Ace! The Academy for EducationUSA-Chiang Mai: Tech

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Sunday, March 27, 2011

Monday, February 21, 2011

Tumblr, FB, Twitter Over Blogs

Ace! NewsFlash

Michael McDonald of San Francisco used to post his videos on a blog, but now he uses Facebook.

SAN FRANCISCO — Like any aspiring filmmaker, Michael McDonald, a high school senior, used a blog to show off his videos. But discouraged by how few people bothered to visit, he instead started posting his clips on Facebook, where his friends were sure to see and comment on his editing skills. “I don’t use my blog anymore,” said Mr. McDonald, who lives in San Francisco. “All the people I’m trying to reach are on Facebook.”

Blogs were once the outlet of choice for people who wanted to express themselves online. But with the rise of sites like Facebook and Twitter, they are losing their allure for many people — particularly the younger generation. The Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center found that from 2006 to 2009, blogging among children ages 12 to 17 fell by half; now 14 percent of children those ages who use the Internet have blogs. Among 18-to-33-year-olds, the project said ina report last year, blogging dropped two percentage points in 2010 from two years earlier.

Former bloggers said they were too busy to write lengthy posts and were uninspired by a lack of readers. Others said they had no interest in creating a blog because social networking did a good enough job keeping them in touch with friends and family. Blogging started its rapid ascension about 10 years ago as services like Blogger and LiveJournal became popular. So many people began blogging — to share dieting stories, rant about politics and celebrate their love of cats — that Merriam-Webster declared “blog” the word of the year in 2004.

Defining a blog is difficult, but most people think it is a Web site on which people publish periodic entries in reverse chronological order and allow readers to leave comments. Yet for many Internet users, blogging is defined more by a personal and opinionated writing style. A number of news and commentary sites started as blogs before growing into mini-media empires, like The Huffington Post or Silicon Alley Insider, that are virtually indistinguishable from more traditional news sources.

Blogs went largely unchallenged until Facebook reshaped consumer behavior with its all-purpose hub for posting everything social. Twitter, which allows messages of no longer than 140 characters, also contributed to the upheaval. No longer did Internet users need a blog to connect with the world. They could instead post quick updates to complain about the weather, link to articles that infuriated them, comment on news events, share photos or promote some cause — all the things a blog was intended to do.

Indeed, small talk shifted in large part to social networking, said Elisa Camahort Page, co-founder of BlogHer, a women’s blog network. Still, blogs remain a home of more meaty discussions, she said. “If you’re looking for substantive conversation, you turn to blogs,” Ms. Camahort Page said. “You aren’t going to find it on Facebook, and you aren’t going to find it in 140 characters on Twitter.”

Lee Rainie, director of the Internet and American Life Project, says that blogging is not so much dying as shifting with the times. Entrepreneurs have taken some of the features popularized by blogging and weaved them into other kinds of services. “The act of telling your story and sharing part of your life with somebody is alive and well — even more so than at the dawn of blogging,” Mr. Rainie said. “It’s just morphing onto other platforms.”

The blurring of lines is readily apparent among users of Tumblr. Although Tumblr calls itself a blogging service, many of its users are unaware of the description and do not consider themselves bloggers — raising the possibility that the decline in blogging by the younger generation is merely a semantic issue. Kim Hou, a high school senior in San Francisco, said she quit blogging months ago, but acknowledged that she continued to post fashion photos on Tumblr. “It’s different from blogging because it’s easier to use,” she said. “With blogging you have to write, and this is just images. Some people write some phrases or some quotes, but that’s it.”

The effect is seen on the companies providing the blogging platforms. Blogger, owned by Google, had fewer unique visitors in the United States in December than it had a year earlier — a 2 percent decline, to 58.6 million — although globally, Blogger’s unique visitors rose 9 percent, to 323 million. LiveJournal, another blogging service, has decided to emphasize communities. Connecting people who share an interest in celebrity gossip, for instance, provides the social interaction that “classic” blogging lacks, said Sue Rosenstock, a spokeswoman for LiveJournal, which is owned by SUP, a Russian online media company. “Blogging can be a very lonely occupation; you write out into the abyss,” she said.

