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Ace! NewsFlash

Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime

Rhiana Maidenberg listened to an audio book on her mobile phone while watching television during a workout in San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO — It’s 1 p.m. on a Thursday and Dianne Bates, 40, juggles three screens. She listens to a few songs on her iPod, then taps out a quick e-mail on her iPhone and turns her attention to the high-definition television.

Just another day at the gym.

As Ms. Bates multitasks, she is also churning her legs in fast loops on an elliptical machine in a downtown fitness center. She is in good company. In gyms and elsewhere, people use phones and other electronic devices to get work done — and as a reliable antidote to boredom.

Cellphones, which in the last few years have become full-fledged computers with high-speed Internet connections, let people relieve the tedium of exercising, the grocery store line, stoplights or lulls in the dinner conversation. The technology makes the tiniest windows of time entertaining, and potentially productive. But scientists point to an unanticipated side effect: when people keep their brains busy with digital input, they are forfeiting downtime that could allow them to better learn and remember information, or come up with new ideas. 

Ms. Bates, for example, might be clearer-headed if she went for a run outside, away from her devices, research suggests. At the University of California, San Francisco, scientists have found that when rats have a new experience, like exploring an unfamiliar area, their brains show new patterns of activity. But only when the rats take a break from their exploration do they process those patterns in a way that seems to create a persistent memory of the experience.

The researchers suspect that the findings also apply to how humans learn.

Loren Frank, a professor of physiology, said downtime lets the brain go over experiences, “solidify them and turn them into permanent long-term memories.”

“Almost certainly, downtime lets the brain go over experiences it’s had, solidify them and turn them into permanent long-term memories,” said Loren Frank, assistant professor in the department of physiology at the university, where he specializes in learning and memory. He said he believed that when the brain was constantly stimulated, “you prevent this learning process.”

At the University of Michigan, a study found that people learned significantly better after a walk in nature than after a walk in a dense urban environment, suggesting that processing a barrage of information leaves people fatigued. Even though people feel entertained, even relaxed, when they multitask while exercising, or pass a moment at the bus stop by catching a quick video clip, they might be taxing their brains, scientists say. “People think they’re refreshing themselves, but they’re fatiguing themselves,” said Marc Berman, a University of Michigan neuroscientist.

Regardless, there is now a whole industry of mobile software developers competing to help people scratch the entertainment itch. Flurry, a company that tracks the use of apps, has found that mobile games are typically played for 6.3 minutes, but that many are played for much shorter intervals. One popular game that involves stacking blocks gets played for 2.2 minutes on average. Today’s game makers are trying to fill small bits of free time, said Sebastien de Halleux, a co-founder of PlayFish, a game company owned by the industry giant Electronic Arts. “Instead of having long relaxing breaks, like taking two hours for lunch, we have a lot of these micro-moments,” he said. Game makers like Electronic Arts, he added, “have reinvented the game experience to fit into micro-moments.”

Many business people, of course, have good reason to be constantly checking their phones. But this can take a mental toll. Henry Chen, 26, a self-employed auto mechanic in San Francisco, has mixed feelings about his BlackBerry habits. “I check it a lot, whenever there is downtime,” Mr. Chen said. Moments earlier, he was texting with a friend while he stood in line at a bagel shop; he stopped only when the woman behind the counter interrupted him to ask for his order.

Mr. Chen, who recently started his business, doesn’t want to miss a potential customer. Yet he says that since he upgraded his phone a year ago to a feature-rich BlackBerry, he can feel stressed out by what he described as internal pressure to constantly stay in contact. “It’s become a demand. Not necessarily a demand of the customer, but a demand of my head,” he said. “I told my girlfriend that I’m more tired since I got this thing.”

In the parking lot outside the bagel shop, others were filling up moments with their phones. While Eddie Umadhay, 59, a construction inspector, sat in his car waiting for his wife to grocery shop, he deleted old e-mail while listening to news on the radio. On a bench outside a coffee house, Ossie Gabriel, 44, a nurse practitioner, waited for a friend and checked e-mail “to kill time.” 

Crossing the street from the grocery store to his car, David Alvarado pushed his 2-year-old daughter in a cart filled with shopping bags, his phone pressed to his ear. He was talking to a colleague about work scheduling, noting that he wanted to steal a moment to make the call between paying for the groceries and driving. “I wanted to take advantage of the little gap,” said Mr. Alvarado, 30, a facilities manager at a community center.

