almost always falls into one of the following categories and is lost forever in the  crumpled morass of wasted paper.

So, no matter how panicked you are, don't EVER use one of these topics. They will do you a disservice.  

And the Oscar Goes To...

I like movies. Well, most movies. OK, more like some movies (ever seen Darkness Falls? It's about the vengeful murdering spirit of the Tooth Fairy. It, uh, doesn't make my list.) But I digress.

In the spirit of remaining hip and cool and "up with currents events", I am doing a post based on the ostensibly "hip and cool" Academy Awards last night. No, I'm not going to talk about James Franco's apparent revival of his Pineapple Express role while "hosting" the ceremony. Nor will I discuss the use of a certain four letter word when describing the difficulty of an acceptance speech (though it probably is "really [thank god we're on time-delay] hard."). I'm not even going to effervesce about Scarlett Johansson (though I could at length.)

I am instead going to highlight a couple of our student films. Did they make it to the Oscars? No (snubbed by the Academy again...). But everyone starts somewhere, and our program is a fantastic point of Inception (see what I did there?). We offer small classes (<17 students per class on average), state of the art editing and film equipment (including a green screen studio), faculty with real working experience in the industry, internship programs, and the ability to start working on films right off the bat. In other words, it's awesome--whether you want to stay all four years in our intimate program, or transfer after two years (USC and Chapman are two of our top transfer destinations).

See the films after the jump. 

Service, Spiders, Green Thumbs, and Nuns, Or, As We Call It At Marymount: Tuesday

Have you ever seen a sow-bug killer spider? If you haven’t, click here. It’s important to have the image in your head—unless it’ll give you nightmares, in which case, refrain from clicking. (Too late? My bad...)

They’re the ugliest spiders I think I have ever seen (because I don’t live in Australia).

You're probably wondering at this point why I am writing about creepy red spiders with disproportionately large fangs.

In Honor of Spring Preview Day: The Top Ten Things To Preview Before You Commit

You definitely want to actually see a college before you enroll, which is why you should attend our Spring Preview Day tomorrow, Friday, 2/18! No, it isn't anything like Groundhog day, but it is going to be a soiree worthy of "Punxsutawney Phil" himself! We'll have student panels; campus and residence tours; breakfast and lunch; faculty presentations; alumni presentations; and, rumor has it, our director of admission is going to arrive in an egg!

It starts at 8:00am. Be there.

On another note...Don't you wish they had preview days for other areas of life? It could save a lot of grief. Read on for our top-ten list of things (other than a college) that you want to actually preview before you make a decision to commit.