But some blogging services like Tumblr and WordPress seem to have avoided any decline. Toni Schneider, chief executive of Automattic, the company that commercializes the WordPress blogging software, explains that WordPress is mostly for serious bloggers, not the younger novices who are defecting to social networking. In any case, he said bloggers often use Facebook and Twitter to promote their blog posts to a wider audience. Rather than being competitors, he said, they are complementary. “There is a lot of fragmentation,” Mr. Schneider said. “But at this point, anyone who is taking blogging seriously — they’re using several mediums to get a large amount of their traffic.”

While the younger generation is losing interest in blogging, people approaching middle age and older are sticking with it. Among 34-to-45-year-olds who use the Internet, the percentage who blog increased six points, to 16 percent, in 2010 from two years earlier, the Pew survey found. Blogging by 46-to-55-year-olds increased five percentage points, to 11 percent, while blogging among 65-to-73-year-olds rose two percentage points, to 8 percent.

Russ Steele, 72, a retired Air Force officer and aerospace worker from Nevada City, Calif., says he spends up to three hours a day seeking interesting topics and writing about them for his blog, NC Media Watch, which covers local issues in Nevada County, northeast of Sacramento. All he wants is to have a voice in the community for his conservative views. Although he signed up for Facebook this month, Mr. Steele said he did not foresee using it much and said that he remained committed to blogging. “I’d rather spend my time writing up a blog analysis than a whole bunch of short paragraphs and then send them to people,” he said. “I don’t need to tell people I’m going to the grocery store.”

NYT 20 Feb 2011

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Friday, February 4, 2011

The Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship Offers up to $10,000

Ace! NewsFlash

The Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship Offers up to $10,000

Dr. Anita Borg devoted her adult life to revolutionizing the way we think about technology and dismantling barriers that keep women and minorities from entering computing and technology fields. Her combination of technical expertise a nd fearless vision continues to inspire and motivate countless women to become active participants and leaders in creating technology.

In her honor, Google is proud to honor Anita’s memory and support women in technology with the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship. Google hopes to encourage women to excel in computing and technology and become active role models and leaders in the field.

Google Anita Borg Scholarship recipients will each receive a financial award for the academic year. A group of female undergraduate and graduate students will be chosen from the applicant pool, and scholarships will be awarded based on the strength of each candidate’s academic background and demonstrated leadership.

In addition, all scholarship recipients and finalists will be invited to attend a retreat at Google. We know how important a supportive peer network can be for a student’s success. The retreat will include workshops, speakers, panelists, breakout sessions and social activities scheduled over a couple of days.

For more information, visit: http://bit.ly/icceeU

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Be a Gamer, Save the World

Ace! NewsFlash

Videogames make players feel like their best selves. Why not give them real problems to solve?

ZUMA Press

Could games like 'Guitar Hero' help cure cancer and end poverty?

We often think of immersive computer and videogames—like "FarmVille," "Guitar Hero" and "World of Warcraft"—as "escapist," a kind of passive retreat from reality. Many critics consider such games a mind-numbing waste of time, if not a corrupting influence. But the truth about games is very nearly the opposite. In today's society, they consistently fulfill genuine human needs that the real world fails to satisfy. More than that, they may prove to be a key resource for solving some of our most pressing real-world problems.

Hundreds of millions of people around the globe are already devoting larger and larger chunks of time to this alternate reality. Collectively, we spend three billion hours a week gaming. In the United States, where there are 183 million active gamers, videogames took in about $15.5 billion last year. And though a typical gamer plays for just an hour or two a day, there are now more than five million "extreme" gamers in the U.S. who play an average of 45 hours a week. To put this in perspective, the number of hours that gamers world-wide have spent playing "World of Warcraft" alone adds up to 5.93 million years.

