Student Loan Blog : dorms

Connecticut College Denies Dorm Residency to 12-Year-Old Student

Student Loan Girl — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:40:00 GMT

Although most children his age are entering the seventh grade this fall, 12-year-old Colin Carlson is getting ready to start his sophomore year of college — a feat that didn’t come easily for the gifted student who found that when it comes to whiz kids, some colleges are leery of opening both their doors and their dorms.

Colin, who already graduated from Stanford University Online High School, was set to attend Connecticut College where he planned to double major in eco-biology and environmental studies, but ultimately decided on another school after Connecticut College officials declined to give him dorm affiliation (“College Wary of 12-Year-Old Whiz Kid,” ABC News, Aug. 6, 2008).

“The deans at the school told me in a phone conversation that they were concerned about the adult activities that took place in the dorms,” says Jessica Carlson, Colin’s mother. She says she would never have permitted her son to live in a dormitory and had already found an apartment near campus for her and Colin to live in, but without the dorm experience “Colin would have been completely left out of the [campus] community.”

Colin’s Case an Example of Age Discrimination in Academia

Connecticut College declined to confirm that the 12-year-old had been admitted to the school, but Armando Bengochea, dean of the college community, says the school had concerns about someone so young being allowed into the dorms.

“As a matter of policy, Connecticut College does not condone the presence of 12-year-old children in residence halls after hours,” he says. “Residence halls are considered to be adult residences, and all programming and supervision of students is predicated on an assumption that students can be treated as adults.”

Nancy Green, the executive director for the National Association for Gifted Children, says the college’s concerns are understandable, but gifted students like Colin shouldn’t have their academic opportunities limited solely because of their age.

“There is a lot of resistance against gifted children. It’s not like a star athlete, who immediately, upon showing they’re great at something, they get a special team and a great choice,” she says. “Universities do slam the door [on gifted kids] and say it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Our country is set up on age-based earning, so age becomes a huge issue.”

Colin says he’s putting the experience behind him, and will instead begin his studies at the University of Connecticut as a sophomore honors student.

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Colleges Using Creative Solutions to Meet Growing Demand For On-Campus Housing

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 01:20:00 GMT

Forty percent more upperclassmen requested on-campus housing this year at the University of Missouri than the previous year, creating a housing-accommodation challenge that colleges across the country are facing this fall, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (“Campuses See Rising Demand for Housing,” August 1, 2008).

This demand for housing is increasing at the same time that many colleges are expanding the number of freshmen who will be competing for the same limited on-campus housing that upperclassmen, many of whom had forgone college dorms for off-campus apartment living, are now also seeking.

Increased Demand for Housing Compounded by Larger Freshmen Classes

This year, the University of Missouri’s freshmen class increased 14 percent over 2007, and the school ended up needing 1,000 more beds than it did in the fall, according to Frankie Minor, the school’s director of residence life.

To help meet the demand, the school opened new dorms, renovated older buildings, leased rooms in two private apartment buildings, and reopened an old residence hall that had been converted to office space.

The need for on-campus housing is so great at the University of Washington, that 5,100 students are living in buildings that were designed to house only 4,100. And as the university prepares for its largest freshmen class ever at 5,600 students — 100 more than last year’s class — the problem may only get worse. To ensure current and new students have adequate housing, the Seattle university plans to add 2,400 beds for both freshmen and upperclassmen in the next 10 to 12 years.

The housing dilemma is similar at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. This year 5,670 returning students will live on campus, some 350 more than last year. The school recently opened a 172-bed apartment complex, but until the addition of 600 more spaces is completed in 2010, students are living in converted lounges and being packed into double rooms that have temporarily been converted into triples.

Educators say the housing shortage may either be a fluke or the beginning of a new trend brought on by rising rent prices off campus, soaring energy costs, and gas prices that have topped $4 per gallon.

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Student-Ranked Top Colleges and Other Tools to Help You Find the Right Fit

Student Loan Girl — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 20:38:00 GMT

If you’re in high school and looking ahead to college, you probably already know all about U.S. News & World Report’s annual “America’s Best Colleges,” which ranks colleges and universities around the country. These rankings can give you a great place to start, but if your college search revolves entirely around this list, you’re throwing yourself at the mercy of only one corporation’s definition of “best.”