For many such people, the little digital asides come on top of heavy use of computers during the day. Take Ms. Bates, the exercising multitasker at the expansive Bakar Fitness and Recreation Center. She wakes up and peeks at her iPhone before she gets out of bed. At her job in advertising, she spends all day in front of her laptop. But, far from wanting a break from screens when she exercises, she says she couldn’t possibly spend 55 minutes on the elliptical machine without “lots of things to do.” This includes relentless channel surfing. “I switch constantly,” she said. “I can’t stand commercials. I have to flip around unless I’m watching ‘Project Runway’ or something I’m really into.”

Some researchers say that whatever downside there is to not resting the brain, it pales in comparison to the benefits technology can bring in motivating people to sweat. “Exercise needs to be part of our lives in the sedentary world we’re immersed in. Anything that helps us move is beneficial,” said John J. Ratey, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and author of “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.” But all things being equal, Mr. Ratey said, he would prefer to see people do their workouts away from their devices: “There is more bang for your buck doing it outside, for your mood and working memory.”

Of the 70 cardio machines on the main floor at Bakar Fitness, 67 have televisions attached. Most of them also have iPod docks and displays showing workout performance, and a few have games, like a rope-climbing machine that shows an animated character climbing the rope while the live human does so too. A few months ago, the cable TV went out and some patrons were apoplectic. “It was an uproar. People said: ‘That’s what we’re paying for,’ ” said Leeane Jensen, 28, the fitness manager.

At least one exerciser has a different take. Two stories up from the main floor, Peter Colley, 23, churns away on one of the several dozen elliptical machines without a TV. Instead, they are bathed in sunlight, looking out onto the pool and palm trees. “I look at the wind on the trees. I watch the swimmers go back and forth,” Mr. Colley said. “I usually come here to clear my head.”

A version of this article appeared in print on August 25, 2010, on page B1 of the New York Times.

*** Ace! is a member of the EducationUSA global educational advising network affiliated with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State. We provide free EducationUSA counseling services to students in the northern provinces of Thailand; our faculty of U.S.-trained Test Prep Experts can help you with cost-effective result-driven training programs for SAT-1, SAT-2, TOEFL, GRE, GMAT, GED, AP, IB, TOEIC, IELTS etc ***

Early Apps & Common App: The Race for Class of 2015 is on!

Ace! NewsFlash
 

Pulling an All-Nighter for the College Application

Cree Bautista was the first high school student to submit a Common Application to his first choice, N.Y.U., early on Aug. 1.

Cree Bautista’s application for next year’s freshman class at New York University isn’t due until Jan. 1, but Cree, an incoming high school senior from Pflugerville, Tex., was not taking any chances.

The Common Application is the passport to more than 400 colleges and universities.

For the essay, Cree Bautista drew on an earlier paper he wrote, “It’s Not a Phase.”

Just after 12:01 a.m. on Aug. 1 — when this year’s version of the Common Application, the passport to N.Y.U. and more than 400 other institutions, was first posted on the Web — Cree sat down at the computer in his parents’ bedroom and began filling out the form. The room was dark, because they were sleeping.

After listing his extracurricular activities (including cross country and show choir), tallying his Advanced Placement courses (seven) and putting a final polish on his essay, he pushed the “send” button. It was about 3:30 a.m. Never mind that he had never visited New York, let alone New York University. This, he said, was his “dream school,” and he was determined “to be the first to apply.”

As it turned out, Cree, 17, was the first applicant for the class of 2015, not just at N.Y.U. but to any institution that accepts the Common App, including those of the Ivy League. By Tuesday he had plenty of company: Nearly 1,000 applications had been filed by students to colleges —Harvard, Miami of Ohio and Vanderbilt, among many others — a nearly fourfold increase over the comparable period last year.

But as more students each year seek to get the earliest possible jump on the nerve-racking process of applying to college, as if they were securing tickets to a soon-to-be-sold-out rock concert, the deans of admission at N.Y.U. and elsewhere are sounding a cautionary note. They say that there is no reason to apply five months in advance, let alone two, and that they are far more inclined to put a premium on thoughtfulness and contemplation than speed.

Asked when a member of his staff might first see Cree’s application, Shawn Abbott, assistant vice president for undergraduate admissions at N.Y.U., said it would probably not be until mid-October at the earliest. “We won’t even download it until months from now,” Mr. Abbott said. “It’s not a horse race.”