These gamers aren't rejecting reality entirely, of course. They have careers, goals, schoolwork, families and real lives that they care about. But as they devote more of their free time to game worlds, they often feel that the real world is missing something.

Gamers want to know: Where in the real world is the gamer's sense of being fully alive, focused and engaged in every moment? The real world just doesn't offer up the same sort of carefully designed pleasures, thrilling challenges and powerful social bonding that the gamer finds in virtual environments. Reality doesn't motivate us as effectively. Reality isn't engineered to maximize our potential or to make us happy.

Those who continue to dismiss games as merely escapist entertainment will find themselves at a major disadvantage in the years ahead, as more gamers start to harness this power for real good. My research over the past decade at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Institute for the Future has shown that games consistently provide us with the four ingredients that make for a happy and meaningful life: satisfying work, real hope for success, strong social connections and the chance to become a part of something bigger than ourselves.

We get these benefits from our real lives sometimes, but we get them almost every time we play a good game. These benefits are what positive psychologists call intrinsic rewards—we don't play games to make money, improve our social status, or achieve any external signposts of success. And these intrinsic rewards, studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and U.C. Berkeley have shown, provide the foundation for optimal human experience.

In a good game, we feel blissfully productive. We have clear goals and a sense of heroic purpose. More important, we're constantly able to see and feel the impact of our efforts on the virtual world around us. As a result, we have a stronger sense of our own agency—and we are more likely to set ambitious real-life goals. One recent study found, for example, that players of "Guitar Hero" are more likely to pick up a real guitar and learn how to play it.

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Videogames make players feel like their best selves. Why not give them real problems to solve?

When we play, we also have a sense of urgent optimism. We believe whole-heartedly that we are up to any challenge, and we become remarkably resilient in the face of failure. Research shows that gamers spend on average 80% of their time failing in game worlds, but instead of giving up, they stick with the difficult challenge and use the feedback of the game to get better. With some effort, we can learn to apply this resilience to the real-world challenges we face.

Games make it easy to build stronger social bonds with our friends and family. Studies show that we like and trust someone better after we play a game with them—even if they beat us. And we're more likely to help someone in real life after we've helped them in an online game. It's no wonder that 40% of all user time on Facebook is spent playing social games. They're a fast and reliable way to strengthen our connection with people we care about.

Today's videogames are increasingly created on an epic scale, with compelling stories, sweeping mythologies and massive multiplayer environments that produce feelings of awe and wonder. Researchers on positive emotion have found that whenever we feel awe or wonder, we become more likely to serve a larger cause and to collaborate selflessly with others.

With so much blissful productivity and urgent optimism, stronger social bonds and extreme cooperation, it's not surprising that so many players feel that they become the best version of themselves in games. That's one of the reasons I believe we can take the benefits of games a step further. We can harness the power of game design to tackle real-world problems. We can empower gamers to use their virtual-world strengths to accomplish real feats. Indeed, when game communities have been matched with challenging real-world problems, they have already proven themselves capable of producing tangible, potentially world-changing results.

In 2010, more than 57,000 gamers were listed as co-authors for a research paper in the prestigious scientific journal Nature. The gamers—with no previous background in biochemistry—had worked in a 3D game environment called Foldit, folding virtual proteins in new ways that could help cure cancer or prevent Alzheimer's. The game was developed by scientists at the University of Washington who believed that gamers could outperform supercomputers at this creative task—and the players proved them right, beating the supercomputers at more than half of the game's challenges.

More recently, more than 19,000 players of EVOKE, an online game that I created for the World Bank Institute, undertook real-world missions to improve food security, increase access to clean energy and end poverty in more than 130 countries. The game focused on building up players' abilities to design and launch their own social enterprises.

After 10 weeks, they had founded more than 50 new companies—real businesses working today from South Africa and India to Buffalo, N.Y. My favorite is Libraries Across Africa, a new franchise system that empowers local entrepreneurs to set up free community libraries. It also creates complementary business opportunities for selling patrons refreshments, WiFi access and cellphone time. The first is currently being tested in Gabon.

