Everything we feared is true. College admissions is just as whimsical and random a process as we always suspected, and an admissions director who has a bum meal in Buffalo will carry out his nauseated vengeance on applicants from that poor city. Or at least, that's what The Daily Beast's Kathleen Kingsbury says in her article "Dirty Secrets of College Admissions." The Daily Beast, as you may recall, is Tina Brown's ferocious foray into the online world - news, culture and the hallmark bravura style of the former editor of Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and Talk magazines. Among the horrifying, hilarious, appalling tidbits offered up in "Dirty Secrets" was this one from the admissions director of an elite New England college:

"If the [Pittsburgh] Steelers lost a game and I read your file the next morning, chances were you weren’t getting in... Those are things that you, the applicant, have no control over. Which makes it all the more funny — the frenzy that parents and students work themselves into around getting in.”

Wow. So not funny. But I did find the part about public vs. private school counselors absolutely fascinating - that private school counselors are in constant contact with college admissions directors, talking up students and making connections. Continue the discussion over on the "college admissions mania" discussion forum.

Winter break may be barely over, but now's the time to think about spring break, especially if your child's idea of a good time is one of those beer-swilling, wet T-shirt, beach bacchanals made famous by MTV. Why not encourage him to consider a healthier, feel-good option such as the alternative spring breaks planned by colleges across the nation? For the last decade, the University of Washington's Pipeline Project, for example, has been sending student volunteers to tribal and rural communities across the Pacific Northwest to work on literacy and science projects at grade schools over spring break. Transportation, accommodations and food expenses are all covered. And American University in D.C. runs philanthropic student programs not only over spring break, but winter and summer too. Need other ideas? Check out this spring break alternative article.

Kids heading back to college? New semester starting? It's time to restock those dorm rooms, make sure junior has all his toiletries, a re-stocked first aid kit, cleaning supplies (yeah, right) and ... books. Pricey, pricey books. This might be a good time to check out all the different ways to save cash on textbooks - book rentals, anyone? - and get a heads-up on where your money is likely going. (Hint: lab coats, practice room fees and many, many burritos.) Then join the discussion on college kids and spending money over in the forums and offer your cash-saving tips.

Seems the College Board's much vaunted "Score Choice," which supposedly allowed students to choose which SAT scores they wanted sent to colleges, doesn't exactly do that. The real choice is left up to the universities A fascinating and more than a little appalling article posted today on Inside Higher Ed says colleges "are being explicitly offered options by the College Board that would limit student choice over scores or result in admissions offices having score information that students might not want reviewed." In other words, the College Board is marketing your child's scores - all of them, not just the good, post-tutoring ones - to Big U, while reassuring you that you've got a say in the matter. Critics of the SAT say... Read more...