While Cree is applying to N.Y.U. in the regular-decision round, several deans said Mr. Abbott’s plea for deliberation and patience was also good advice for those applying to selective colleges through their early application programs.

For example, the deadline for students to file early-action applications to the University of Michigan — which is accepting the Common Application for the first time this year — is Nov. 1. Asked if filing well in advance of that deadline would give an applicant a leg up, Ted Spencer, the longtime executive director of undergraduate admissions at Michigan, said no. “As long as you pay attention to the deadline, you’re going to be in good shape,” Mr. Spencer said.

Rob Killion, executive director of the Common Application, said he was particularly unnerved by the flood of early submissions through the organization’s Web site because he feared that students were rushing their essays. (This year’s Common Application was actually posted several weeks later than last year’s — not as a prod to get applicants to file later, but instead to allow high schools extra time to send final documents before the new year begins.)

Cree said he felt he was as ready as he would ever be. He said the essay that he submitted in answer to the application’s array of broad questions — including “Discuss some issue of personal, local, national or international concern and its importance to you” — was actually drawn from a paper he worked on last semester in his junior-year English class.

Titled “It’s Not a Phase,” his essay begins: “I grew up in the same neighborhood, in the same house, in the same bedroom, for 10 years. Throughout that decade, I grew into the person I am today, changing who I thought I was just about every five seconds. As I came to terms with what was on the inside, my parents came to realize that no matter what, I was still their son.”

Cree, who hopes to study music at N.Y.U., will not have his application considered until his teachers have submitted their recommendations, his school has sent along his grades and the College Board has sent an official record of his SAT scores. But Mr. Abbott of N.Y.U. — who spoke only in general about early filers, and not Cree in particular — said he hoped that other students would wait to file their applications until they have actually begun their senior years, and can let the colleges know how things are going so far, whether in class or out.

Cree, whose parents are both teachers and who hopes to also apply to three Texas colleges that have not yet posted their applications, said he was just glad to have this one done and out of the way. After essentially pulling an all-nighter, he was calm and fell immediately asleep.  “I was exhausted,” he said. “I just kind of collapsed.”

A version of this article appeared in print on August 11, 2010, on page A10 of the New York Times.

*** Ace! is a member of the EducationUSA global educational advising network affiliated with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State. We provide free EducationUSA counseling services to students in the northern provinces of Thailand; our faculty of U.S.-trained Test Prep Experts can help you with cost-effective result-driven training programs for SAT-1, SAT-2, TOEFL, GRE, GMAT, GED, AP, IB, TOEIC, IELTS etc ***

Financial Aid: How to Get More

Ace! NewsFlash

Even Well-Off Families Can Outwit the College Bean-Counters

Now that families have sent in their college acceptance letters, reality is setting in. How in the world are they going to pay the bill?

Faced with steep budget cuts and slumping endowments, schools are raising tuition and paring back aid, putting additional strain on families still struggling to recoup investment losses suffered during the financial crisis. Earlier this year, for example, Harvard University announced that its tuition, fees and board would increase by 3.8% for the 2010-2011 year, exceeding $50,000 for the first time. Dartmouth College and Williams College announced plans to replace grants with loans in the aid packages of some students.

Parents Paying for Tuition

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Michael Fein/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Harvard pennants were displayed in Cambridge, Mass.

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Many state schools, traditionally far cheaper than private schools, are imposing significantly steeper hikes in percentage terms. Tuition at Washington's four-year state schools is expected to rise by another 14% this fall, on top of a 14% increase a year ago—while students at the University of California's campuses face a 32% rise in tuition and other costs. Families are likely to see even larger tuition increases at state schools in 2011 as federal stimulus funds run out.

It adds up to another depressing reminder of how difficult paying for college can be for upper-middle-class families. Many are too affluent to qualify for significant financial aid, but not wealthy enough to afford to pay out of pocket. Fortunately, there are a surprising number of short- and long-term strategies that parents can use put their finances in the right light to qualify for more aid.

All of them are based on one simple principle: "Neediness" is in the eye of the beholder. "While the money is supposed to go to the people who need it, the reality is that it goes to the people who navigate the process and understand the ins and outs of the formula," says Kalman Chany, author of "Paying for College Without Going Broke."

Short-Term Strategies

If your financial circumstances have changed materially at any time, ask the aid office to review your aid package. Under a "professional judgment review," financial-aid officers can make adjustments to the aid package if there have been material changes to the family's income or assets.