These examples are just the beginning of what is possible if we take advantage of the power of games to make us better and change the world. Those who understand this power will be the people who invent our future. We can create rewarding, transformative games for ourselves and our families; for our schools, businesses and neighborhoods; for an entire industry or an entirely new movement.

We can play any games we want. We can create any future we can imagine. Let the games begin.

—Ms. McGonigal is the director of game research and development at the Institute for the Future. This essay is adapted from "Reality Is Broken" by Jane McGonigal, published on Jan. 20 by the Penguin Press.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Deluge of Tablet Computers Will Hit U.S. Colleges

Ace! NewsFlash

Las Vegas—In his keynote address at the Higher Ed Tech Summit, Walt Mossberg, the influential technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal, told an audience of higher-education officials and company executives that their future held many tablet computers. And not just the iPad, but some of the 70 or so new tablet devices that have been announced this week at the Consumer Electronics Show here.
Speaking yesterday, Mr. Mossberg noted that CES this year should be renamed “TES” because there were so many of the things. (There was Motorola’s new Xoom, for instance, and Dell’s Streak 7, Lenovo’s IdeaPad Hybrid—a laptop with a detachable tablet—and devices from Samsung, Toshiba, Motion …)
And tablets will matter in higher education, Mr. Mossberg said, because students will bring them to campus, and colleges and—in particular—publishers will need to meet their needs. “The actual users, like students and faculty, will barge in,” he said.
Books should cost less, and they should be digital, Mr. Mossberg said. He is a trustee of Brandeis University, and “I vote on cost-cutting at every meeting. So the idea of having to spend a fortune on books is just primitive.” Course materials, including books, are less expensive in digital form, and tablets make them easy to use. “The multi-touch tablet computer has a serious chance of challenging the mouse-based interface, which has been around since the 1960s and came to fruition in the 1970s,” Mr. Mossberg said.
The technology columnist pointed out that the other major trend that will affect colleges is cloud computing, or the use of Internet-based software. Now, it may seem this news is less than surprising, as software companies have been beating this drum loudly for years. Still, colleges have not been listening. The latest Campus Computing Project survey, completed in the fall of 2010, reported that only 15 percent of campuses have a strategic plan to address cloud computing. So perhaps the reminder from the Brandeis trustee was timely.

CHE 7 Jan 2011

Sunday, September 26, 2010

New International Visitor Leadership Program for STEM Education

Ace! NewsFlash

New International Visitor Leadership Program
“A New Beginning: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Education

Office of the Spokesman

U.S. Department of State

Washington, DC

September 24, 2010

In a new initiative responding to President Obama’s June 2009 speech in Cairo, the U.S. Department of State is bringing 25 science teachers from as many countries to the United States for an International Visitor Leadership Program called “A New Beginning: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Education,” September 27 through October 15.

The teachers will engage in a professional, cultural and educational examination of the building blocks of STEM education at the primary and secondary levels in seven cities across the United States. Participants will visit several schools to explore how to nurture and support hands-on science education, how to demonstrate the relevance of science for children, and how to create a setting in which children actively engage in scientific learning.

This exchange will lay the groundwork for long-term relationships and foster international collaboration in an effort to develop rising leaders in the field of science and technology. After the teachers return home, their students and those of their American counterparts will be invited to take part in global “virtual” science fairs.

The program begins in Washington, D.C., and is also being hosted in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Seattle, and Los Angeles.

The International Visitor Leadership Program of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs annually brings over 4,500 potential or established leaders to the United States from around the world for professional projects with U.S. peers and for firsthand experience of American society and culture. Over 320 current and former chiefs of state and heads of government and many other distinguished world leaders in the public and private sectors have participated in the program, which this year celebrates its 70^th anniversary.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Top 25 U.S. Universities for Job Recruitment 2010

Ace! NewsFlash

Below are the Top 25 schools whose graduates were the top-rated by recruiters.

Paths to Professions

The Next 20 Recruiter Picks
See a sortable chart of the industries and the number of companies in each that answered the survey.
Rankings by Major: These schools produced the best graduates in each major.
See the List of 100 Schools
See the complete Paths to Professions report.