The “best” school for a potential geneticist may have a stellar biosciences faculty but no intramural sports—if you’re an aspiring genetic engineer who unwinds with regular competitive basketball games, you might want to ask yourself if you would be happy there for four or more years.

If rankings are important to you in making your college decision, consider expanding your search to include other “best” lists that go beyond just academics, that might be able to give you a sense of the campus, the town, the personality of the students, and of whether or not you’ll fit in and enjoy your life there.

The Princeton Review Best Colleges: Students Rate Their Own Campuses

Find out what current students think about their own schools and get various bests (and worsts) for every personality type with The Princeton Review’s Best 366 Colleges. The 2008 edition of The Princeton Review’s annual rankings surveys more than 120,000 students on 366 campuses.

You won’t find any “top schools” overall here. As The Princeton Review explains in one of their answers to an FAQ, “We don’t believe that any one school is the best overall. … Some colleges in our book may be ideal for some students but wrong for others, depending on their interests and needs.”

Instead, the survey results serve up the top 20 schools in each of 62 categories like:

Best Campus Food: Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA)
Is It Food?: U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (Kings Point, NY)
Dorms Like Palaces: Smith College (Northampton, MA)
Dorms Like Dungeons: U.S. Coast Guard Academy (New London, CT)
Best Classroom Experience: Reed College (Portland, OR)
Most Long Lines and Red Tape: Tuskegee University (Tuskegee, AL)
Biggest Frat & Sorority Scene: DePauw University (Greencastle, IN)
Students Most Nostalgic for Ronald Reagan: Warren Wilson College (Asheville, NC)
Students Most Nostalgic for Bill Clinton: Thomas Aquinas College (Santa Paula, CA)
Most Diverse Student Body: Temple University (Philadelphia)
Most Birkenstock-Wearing, Tree-Hugging, Clove-Smoking Vegetarians: Hampshire College (Amherst, MA)
Best College Radio Station: St. Bonaventure University (St. Bonaventure, NY)
Where Intercollegiate Sports Are Unpopular or Nonexistent: New College of Florida (Sarasota, FL)
Where Students Pack the Stadiums: University of Maryland (College Park, MD)

You can find the complete Princeton Review student rankings free online, or buy a copy of the book (list price $21.95). In addition to the rankings and two-page profiles on each of the 366 schools, the book version has a new section with lists of “Great Colleges for 15 of the Most Popular College Majors.”

Other Online Resources and Rankings

For more student rankings and other “best” categories, check out these sites:

Campus Dirt’s Top Ten Lists: Toughest Classes, Easiest Freshman Parking, Most “Wired” Campus, Most Options for Late-Night Food, Where Lectures Are Related to the “Real World,” …
Students Review: University & College Rankings: Top Engineering Schools, Top Schools for Smart People, Top Creative Schools, Top Ivies, Biggest Reputation, …
College Rankings by College Prowler: Grades schools A through F on things like parking, nightlife, weather, guys, girls, campus strictness, and local atmosphere
The Templeton Guide to Colleges That Encourage Character Development: 405 exemplary programs in 10 categories like Volunteer Service, Academic Honesty, Spiritual Growth, and Civic Education

First-Hand Accounts and Campus Tours

Besides doing your reading and online research, ask around. Your friends may know former students who can give you a first-hand opinion of the school you’re interested in.

One of the best ways to get a feel for a campus and the student life is to visit. If you can’t afford the travel costs to check out the campus for yourself, try a virtual campus visit at CampusTours.com or College-Visits.com to get a better feel for what your college life might actually be like once you’re on campus.

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College Students Sprawling Out on Bigger Beds

Student Loan Girl — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:11:00 GMT

Super-sizing isn’t just for combo meals anymore.

They’ve grown up with SUVs, Hummers, giant plasma TVs and, evidently, bigger beds—Gen Y’s all grown up and in college, and they like their non-digital amenities big.

This fall, colleges and universities across the country are attempting to answer the demands (and generally taller and larger bodies) of the millennial generation by upgrading their bed sizes on campus. Those Gen Y kids used to the comforts of double or queen-sized beds at home haven’t been too thrilled with the skinny singles that have been the dorm standard for decades.

Double beds, writes Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post, are part of schools’ array of tactics aimed at competing with off-campus housing to keep student on campus. Some colleges are even implementing luxuries like maid service, in-room microwaves, and larger, renovated dorm rooms that can better accommodate the wider beds (“Students Can Rest Easy Now,” Sep. 18, 2007).

