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Dartmouth Medical School has been renamed after a former Dartmouth student who went on to become one of the most celebrated children's authors of all time.

A few weeks back, Dartmouth College announced that its medical school, formerly known as Dartmouth Medical School, would be renamed. The new name? The Audrey and Theodor Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. We suppose you don’t think much of the renaming. Big deal — universities rename their buildings, endowed professorships, and graduate schools quite often as new major donations roll in. But this is a renaming that is kind of funny if you happen to know who Theodor Geisel is.

Theodor Geisel attended Dartmouth College as a member of the Class of 1925. At Dartmouth, Geisel was a SigEp and the editor-in-chief of the College’s humor magazine (“The Jack-O-Lantern”). When Geisel got in some trouble with the Dean of the College, his punishment was that he could no longer participate in extracurricular activities — including writing for “The Jack-O-Lantern.” And so Geisel decided to write under a pseudonym so that he could keep writing without getting in more trouble. The pen name he chose? Dr. Seuss.

So, yes, the former Dartmouth Medical School is now essentially the Audrey and Dr. Seuss Medical School. How funny is that? Does it make you think of the Robin Williams movie “Patch Adams”? What do you think of the renaming of Dartmouth Medical School? Is it a little bit ridiculous? Do you like it? Let us know your thoughts on the subject by posting below. If you’d like, you can even post under a pen name.

And while the Cat in the Hat might be in, the Dartmouth president is out. He’s been confirmed to become the president of the World Bank.

Graduate film school. You’ll see posters for such programs all over Manhattan and Los Angeles. The good ones, of course, are at New York University (Tisch), the University of Southern California, and the University of California Los Angeles. There isn’t really a university with a graduate film school of the same caliber. But don’t take what we just wrote literally because we feel that graduate film school (watch this video!) is utterly ridiculous. And we’ll tell you why.

Graduate film schools just aren't necessary. There just isn't a good return on investment for students in many cases.

Take for example the Peter Stark Producing Program at USC. Students in this program (mostly aspiring movie and TV producers, writers, directors, and executives) pay big bucks to go to school to learn how to be producers. They learn about film budgets. They learn about film financing, how to effectively frame TV pitches, and they get to be taught by real industry professionals. But is that really worth the money? Our answer, in short, is absolutely, positively not.

When you work your way up the Hollywood food chain (first as an unpaid intern, then as an assistant, etc.), you build connections. And you do grunt work. That grunt work, if you do it with a smile, doesn’t go unnoticed by higher ups and it often leads to a promotion. Going to school in the hope of bypassing the grunt work just doesn’t work. Graduate film school is not an effective bypass of the low rungs on the television and movie business ladder. It just isn’t.

And when students graduate from such programs as Stark and feel entitled, that doesn’t sit well with feature and television executives. That doesn’t sit well with other feature and TV writers and directors. In Hollywood, it’s all about paying your dues. It’s about getting coffee and running errands. Does that mean that it’s the right way? No. But it’s the way of Hollywood. Graduate film school is a whole lot of money for little payoff. The return on investment just isn’t there. Rather than applying, consider trying to land a PA, writer’s assistant, or director’s assistant job in Hollywood. That’s the bottom line.

Your online reputation matters in college admissions. And it matters even more in law school admissions!

Kaplan put together some data on social media in admissions. There’s nothing revolutionary in their data and nothing we haven’t written about before, but they do present it in an interesting way. According to their infographic, 41% of law school admissions officers acknowledge that they have at some point Googled an applicant. 27% of business school admissions officers admit to Googling applicants. While 20% of college admissions officers admit the same.

Meanwhile, 37% of law school admissions officers admit to having looked up an applicant on Facebook. 24% of business school admissions officers acknowledge the same, while the figure for college admissions officers is 22%. 32% of law school admissions officers claim they’ve found something in their searches that has negatively impacted a candidate. Of business school admissions officers, that statistic is 14%. And for college admissions officers, it’s 12%.

So if you’re applying to law school, definitely clean up your Facebook and Google search results. But that goes for business school and college applicants as well. Frankly, you should have a clean online reputation no matter where you’re applying because eventually you’re going to be applying for jobs. And when applying for jobs, employers Google. And Facebook. It is what it is. So clean up your mess if you’ve got one!

Check out this post on Social Media and College Admissions.