Under each school you'll see any individual majors where companies also ranked the school, along with other general information about the school's location, application deadlines and student body. Click on each school name to go to the university's website.

Where possible, we've pulled school-related data on number of students, tuition, application deadline, undergraduate enrollment and admissions contact information directly from each institution's website.

In some cases, data was collected via school profiles on collegeboard.com. Logos were requested from the schools.

1. Pennsylvania State University

Penn State, with its main campus located in University Park, Pa., has undergraduates enrolled in more than 160 different majors. It has 20 undergraduate campuses, 10 of which offer University-owned housing. The school is 54% male and 46% female, representing 50 states and 131 countries. The average student/faculty ratio is 17:1.

How majors match up

Accounting (5)
Business/Economics (11)
Computer Science (7)

Engineering (9)
Finance (6)
MIS (2)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Nov. 30
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $15,250; Out-of-state $27,114
Undergraduate Enrollment: 38,630
Admissions Phone: 814-865-5471
Admissions Email: admissions@psu.edu

2. Texas A&M University

This Texas school's main campus is in College Station, about 100 miles northwest of Houston and 100 miles northeast of Austin. The school has 10 individual colleges and boasts more than 800 student organizations ranging from athletics and recreation to professional and community service.

How majors match up

Finance (5)
Engineering (16)
Business/Economics (24)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Jan. 15; Dec. 1 (priority)
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $8,387; Out-of-state $22,817
Undergraduate Enrollment: 38,810
Admissions Phone: 979-845-3741
Admissions Email: admissions@tamu.edu

3. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, centrally located between Chicago, Indianapolis and St. Louis, has more than 150 majors and 1,000 student organizations. Students come from all 50 states and 118 countries. The school is 54% male and 46% female.

How majors match up

Accounting (3)
Engineering (4)
Computer Science (9)
Business/Economics (10)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Jan. 2
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $13,658-$18,386; Out-of-state $27,800-$32,528
Undergraduate Enrollment: 31,209
Admissions Phone: 217-333-0302
Admissions Email:ugradadmissions@uiuc.edu

4. Purdue University

More than half of this Indiana university's students are from the state (62%) with 38% coming from elsewhere. Its West Lafayette campus offers more than 200 majors for undergraduates along with 18 intercollegiate sports teams and more than 850 student organizations.

How majors match up

MIS (1)
Engineering (2)
Computer Science (8)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Nov. 15, other programs March 1
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $9,070-$10,408; Out-of-state $26,622-$27,960
Undergraduate Enrollment: 29,851
Admissions Phone: 765-494-1776
Admissions Email:admissions@purdue.edu

5. Arizona State University

Arizona State University's four campuses are within the metro Phoenix area. The West campus is known for professional and liberal arts, its Polytechnic campus focuses on technology and innovation, the downtown Phoenix campus hosts the school's professional programs like journalism and public administration, and its Tempe campus is home to the university's research-based programs.

How majors match up

Business/Economics (19)
Engineering (24)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Feb.1
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $8,132; Out-of-state $20,296
Undergraduate Enrollment: 54,277
Admissions Phone: 480-965-7788
Admissions Email: ugrading@asu.edu

6. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

This Michigan school's campus is in Ann Arbor offers more than 200 undergraduate degree programs and several thousand undergraduate research opportunities. There are more than 150 first-year seminars, with no more than 15-18 students each. The university boasts the most living alumni in the world: more than 400,000.

How majors match up

Business/Economics (1)
Finance (1)
Computer Science (3)
Accounting (6)
Engineering (6)
Marketing/Adv (7)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Nov. 1 (early); Feb. 1 (regular)
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state: $11,837, Out-of-state: $36,001
Undergraduate Enrollment: 26,208
Admissions Phone: 734-764-7433
Admissions Email: n/a

7. Georgia Institute of Technology

Georgia Institute of Technology has nine schools and two outreach campuses -- one in Savannah and the other in Metz, France. The student body is 64% male. More than 60% of the university's students come from Georgia, with roughly 30% coming from out-of-state; another 10% are international students.

