Throughout the academic year, Melinda Giampietro, Options Founder/President, will share some of her favourite things. Melinda loves reading, data, research, and following academic and adolescent news around the world.
Melinda’s April Reading Recommendations:
On a recent trip to the Maritimes to visit universities, my husband and I had a wonderful dinner at Halifax restaurant, Edna. It was named after Edna St. Vincent Millay. She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. After that dinner, I dug into her legacy and have been working through an anthology of her poems. She was a progressive feminist, unafraid to write her thoughts and frustrations.
Additionally, while in Newfoundland, I had the extreme pleasure of hiking with Dr. TA Loeffler. TA is a professor in the School of Human Kinetics and Recreation at Memorial University. My husband and I spent hours listening to her stories about climbing “6 and 4/5 of the Seven Summits”. Her humour, grace, warmth, and quick wit kept us entertained. She gifted us with her More Than a Mountain: One Woman’s Everest book, and I can’t put it down. She is an inspiration and a true Canadian hero.
Melinda’s April Podcast Recommendation:
We often discuss podcasts in our office. The best recommendations come from consultant Gabrielle Bartlett. She listens to a broad range of things. At a recent Options social, she recommended: A Movement to Fight Misinformation…. With Misinformation.
It is about the Birds Can’t Fly movement, which is a satirical organization claiming that all birds are actually government drones. It explores conspiratorial thinking and why this echo chamber is so harmful to individuals. It was an excellent 28-minute listen that you can find here.
Melinda’s April Data Dump:
Those of you who have been following along all year, know that I love data. We follow enrollment and admission information closely to identify trends and patterns, and then, we use this information to help our students chart lists and strategies that best serve the current climate.
There is one clear trend in the US; it is shaping up to be a VERY competitive year. Here is the first for the year (yikes)! Total application volume through February 15, 2022 rose 20.8% from 2019–20 (5,379,496) to 2021–22 (6,500,894). Applicants are applying to more members, on average, in 2021– 22 than in 2019–20 (+6.1% from 5.46 to 5.60 applications per applicant).
And the first University of California data for the year (more yikes)! UCLA had 149,779 applications with a 32% increase in the number of students who ranked in the top 9% of their high school class.
And a helpful hindsight glance into Canadian admission is UBC’s enrollment report from the fall 2021 year. But also in here is this nugget of information:
“In early February, the Senate approved a reduction in enrolment targets for the 2022/23 school year. While UBC will still see an increase in the number of students, the university will only increase undergrad intake targets by 1.6 percent for domestic students and 3.3 percent for international students at UBC Vancouver — which amounts to 249 fewer domestic students and 146 fewer international.”
Melinda’s April Debate of the Month:
I, originally, found this article “The Value of a Bachelor or Commerce Degree” intriguing. It was released by the Edwards School of Business at The University of Saskatchewan. I liked how it looked at a variety of degrees, especially supply chain management which many high school students don’t consider.
And as I was pondering the USask article, I came across an article on Losing Money on Graduate Degrees and the often negative returns of an MBA education. I like a good old education debate. “And for some fields of graduate degrees, including M.B.A.s—which, by the way, is America’s most popular master’s degree—over half of those degree programs do not show positive ROI. So over half of the students who are getting an M.B.A. are going to be worse off for having gotten that degree.”