The Ivy Coach is committed to helping servicemen and servicewomen gain admission to highly selective colleges and universities upon the completion of their active duty or reserve military service. And we make a point of criticizing highly selective universities for not doing enough to offer spots to members of our military who serve our nation at great personal sacrifice. But, right now, we’d like to salute a university for doing just the opposite. The Duke University business school, Fuqua, admits our servicemen and women  – officers — and splits the cost of their education with the U.S. government.

We salute Duke University for its efforts to offer MBA educations to officers of our military.

According to a “Duke Chronicle,” article on Fuqua and our military, “Since 2004, the Fuqua School of Business has partnered with the United States Military Academy at West Point to provide top military officers an opportunity to attend business school at no cost to the individual. Officers with the highest performance and leadership capabilities are selected by West Point to attend MBA and other degree programs nationwide, conditional on further military service after graduation. Nomination by West Point does not guarantee the soldiers’ acceptance into the business school of their choice.”

And an officer did not have to attend West Point as an undergrad to take advantage of this partnership with Duke. It’s open to graduates from other universities who have since become officers in the military. It should also be noted that the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business offer similar such programs. We salute them for it.

Beginning in 2015, there will be a sociology as well as a psychology section on the new MCAT exam.

There will be a new MCAT exam that will feature sections on psychology and sociology. These changes will be implemented in 2015…so if you’re applying to medical school now, don’t think twice about them. In order to make room for these sections, a writing section will be removed from the test. This is all in an effort by the Association of American Medical Colleges to help make the medical school admissions process more holistic.

Remember when we wrote about how med schools were incorporating essentially speed-dating into the admissions process to gauge the social skills of applicants? This new MCAT exam seems to be to the same aim. But this means that med school applicants are now going to have to take psychology and sociology courses or at least learn the basic tenets of these disciplines. So it seems applying to medical school is getting tougher. It’s not like you have to learn the basic tenets of writing in order to complete a writing section. There are tricks you can pick up, yes. But, at the end of the day, writing is a practice that many applicants hone (or continue to do poorly) throughout their education.

Do you think these additional sections will deter aspiring doctors from applying to medical school? Do you think including these sections will help our country make better doctors more in touch with their patients? Let us know your thoughts on the new MCAT exam by posting below!

If you’re a prospective MBA student who applied in Round Two, you’re probably walking around with your phone attached to your hip. You’re waiting on that call or email from MBA admissions officers informing you of your business school admission decision. Relax. Put the phone down. The stress isn’t helping matters. Enjoy the long President’s Day Weekend and try to think about something other than your MBA admissions decision. After all, you’re driving your co-workers and family nuts.

If you're an MBA applicant in Round Two, enjoy the weekend. Put your phone down and stop stressing. Your admissions decision will arrive shortly. It's not coming on Saturday.

Round Two admission decisions will be coming out now through March. Many applicants have already interviewed for Round Two. Others still have some interviews to go. At highly selective MBA programs, if you get an interview, you’ve got a decent shot of getting in. That doesn’t mean you can blow the interview. You’ve got to really stand out there. But it’s not like in college admissions where every applicant often gets the chance to interview with an alum — regardless of their standing in the admissions pool. Indeed, most highly selective MBA programs interview 1/3rd of applicants. At Cornell’s MBA program as an example, about half of those interviewed end up receiving offers (side note: for Cornell applicants, your decision will be released via a phone call on 2/28).

If you happen to get waitlisted, as many MBA applicants do, does that mean that you should do nothing and just wait around and hope you get in? Absolutely not! When you’re waitlisted, you’ve got to work to get off that waitlist. You’ve got to show interest. You’ve got to speak to professors, admissions officers, current students. You’ve got to write a letter of enthusiasm to demonstrate your passion for the MBA program (and offer insight into what you can bring to it). But don’t worry about getting waitlisted for now. Now is the time to ditch your cell phone and enjoy the weekend. Seriously!

While you’re here, check out this post on Business School Admissions.

There will likely be changes to the MCAT beginning in 2015 and these changes are relatively major. Gone will be the writing sample. A social science section will be added to the exam. And the verbal reasoning section will be overhauled. These changes, made in November, will soon be up for a vote of the Board of Directors of the Association of American Medical Colleges and, if approved, the changes will take effect in 2015.

There will likely be changes to the MCAT beginning in 2015.