How majors match up

Engineering (1)
MIS (3)
Computer Science (4)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Oct. 1 (early); Jan. 15 (regular)
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $8,716; Out-of-state $26,926
Undergraduate Enrollment: 13,515
Admissions Phone: 404-894-4154
Admissions Email:admission@gatech.edu

8. University of Maryland, College Park

This Maryland school's campus, stretching 1,250 acres, is about 10 miles from Washington D.C. It enrolls 67% in-state students; the student body is made up of 47% women. There are 13 colleges and schools within the university, which offers 127 undergraduate majors.

How majors match up

Engineering (3)
Accounting (7)
Computer Science (10)
Business/Economics (21)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Nov. 1 (priority); Jan. 20 (regular)
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $8,415.44; Out-of-state $24,830.44
Undergraduate Enrollment: 26,542
Admissions Phone: 301-314-8385
Admissions Email: um-admit@uga.umd.edu

9. University of Florida

University of Florida, located in Gainesville, is home to 16 colleges and more than 150 research centers and institutes. Its freshman retention rate hits 94%, with almost all students attending from in-state (97%). There are 60% women in the student body. Alumni, topping 330,000, live in all 50 states and 135 countries.

How majors match up

Finance (12)
Business/Economics (23)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Nov. 1
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $5,045; Out-of-state $27,322
Undergraduate Enrollment: 36,386
Admissions Phone: 352-392-1365
Admissions Email: n/a

10. Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon, located in Pittsburgh, Penn., sits on 143 acres in its urban campus. The university boasts a student/faculty ratio of 10:1. It consists of seven schools and colleges with just 17% of students coming from in-state. The school's motto "My heart is in the work," comes straight from Andrew Carnegie.

How majors match up

Computer Science (1)
Finance (4)
Business/Economics (7)
Engineering (21)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Nov. 1 (Early I); Dec. 1 (Early II); Jan. 1 (Regular)
Tuition (2010-2011): $42,136
Undergraduate Enrollment: 6,023
Admissions Phone: 412-268-2082
Admissions Email:
undergraduate-admissions@andrew.cmu.edu

11. Brigham Young University

This Utah school's campus is situated in Provo, about 50 miles south of Salt Lake City. The most popular majors are exercise science, management and psychology. Students come from 110 countries and are almost evenly split between male and female. Almost one-quarter of students are married.

How majors match up

Accounting (1)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Dec. 1 (Priority); Feb. 1 (Final)
Tuition (2010-2011): Latter Day Saints $4,420; Non-Latter Day Saints $8,840
Undergraduate Enrollment: 30,745
Admissions Phone: 801-422-2507
Admissions Email: admissions@byu.edu

12. Ohio State University

Ohio State, located in Columbus, was founded in 1870 as a land-grant university. It's the second-largest university campus in the United States, offering 14 colleges, 175 undergraduate majors and about 12,000 courses. Almost 80% of first-year classes have fewer than 40 students. The campus stretches across 1,700 acres and 457 buildings.

How majors match up

Business/Economics (2)
Accounting (10)
Engineering (13)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Feb.1
*Tuition (2009-2010): In-state $8,706; Out-of-state $22,278
Undergraduate Enrollment: 41,348
Admissions Phone: 614-292-3980
Admissions Email: askabuckeye@osu.edu

13. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

This school offers nine colleges and 65 bachelor's degree programs. The main campus, located in Blacksburg, includes more than 125 buildings and 2,600 acres, which includes an airport. There's an average of 16 students to every faculty member.

How majors match up

Engineering (5)
Computer Science (5)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Nov. 1 (Early); Jan. 15 (Regular)
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $9,458; Out-of-state $23,217
Undergraduate Enrollment: 23,558
Admissions Phone: 540-231-6267
Admissions Email: vtadmiss@vt.edu

14. Cornell University

This Ivy League school is located in the Finger Lakes region of central New York, about 225 miles to New York City. There are more than 500 student organizations, with attendees coming from all 50 states and more than 100 nations. Undergraduates pursue studies in more than 80 academic programs in the university's seven undergraduate colleges.