With two sons attending Stanford University this fall, Lynette La Mere of Montecito, Calif., was facing out-of-pocket costs of close to $100,000. She was able to pay the full cost for her older son, Max Oswald, now a sophomore, because her catering business was bringing in about $300,000 a year in profits. But by mid-2009, the recession caught up with her, as people scaled back their wedding plans. "My profit dropped dramatically, probably by about two-thirds," says the 49-year-old single mom. Much of Ms. La Mere's wealth is tied up in her business—the property, building and equipment—which she estimates is worth about $2 million. "It's scary," she says. "I don't know yet what I'm going to do. The obvious thing is [for her sons] to get loans. But I don't want them to start their [working] lives in debt."

Paying Up

College costs—including tuition, room and board and mandatory fees—are at all-time highs, although schools say they're boosting aid. Here is a list of the 10 most-expensive schools for the current 2009-10 year, along with next year's costs.

• Sarah Lawrence College
  2009-10: $55,788
  2010-11: $57,384
• Georgetown University
  2009-10: $52,161
  2010-11: $53,006
• New York University
  2009-10: $51,993
  2010-11: $53,588
• George Washington University
  2009-10: $51,775
  2010-11: $53,025
• Johns Hopkins University
  2009-10: $51,690
  2010-11: $53,690
• Columbia University
  2009-10: $51,544
  2010-11: $57,000 to $59,000*
• Vassar College
  2009-10: $51,470
  2010-11: $53,270
• Wesleyan University
  2009-10: $51,432
  2010-11: $53,976
• Trinity College (Conn.)
  2009-10: $51,400
  2010-11: $53,380
• Bates College
  2009-10: $51,300
  2010-11: $53,300

*Reflects estimated costs provided by the school's financial-aid office; final costs to be set later this year. Note: Landmark College and Columbia University's School of General Studies, with 2009-10 costs of $53,900 and $51,930, respectively, were excluded because their programs are geared to nontraditional students.

Source: WSJ analysis based on data provided by the College Board; rankings based on 2009-2010 costs.

Stanford initially offered her younger son, Lucas Oswald, $5,500 in federal Stafford loans. Then her adviser, Deborah Fox of Fox College Funding, a San Diego firm specializing in late-stage college planning, advised Ms. La Mere to send a letter to the school's financial-aid office explaining her steep drop in profit and the fact some of her business assets, such as commercial real estate, weren't readily available to pay for college. The result: Stanford came up with an additional $9,000 annual scholarship and has indicated that Max will get a similar package.

Schools say they are seeing a rise in the number of students asking for help. Financial-aid applications at the University of Michigan, for example, are up 4% for the upcoming academic year, on top of a 15% increase last year, and the school is making more adjustments to student aid packages to account for factors such as job losses, says Pamela Fowler, the school's executive director of financial aid.

More than half the undergraduate students at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., are receiving grants this year, with an average award of $28,113, up from 46% of students in 2008-09 who received an average grant of $25,908, according to the school. Middlebury College in Vermont, says it plans to cap increases in its "comprehensive fee"—which includes tuition, room and board—to one percentage point above the annual increase in the Consumer Price Index.

Families with kids attending private colleges may be able to qualify for help under the College Board's CSS/Financial Aid Profile, which is used to determine how to distribute the school's own funds. The CSS/Profile weighs factors, such as home values, that the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or Fafsa—which is used to determine a family's eligibility for federal grants and loans—doesn't consider. Has your home declined in value? If so, think about getting a market appraisal or a 30-day "quick sale value" to document the loss. In addition to home equity, many private schools' formulas also factor in private school tuition for younger siblings and medical expenses.

"If you can document that the value of your home has decreased by 20% to 50%, it has the potential to make a difference of a few thousand dollars," says Mark Kantrowitz, who runs the website FinAid.org, which offers strategies to help maximize eligibility for need-based student financial aid.

Long-Term Strategies

For financial-aid purposes, the most crucial year is the one that begins on Jan. 1 while your child is a junior in high school—the "base income year." During that time, and throughout college, income earned or received is counted more heavily than assets in the financial-aid formulas. Try to avoid taking retirement distributions or realizing large capital gains during that period. Load up on contributions to retirement plans before the base and college years, because assets in those accounts aren't counted in the aid formulas.

