Phony Student Nabbed at Stanford

Revolving door more like wheel of fortune: school owes coach $10M

(NEWSER) - After months of speculation, Notre Dame pulled the trigger on Charlie Weis today, firing its head football coach with 6 years and at least $10 million left on his contract. Saturday's loss to Stanford, which left the Fighting Irish with a 6-6 record in Weis' fifth year at the helm, evidently was the last straw for AD Jack Swarbrick. Weis, an ND grad, was "as disappointed as anyone that we have not achieved the desired results," Sawbrick told the Chicago Tribune . More»

(NEWSER) - “What did you get on your SATs?” is now a multiple-choice question. A policy enacted last month allows students who take the test several times to pick which score they send to colleges, the Washington Post reports. But many schools aren’t thrilled with the change, and a quarter of them are asking students to continue sending all of their scores. More»

Top schools see no application shortage despite economy

(NEWSER) - Sure, a lot of people are cash-strapped, but don’t get your hopes up that the recession will boost your shot at an Ivy League school. Harvard got a record number of applications this year—29,112, a 6% jump from last year. And pricey universities like Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia, and Stanford all saw application numbers soar, the New York Times reports. Still, some top smaller schools did see a decline in applications. More»

Schools fawn over acceptees, but can be curt with e-rejections

(NEWSER) - College admissions offices are jazzing up acceptance packages—adding confetti, T-shirts, internet videos—to lure students, and are also trying to keep up with the times in their rejections, US News and World Report writes. But some efforts have backfired, with students hurt by brutally short, electronic turndowns—including text messages as brief as “Admissions decision: Deny”—and high schools complaining that midday e-mails disrupt classrooms. More»

Students look into why '06 quake toppled gym

(NEWSER) - Stanford University has found a way to give archeology students valuable excavation experience without leaving campus, Bloomberg reports, and hopes to find out why an enormous gymnasium couldn't withstand the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The gym was intended as a signature building for the young school. "They thought if they built that building, it would stand for 500 years," an official said. More»