How majors match up

Engineering (7)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Nov. 1 (Early); Jan. 3 (Regular)
Tuition (2010-2011): $39,450
Undergraduate Enrollment: 13,931
Admissions Phone: 607-255-5241
Admissions Email:admissions@cornell.edu

15. University of California - Berkeley

This Northern California school's Berkeley campus is just 15 miles from San Francisco. Almost three-quarters of undergraduate classes have fewer than 30 students. There are 14 colleges and schools with 130 academic departments and more than 80 interdisciplinary research units.

How majors match up

Computer Science (2)
Marketing/Adv (3)
Finance (3)
Business/Economics (6)
Accounting (8)
Engineering (12)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Nov. 30
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $12,462; Out-of-state $35,341
Undergraduate Enrollment: 25,530
Admissions Phone: 510-642-3175
Admissions Email:ouars@uclink4.berkeley.edu

16. University of Wisconsin, Madison

This Wisconsin school's campus in Madison sits on almost 1,000 acres. The university also has an arboretum and experimental farms. About 65% of students are Wisconsin residents, 24% out-of-state and 11% come from Minnesota; the school offers discounted tuition to Minnesotans.

How majors match up

Accounting (2)
Marketing/Adv (5)
Finance (8)
Engineering (20)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Nov. 1 (First Notification Period); Feb. 1 (Second Notification Period)
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $9,050; Minnesota resident: $10,820 Out-of-state $24,300
Undergraduate Enrollment: 30,343
Admissions Phone: 608-262-3961
Admissions Email:onwisconsin@admissions.wisc.edu

17. University of California, Los Angeles

This California school is situated in Westwood Village in Los Angeles, about five miles from the Pacific Ocean. There are 174 buildings on 419 acres. It has 12 professional schools with 118 undergraduate degree programs. There are more than 4,000 teaching faculty.

How majors match up

Finance (7)
Accounting (9)
Business/Economics (17)
Engineering (19)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Nov. 30
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $10,781; Out-of-state $33,660
Undergraduate Enrollment: 26,687
Admissions Phone: 310-825-3101
Admissions Email:ugadm@saonet.ucla.edu

18. Texas Tech

Texas Tech is located in Lubbock in the South Plains of West Texas. It boasts students from every county in Texas -- about 95% of students are in-state. The school offers 150 undergraduate degree programs within 11 academic colleges. The school, founded in 1923, is in the Big 12 conference.

How majors match up

Engineering (25)

Upcoming Application Deadline: May 1
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $8,260; Out-of-state $17,560
Undergraduate Enrollment: 24,236
Admissions Phone: 806-742-1480
Admissions Email: admissions@ttu.edu

19 (tie). North Carolina State University, Raleigh

North Carolina State, an NCAA Division I university, has 10 undergraduate colleges serving students from all North Carolina counties. The majority of students -- 91% -- comes from in-state, and just more than half --56% -- are male.

How majors match up

Engineering (15)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Oct. 15 (Early Action 1); Nov. 1 (Early Action 2); Feb. 1 (Regular)
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $5,829; Out-of-state $18,314
Undergraduate Enrollment: 25,255
Admissions Phone: 919-515-2434
Admissions Email: undergrad—admissions@ncsu.edu

19 (tie). University of Virginia

Thomas Jefferson founded this school, located in Charlottesville, in 1819. It offers more than 60 majors in six undergraduate schools. Almost three-quarters are Virginian, with 54% women and 46% men. The university offers more than 480 public service and outreach programs.