Some families may want to defer converting an IRA to a Roth IRA, even though new laws now make it possible for wealthier taxpayers to take advantage of the conversion. Many financial-aid offices may use the income generated from the conversion to reduce the students' eligibility for need-based aid—unless parents appeal the offer through professional judgment. Since financial-aid forms ask parents to list the funds in their accounts the day they fill out the forms, aim to draw down those accounts as much possible before filing out the paperwork. If you were already planning to make a big purchase—say, a new car or computer—just buy it sooner.

Spend down assets in the student's name first, since aid formulas count student assets more heavily than parental assets. Custodial accounts, such as UTMAs and UGMAs, can also be liquidated with the proceeds transferred into a custodial 529 plan, which are currently counted as a parent asset on the FAFSA form.

Some families may want to consider margin loans, passbook loans (which use savings accounts as collateral) or a home-equity loan to help pay for college since such loans reduce net assets in the aid formula, says Mr. Chany. If, for example, you have a $20,000 stock portfolio and a $5,000 margin loan and have no other investments to report, you'd report $15,000 as the figure for your assets on the Fasfa. A major drawback: If the stock market declines drastically, you may be asked to put up additional stock as collateral or pay back part of the margin loan.

Another strategy: Use one of the more than two dozen "prepaid" 529 plans, which allow families to make an upfront payment in exchange for future tuition contracts or credits. The tuition guarantees generally apply to state schools in the state where they are offered, though you can use the money to help pay for out-of-state or private schools. Although many prepaid plans are operating in the red, for now they are still paying tuition as agreed. But the fine print in some state contracts gives them some wiggle room to pay out less than the promised amounts, so read it carefully.

As Steve Berenson's kids got closer to college, he sold some of his holdings in stock-index funds to buy contracts in the Independent 529, a prepaid plan with partnerships with more than 270 private colleges. With his son, Jacob, set to attend one of those schools—Kalamazoo College in Michigan—this fall, he was able to dodge some of the recent tuition spikes. The school also offered Jacob a $17,000 annual scholarship, and Mr. Berenson, a 47-year-old personnel manager in Vienna, W.Va., recently paid off his mortgage. "I timed it so that I would be freeing up cash flow," he says.

Perhaps the most effective tactic is to find a school that really wants your child. Barry Evans of Carmel Valley, Calif., says his and his wife's decision to send their daughter, Paige, to Southern Methodist University in Dallas was swayed in part by the scholarship money the school offered. "My perception is that early on in the process, SMU decided they really wanted her," he says. Mr. Evans also netted an additional $6,000 grant by approaching the head of the department that Paige, who just finished her freshman year, was interested in. Today, the school is covering slightly less than half of the roughly $50,000 annual cost through a mix of scholarships and grants.

*** Ace! is a member of the EducationUSA global educational advising network affiliated with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State. We provide free EducationUSA counseling services to students in the northern provinces of Thailand; our faculty of U.S.-trained Test Prep Experts can help you with cost-effective result-driven training programs for SAT-1, SAT-2, TOEFL, GRE, GMAT, GED, IELTS etc ***

Columbia, Michigan & a German university accept Common App

Ace! NewsFlash

Columbia, Michigan and Connecticut Among 25 Colleges to Add Common Application

The Common Application Web site

Students applying to Columbia, the University of Michigan, the University of Connecticut and 22 other institutions in the next admissions season will, for the first time, be able to use the Common Application.

Rob Killion, executive director of Common Application Inc., the nonprofit organization that produces the form, said in an e-mail message that the new additions would bring the total of participating institutions to 414. The next version of the Common Application, which has spared many recent applicants the chore of composing original essays for every institution they apply to, will be available Aug. 1.

In a statement, Jessica Marinaccio, dean of undergraduate admissions at Columbia, said that adding the Common Application would “make applying to Columbia more accessible to students from every background.” She added:

“We recognize the anxiety students and families feel throughout the admissions process, and hope that the standardized nature of the Common Application will make applying easier, more convenient and less stressful for students and the counselors and teachers who support them.”

Still, for all the paperwork it saves students, the Common Application is also believed to have contributed to the arms race mentality among highly selective colleges and their applicants. Ms. Marinaccio noted in her statement that Columbia had received more than 26,000 applications for this fall’s freshman class at Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, the most ever.

Among Ivy League institutions, Columbia is the last to add the Common Application.

Here, as provided by Mr. Killion, are the 25 colleges adding the Common Application:

Alaska Pacific University

Albany College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences

Columbia University

Concordia University in Portland, Ore.