Size Does Matter

“The trend seems to be that there is more competition among different schools for the student body—I guess literally—with larger beds,” says Ryan Trainer, executive vice president of the nonprofit International Sleep Products Association.

Strauss writes about Elissa Robinson, now a senior at American University, who, “[a]ccustomed to sleeping on a queen-size, 60-by-80-inch water bed at home, … got a rude awakening when she headed off to college: a twin-size bed, somewhere around 38-by-75 inches, with a mattress that had seen better days.”

After three years of dealing with the twin bed, Robinson received a double bed from AU for her senior year. “[T]his is much, much better,” Robinson says. “It’s where I sleep, do my homework and everything else. It’s just more of an adult thing to have a bigger bed.”

Bigger is Better

College campuses have traditionally plagued their dorm denizens with the modest twin mattress that many students these days haven’t seen since elementary school, if at all.

“Many of them are not coming from single beds,” says Rick Treter, director of residence life at AU. “Many come from doubles and queens, so they have to readjust to living on the single bed.”

AU made its move to double beds, Strauss reports, after receiving complaints from students that the twin beds were “too small and too childish.”

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro has also started providing double beds for its on-campus students in response to feedback from focus groups and student requests for larger beds.

UNCG students characterized twin beds as “too small and uncomfortable,” says Mary L. Hummel, the director of housing and residence life. The new doubles “accommodate students more comfortably, especially taller students, and better meet student needs.”

Though college administrators may not know for a few semesters if their efforts to entice students back to on-campus housing will prove successful, initial feedback on the bigger beds has been nothing but positive.

“It’s amazing,” says AU sophomore Matt Valdivia. “Now I can be alive and fit on the bed in every direction.”

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Refashioning IKEA: Do-It-Yourself Low-Cost Makeovers

Student Loan Girl — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 17:55:00 GMT

When you first shop at IKEA, you may be seduced by its modern furniture with sleek lines and space-saving features. You can’t help but “ooh” at the glass-enclosed displays of furniture-battering electric arms that show off just how much force IKEA furniture can withstand. This demonstration of durability may sell you on a stalwart red armchair you may otherwise have skipped.

And as you wander throughout the store, you may find yourself shelling out for decorative and complementary accessories like coordinating photo frames, kitchen bowls, shower curtains and floating shelves.

Once home, you rip open your flat boxes with giddy abandon and assemble life into furniture with inscrutable names like “skruvsta,” “leksvik” and “dalselv.” You applaud yourself for transforming your space from drab to fab.

But at some point, the love affair with your hip items sours.

As your sense of décor evolves, the luster of that red coffee table, plain pine bench or white armchair that you couldn’t wait to get home two years ago wears off and your furniture may seem more shabby than chic.

But if you think that means your IKEA investments are headed to the curb or the Craigslist free section, think again.

With a few do-it-yourself modifications, you can put your own modern spin on your Swedish goods and reinvent them into something that suits your new style. Give yourself a whole new living room without buying a single new piece of furniture.

If you think it can’t be done, take a tour through IKEA Hacker. This blog dedicated to the radical metamorphosis of IKEA pieces will prove it’s possible, and IKEA aficionados throughout the world are doing it.

Breathe, er … Hack, New Life Into Your IKEA Wares

Thanks to blog creator Mei Mei Yap, a 37-year-old copywriter who works at a Malaysian ad agency by day and trolls for IKEA hacks by night, you have a library of ideas for how to revamp almost anything IKEA.

Having trouble picturing what to do with your ribba frame? Add a kort art card and an alarm clock, and you’ve got your own funky, one-of-a-kind clock.

Tired of your Benjamin stool? Chop its legs off to convert it into a portable laptop desk.

See your pine tabletop reborn as a blond electric guitar.

Make old IKEA shower curtains into a dress and IKEA linens into a shopping tote.

Or use the colorful patterns to transform a plain white IKEA orgel floor lamp into a luminous work of art.

Recycle and reconstruct your furniture to make something completely new, or repurpose items like stolmen wardrobe cabinets into a floating media storage solution.

Yap categorizes her IKEA hacks by function: accessories, audio-visual, bathroom, bedroom, furniture, craft, media storage, and work station. She also features ideas for wall décor, pet furniture and lighting.