How majors match up

Business/Economics (9)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Jan. 1
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $10,836; Out-of-state $33,782
Undergraduate Enrollment: 17,981
Admissions Phone: 434-982-3200
Admissions Email:undergradadmission@virginia.edu

21. Rutgers University, New Brunswick

This New Jersey school's main campus is in New Brunswick, about 35 miles from New York City. There are 27 schools and colleges offering more than 100 major undergraduate programs. Almost all -- 96% -- students are in-state, with 45% of the student body comprised of women.

How majors match up

Business/Economics (3)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Nov. 1 (Early); Dec. 1 (Regular)
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $12,560; Out-of-state $24,316
Undergraduate Enrollment: 29,095
Admissions Phone: 732-932-4636
Admissions Email:admissions@ugadm.rutgers.edu

22. University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame, founded in 1842, is an independent, national Catholic university adjacent to South Bend, Ind. and 90 miles east of Chicago. It stretches across 1,250 acres containing two lakes with 138 buildings in its four colleges and six major research institutes. The school also offers more than 40 centers and special programs. Just 7% of students come from Indiana.

Upcoming Application Deadline: Nov. 1 (Early); Dec. 31 (Regular)
Tuition (2010-2011): $39,919
Undergraduate Enrollment: 8,372
Admissions Phone: 574-631-7505
Admissions Email: admissions@nd.edu

23. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

This main campus of The Massachusetts Institue of Technology is located in Cambridge, extending 168 acres, some of which are across the Charles River Basin. The school accepted 10.7% of applicants in 2009, with just 10% in-state.

How majors match up

Engineering (8)
Computer Science (6)

Upcoming Application Deadline: Nov. 1 (Early); Jan. 1 (Regular)
Tuition (2010-2011): $39,212
Undergraduate Enrollment: 4,232
Admissions Phone: 617-253-3400
Admissions Email: admissions@mit.edu

24. University of Southern California

This California school's campus is in University Park, the heart of Los Angeles' downtown arts and education corridor. A little more than half of the students are Californians, and the school enrolls more international students than any other U.S. university. Out of almost 36,000 applicants, 24% were admitted. The student body is made up of 53% women.

Upcoming Application Deadline: Oct. 15 (Part 1); Dec. 1 (Scholarship Consideration); Jan. 10 (Regular)
Tuition (2010-2011): $41,172
Undergraduate Enrollment: 16,751
Admissions Phone: 213-740-1111
Admissions Email: admitusc@usc.edu

25. (tie) Washington State University

Four campuses with 12 colleges make up this Washington school, which is across the state -- or about 300 miles -- east of Seattle. There are four campuses with 12 colleges offering more than 200 fields of study and more than 100 majors. The student/faculty ratio is 15:1.

Upcoming Application Deadline: Jan. 31 (Priority)
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state $9,488; Out-of-state $20,530
Undergraduate Enrollment: 21,726
Admissions Phone: 509-335-5586
Admissions Email: admiss2@wsu.edu

25. (tie) University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

UNC-Chapel Hill

Set in the town of Chapel Hill, this flagship state university has a diverse student body and offers 77 majors for undergraduates. Nearly 80% of the school's freshman are typically in the top 10% of their high school class.

Upcoming Application Deadline:
Tuition (2010-2011): In-state ; Out-of-state
Undergraduate Enrollment: 17,981
Admissions Phone: 919-966-3621
Admissions Email: unchelp@admissions.unc.edu

WSJ 13 September 2010

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1. Pennsylvania State University

How majors match up

2. Texas A&M University

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3. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

How majors match up

4. Purdue University

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How majors match up

6. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

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7. Georgia Institute of Technology

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8. University of Maryland, College Park

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9. University of Florida

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10. Carnegie Mellon University

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11. Brigham Young University

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12. Ohio State University

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13. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

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14. Cornell University

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15. University of California - Berkeley

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16. University of Wisconsin, Madison

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17. University of California, Los Angeles

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18. Texas Tech

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19 (tie). North Carolina State University, Raleigh

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19 (tie). University of Virginia

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21. Rutgers University, New Brunswick

How majors match up

22. University of Notre Dame

23. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

How majors match up

24. University of Southern California

25. (tie) Washington State University

25. (tie) University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

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