DePaul University

Fontbonne University in St. Louis

Husson University in Bangor, Me.

Jacobs University, Bremen in Germany (the first international member)

Johnson State College in Vermont

Maritime College (SUNY)

Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, N.Y.

Morrisville State College (State University of New York)

Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio

School of the Art Institute of Chicago

St. John’s College in Annapolis, Md., and Santa Fe, N.M.

Stephens College in Columbia, Mo.

SUNY Potsdam

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

University of Connecticut

University of Michigan

University of North Carolina, Asheville

Western New England College

Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Xavier University of Louisiana

Yeshiva University

At this point, Mr. Killion said, the colleges with national profiles that do not accept the Common Application are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgetown, the University of Southern California and Howard.

*** Ace! is a member of the EducationUSA global educational advising network affiliated with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State. We provide free EducationUSA counseling services to students in the northern provinces of Thailand; our faculty of U.S.-trained Test Prep Experts can help you with cost-effective result-driven training programs for SAT-1, SAT-2, TOEFL, GRE, GMAT, GED, IELTS etc ***

$250 BILLION, 1,000+ deals, 1 man

Ace! NewsFlash

Thinking of an MBA or Finance career? Be Inspired by Bruce

Bruce Wasserstein was the pioneer of the M&A business. He worked on more than 1,000 deals, developed numerous M&A tactics and perhaps earned more money than anyone else advising firms.

Here is a look at what various news outlets had to say in the wake of his passing.

On Wasserstein’s legacy, the Daily Telegraph writes: “Never shy of controversy, Wasserstein could claim to have had a hand in more than 1,000 merger and acquisition deals in the course of his career, amounting to some $250 billion in value. Whether in defence or on the side of the hostile bidder, he deployed a mastery of takeover techniques, a sharp tongue and formidable powers of persuasion to keep his clients in the game to the last hand – hence “Bid ‘Em Up Bruce”, a sobriquet which he was said to hate.”

Meanwhile, MarketWatch’s David Weidner writes: “The 61-year-old adviser, who was both derided and championed as “Bid ‘Em Up” Bruce, changed deal making from a restrained and formal corporate practice to Wall Street’s equivalent of financial sport….His early death leaves an incomplete body of work. His firm, Lazard Ltd. is gearing up and leading a new wave of M&A. His vanity publications, New York and The Deal magazines, still have work to do in terms of winning audiences, advertisers and respect.”

One of the big question hanging in the air is what impact will his death have on Lazard? Jeffrey Goldfarb over at Breakingviews writes that the loss will be painful — “although probably more so personally and emotionally than strategically or financially.” Wasserstein’s work was largely done at Lazard, Goldfrab writes. Since arriving at Lazard in 2002, Wassterstein had united the firm, divided across three cities on two continents, replenished its ranks of experienced bankers and had taken the Lazard public. “Wasserstein may have been able help Lazard navigate these new-millennium challenges. But the firm has withstood plenty of downturns and transitions over the decades. An institution that has lasted 161 years can sustain the loss of even the most outstanding banker,” Galdfarb writes.

Perhaps one aspects of his legacy that has garnered bit less attention is the number of deal makers he mentored. Besides the bankers he lured to Lazard, the list includes Douglas Braunstein at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Raymond McGuire at Citigroup Inc., Hugh McGee at Barclays Plc, Laurence Grafstein at Rothschild and Robert Pruzan at Centerview Partners, writes Bloomberg.

While Wasserstein was known as a banker, for those that worked at the University of Michigan’s student newspaper in the mid-to-late 1960s, “Wasserstein was known for his shrewd reporting, strategic and brilliant mind and jumbled appearance,” writes the Michigan Daily. He served as the Daily’s executive editor from 1966 to 1967. His most notable coverage? His reporting on the University’s response to a subpoena from the House Un-American Activities Committee in September 1966.

According to Westport, Conn., First Selectman Gordon F. Joseloff, who went to high school with Wasserstein and worked on the school’s paper with him, journalism was his secret passion.

*** Ace! is a member of the EducationUSA global educational advising network affiliated with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State. We provide free EducationUSA counseling services to students in the northern provinces of Thailand; our faculty of U.S.-trained Test Prep Experts can help you with cost-effective result-driven training programs for SAT-1, SAT-2, TOEFL, GRE, GMAT, GED, IELTS etc ***