According to “The State News” article on changes to the MCAT, “The current recommendations will add 115 minutes to the exam time, which typically takes about five and a half hours. ‘Medical science has changed quite dramatically (since 1991),’ he said. ‘We’ve seen significant developments in biochemistry and molecular biology…and the way in which those upper-level sciences are impacting medical practice.’ A concern with these new changes is whether or not schools will be able to adjust their curriculum in time to prepare students for the new version of the exam.”

Do you think the changes to the MCAT will help make the exam a better predictor of medical school success? Do you think the exam is a bad predictor of what makes a good doctor? Let us know your thoughts on the MCAT by posting below!

For those applying for law school admission, you should clean up your online presence. Do you have scandalous photos posted on Facebook? Did you write articles that would reflect poorly on you? If so, you should know that law school admissions officers are more likely than college admissions officer, business school admissions officers, or medical school admissions officers to Google your name and check out your online presence.

Students applying for law school admission shouldn't have any scandalous photos online.

A new study released by Kaplan reveals that indeed 41% of law school admissions officers have Googled applicants while 37% of them have looked up applicants on Facebook and other social media sites. And 32% of the time, law school admissions officers find something negative about you. That’s a pretty high percentage. So why not lock your Facebook and take down any scandalous photos just in case? Isn’t it better to be safe than sorry? Even after the law school admission process, you’re going to want to have a clean online presence for when you apply to jobs.

So clean it up now. Don’t wait until you get denied admission to the law school of your choice. And while you’re here, check out this post on College Admissions and Facebook or this one on Harvard and Facebook.

Every year, college applications rise at the highly selective colleges and the admission rates drop. It’s seemingly always the most competitive class ever! And yet, this is not the case with respect to the number of applications to business school this year. In fact, applications to business school are down significantly this year. Does that surprise you? Does it surprise you that in this down economy, people aren’t leaving their jobs to pursue their MBA’s so they can return to new, higher-paying jobs?

Applications to business school are significantly down this year across the board - including at Harvard Business School.

It shouldn’t. Those considering the possibility of attending business school need to see the return on investment. It’s a risk to leave a high paying job to apply to business school in the hope of landing an even better job two years later (and after dropping a lot of money on b-school). What if the recruiters just aren’t there at the end of b-school? It’s likely that these trepidations have led to a decline in business school applications this year.

And what kind of decline are we talking about? Well, according to a “Wall Street Journal” article on business school applications, “One-third of full-time M.B.A. programs reported drops of more than 10%, according to the survey, which included 649 M.B.A. and other business programs at 331 schools world-wide…Applications for [Harvard's] full-time M.B.A. class entering this fall slid 4% to 9,134 from a year earlier, helping to boost the school’s acceptance rate to 12% from 11%. Part-time programs are struggling to attract students, too, with 46% reporting declines in application volume this year. New York University’s Stern School of Business had a 9.8% drop in applicants to its part-time program this year.”

The business schools at highly competitive universities are also reporting that the quality of the applications hasn’t changed…only the quantity. This is consistent with what we’ve been saying about college admissions all along: While applications may increase year after year and the admission rates may drop, that doesn’t mean it’s more difficult to get in now than it was three years ago. Colleges recruit unqualified students to boost their numbers. Their applications don’t make it any more difficult to get in…they just help their rankings! And it’s always all about the rankings.

Check out this post on Harvard MBA Students or this one one on Business School Rankings.

With jobs after law school in short supply for prospective lawyers, law schools have pushed law firms to begin their recruiting process in August rather than waiting until October. About a quarter of last year’s graduating law class (including classes from all law schools…not just the highly selective ones) landed gigs at big law firms. This statistic was at 33% in 2009, according to the National Association for Law Placement as reported by the “Wall Street Journal.”

Law schools are changing the job recruiting process to find more opportunities for their students.

According to the “Wall Street Journal” article on law school job prospects, “Law firms follow an unusual tradition of recruiting the lawyers they eventually plan to hire two years in advance. For example, they are interviewing second-year law students now for summer associate positions that start in May or June 2012. At the end of the 2012 summer, the firms expect, they will then invite almost all the summer hires to work full-time as junior lawyers, likely starting in September 2013.”

In 2008, Harvard and Yale law students interviewed last with the big law firms and this hurt their job prospects. So top law schools like Harvard and Yale aren’t making that mistake again. These schools will be interviewing first…as in right now in August. These schools, after all, produce the most coveted new lawyers to big law firms.

Are you thinking about applying to law school? If so, check out our blog on law school admissions statistics and contact us today for help with your application.