Whether you’re stuck on a budget or in an interior decoration rut, try her creative remodelings, or use her ideas as a launching point for ingenious transformations of your own.

You may find yourself agreeing with a blog visitor who goes by the name of Baly who describes the blog as an “instant obsession.” And like Baly, after one look through IKEA Hacker, you may feel your “crafty glands waking up again.”

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Meningitis Puts College Students at Risk

Student Loan Girl — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 21:46:00 GMT

The close quarters, the shared drinks, the all-nighters that weaken your immune system, and other aspects of your college lifestyle can make you more susceptible to meningitis, a virulent disease that, in its bacterial form, can kill you within days and sometimes even hours. If you’re lucky enough to survive, you still stand a 20 percent chance of suffering brain damage, arm and leg amputations, deafness, and vision loss.

Meningitis, an inflammation of the membranes and cerebrospinal fluid near the brain and spinal cord, can strike in both bacterial and viral form. The disease is transmitted by direct contact and through your saliva when you sneeze, cough or kiss.

It’s often difficult to diagnose because its symptoms are similar to the flu: high fever, severe headaches, stiff neck, rash, nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light.

Reported cases of meningitis are rare but more common on college campuses, where the cramped quarters of shared dorms are ideal breeding grounds for potential outbreaks. States are split on whether to make the vaccination voluntary or mandatory for college students.

Onset of Disease Looks Innocent but Quickly Turns Deadly

Do a quick Google search, and you’ll find numerous accounts of otherwise healthy college students who have died or barely escaped death after contracting meningitis.

ABC News tells the story of Evan Bozof, a baseball player and pre-med student at Georgia Southwestern University. One day in 1998, he thought he was suffering from a migraine; 26 days later, the 20-year-old died after meningococcal meningitis ravaged his body. Both of his legs and arms had been amputated, he had lost all liver and kidney function and seizures led to irreversible brain damage (“For Parents, College Meningitis Deaths Still Evoke Pain,” Sep. 6, 2007).

Then there’s the MSNBC article on Ashley Lee, an 18-year-old at Indiana University Bloomington, who thought she was coming down with the flu (“Killer at College: Meningitis Threatens Students,” Sep. 5, 2007). After vomiting every half hour while at a frat party, she went home to rest. The next day, she collapsed and her family rushed her to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with meningococcal meningitis. Two years later, Lee’s still alive, but she’s undergone multiple surgeries, had a foot and three fingers amputated, and she lives with severe and permanent skin damage.

In Bozof’s case, his parents weren’t aware of the meningitis risks or that a simple vaccine could have saved their son. Hoping to spare others the same fate, Bozof’s mother went on to found the National Meningitis Association, which promotes education of the disease and universal vaccination.

In Lee’s case, her mother had taken her to get the vaccine before she left for college, six weeks prior to her contracting the disease, but the vaccine was out of stock at her doctor’s office. Lee, like Bozof’s parents, was unaware of the viciousness of meningitis and kept putting off getting the vaccine once she got to school—and then it was too late.

“I just didn’t know the severity of it,” Lee said in her MSNBC interview. “I thought it was just, like, another vaccination.”

Debating the Need for Mandated Vaccines

ABC News reports that there are 1,400 to 2,800 cases of bacterial meningitis in the United States each year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the death rate for bacterial meningitis—around 13 percent—is more than 20 times higher than that for the measles, the number one childhood killer worldwide.

While some 10 to 20 percent of the population can carry the meningococcal bacteria in their nose or throat, 99.9 percent develop antibodies and never get sick, according to a CDC official quoted by ABC.

Increased awareness of the risks posed by meningitis as well as of the readily available vaccine has ignited a national debate, much of it centered on college campuses.

MSNBC reports that:

20 states currently require college students to either get the meningitis vaccination or sign a waiver that says they’ve read about the disease.
3 more states mandate the vaccination for college students but allow exemptions for religious or medical reasons.
11 states require only that information about the vaccine and the disease be provided on campus.

But a growing grassroots movement, led mainly by parents who have lost or nearly lost a child to the disease, want to see more states require the vaccination. The CDC recommends the meningitis vaccine, Menactra, for young people ages 11 to 18, but only 12 percent got the vaccine last year.

The vaccine is covered by some insurance companies and costs about $120 on college campuses.

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