Woah, Son. Marymount College Has Master's Degrees on the Way...

Oh, they grow up so fast...

Just a few weeks after our President took a fully-clothed jump into our swimming pool to celebrate enrolling over 1000 students at Marymount (the highest number ever), yet another awesome milestone has been reached by the college.

In addition to our Bachelor's and Associate Degrees, we now have two Master's degree programs pending WASC approval. 

Woot, woot, and, I say again, woot. 

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, in just a few short years we've gone from a two-year school of just over 400 students to a 1000-student school offering advanced degrees.* 

*Pending WASC approval. (That's all I am required to write, but as a creative writing major I never get to write legal jargon, so: asterisk, italicized qualification, long parenthetical, habeus corpus, "we hold these truths to be self evident," Reese Witherspoon, "Hah-vad yahd", "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!", yadda yadda.)

How did we do it, you might ask? 

By being awesome (duh), and by constant attention to what makes Marymount College special: our students. We strive to live our mission of serving our students in every way possible, so when they expressed interest in completing a master's degree at Marymount, we bent over backwards to make sure that happened... 

...And, boom! We delivered (asterisk, etc.) two awesome programs specifically tailored to our students' interests. Check them out below: 

• Leadership and Community Development
• Community Psychology

A particularly attractive option is completing your bachelor's and your master's degree within just 5 years of study! That means that while many non-Marymount students are still finishing up their undergraduate work, you've already beat them into the workforce with an advanced degree. ...Where was this when I was a student?

We're starting enrollment for 2013 (asterisk, etc.) on March 1, ladies and gents. If you're interested, contact Kevin Grant, Director of Graduate Admission, at kgrant [at] marymountpv [dot] edu. 

What do you think about the changes? Let us know below! 

September Admission Advice: Applications not on your radar yet? That's OK!

Via Teusje, and, of course, Disney Worldwide.

September is always a strange month for me. It's not really summer anymore, but the soft fuzzy glow of three months of beautiful weather and greatly decreased responsibility has yet to fade (and the angry red glow has yet to fade from my overexposed shoulders).

• The good news: the NAIA soccer season has started (go Mariners!), and football--glorious, amazing, lovely football--is back on T.V. Life is good.
  
• The bad news: life is about to get a whole lot more complicated.
  
• The mitigating news: that's probably a good thing. Complicated can be fun. 

In the admission world, September is a crazy month of launching our recruitment travel (look for us in a cafeteria/college center near you!), making sure our new students are settling in, and prepping to receive all the new applications.

In your world (assuming you're a high school senior) it's likely even crazier. The beginning of your last year of high school is a heady event. You're most likely adjusting to new classes, marveling at how young the freshmen look this year, cheering on your sports team (or lamenting their poor performance...), and planning for Homecoming. Most likely the last thing on your radar is, ironically, the only thing on our radar: college application season.

...And that's OK.

Gasp! The college admission dude said it's OK to not have college applications at the top of my list! Shenanigans!

But it really is OK.

A: I'm a realist. I was once a senior, too.
B: Applying to college, like your senior year, is a long, complex process. Both will be stressful. Both will be rewarding. Both are best if taken at the right pace and approached with a serious, yet calm attitude. That's what we advocate: pace yourself and the whole thing will be easy. Fun, maybe (we can dream).

So, below are the college admission steps to check off in September so you can otherwise enjoy this glorious month--and the rest of your senior year.

5 Things NOT to Consider During Your College Search

The search for a college can be stressful, terrifying, and confusing—but most of life's truly rewarding events are. The biggest mistake you can make while searching for a college is to become overwhelmed and give up. Neither of us wants to run into each other at a drive-thru, right?

So, above all, remember to persevere and keep the following "don'ts" in mind:

Bulldozer Exhaust and Napalm Are Both Best Smelled In The Morning

If Ironman were to fly over our campus right now on his way to battle Loki's otherworldly army, he might assume that we had been the victim of an attack by The Langoliers.

(If there were any more nerdy references in that sentence, someone would find me and shove me into a locker.) 

Seriously, though, our campus looks like Clifford the Big Red Dog went on a search for the thigh bone of a Brachiosaur after we were hit by a direct blast from the spaceship in Independence Day. 

(It's dark in here. Let me out.)

The real reason, however, that our campus currently resembles where Harrison Ford could discover the glass skulls of an ancient alien race... 

(Seriously, guys. This isn't funny anymore...)

...is that we are in the process of adding more parking, upgraded infrastructure, an athletic field, and I suspect a bunker for the upcoming zombie apocalypse.

Great infographic from our friends at OnlineCollegeCourses.com

I'm a sucker for infographics, and this one from OnlineCollegeCourses.com does a great job of listing what we really look for from an admission standpoint. You can check out other great content on their blog here.

From: OnlineCollegeCourses.com

Email Etiquette is as Neglected as Sun Block on the Jersey Shore

Photo of Nikki's awfulsome attire from Sodahead.com

In Pt. 1, "The Problem," I detailed the decay of electronic communication, which is nearly as advanced as the decay of Nikki Menaj's fashion sense. If you read that post, you may have gleaned that while reclaiming the electronically-written word is a personal crusade of mine, it's also a pretty big deal when it comes to college admission (and, subsequently, the rest of your life).


Never let it be said that I was the type to present a problem without offering a solution. In fact, I offer 10. 


So, without further ado I present Pt. 2, "The Solution."

Call Me a Curmudgeon, But Email Etiquette Is Suffering From Stage Four Neglect

Part 1: The Problem

Appreciation of the power of the written (or texted, "tweeted," updated, emailed, or "Skyped") word, and also of the permanency of electronic communication is vital to one's social survival in the 21st century. 


It is also vital to your college admission prospects.


I have received so many egregious abuses of email correspondence from prospective students that I felt compelled to offer some friendly advice. Hopefully it will save you from some embarrassment (and me from developing an ulcer).


Some choice examples can be found at the bottom of this post (or you can skip to "Pt. 2: The Solution" if you already recognize your faults and don't care to read my diatribe).