2008 ASPIRE Fundraiser & Conference

Coming up in a couple of weeks is the ASPIRE 2008 Asian American Women in Leadership Conference. There's two separate events one is a fundraising event on the evening of 4/25 being held at Mohr & McPherson on Boylston.

The 2nd event is the actual conference portion which is being held on 4/26 at Harvard. Shout out to my good friend T, and Bloggery Reader Alice for sending me details on this event.

ASPIRE is pleased to present the 2008 Asian American Women In Leadership (AAWIL) Conference on April 26, 2008 at Harvard University, celebrating the theme of:

BALANCED LEADERSHIP: MAINTAINING PERSPECTIVE

Click (here) to get tickets for the fundraiser. Order before tomorrow (4/15) for a discount.

Click (here) to register for the conference. Again, if you do it before tomorrow (4/15) you'll get a discount.

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America's Best Graduate Schools

US News and World Report just released this year's picks for America's Best Graduate Schools this year. Here's how MA schools amongst the rest for the top 5 spots in some of the categories.

Schools of Business
1. Harvard
1. Stanford
3. U Penn
4. MIT (Sloan)
4. Northwestern
4. University of Chicago

Schools of Engineering
1. MIT
2. Stanford
3. UC Berkeley
4. Georgia Tech
5. University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign

Schools of Law
1. Yale
2. Harvard
2. Stanford
4. Columbia
5. NYU

Schools of Medicine
1. Harvard
2. Johns Hopkins
3. Wash U in St. Louis
4. U Penn
5. UCSF

Click (here) to see the rest of the schools as well as additional categories.

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Harvard Med Lowers Tuition

Harvard has been all over the news lately, those attention whores. First, they kicked off the whole undergraduate financial aid increase movement that several other schools have joined in on (here). Then they futilely (in my opinion) attempted to do something to convince their law students to work for the forces of good as opposed to the force$ of evil (here).

And then just last week, it was the People's Elbow to the faces of transfer students everywhere (here). As you can see from the comments on that post, people are pissed off. And they should be. How can you make applications due by February and then suddenly a month later announce that you're not going to be accepting anyone for the next two years? Poor poor planning. Good luck to all of you who are stuck in this boat. Someone commented with all the names and numbers of relevant administrators at Harvard, so start making some angry phone calls.

Anyhoo, just this past weekend, Harvard announced that they would be lowering tuition for the folks in their medical school (here).

Oh and just so the rest of you don't feel left out. If you don't fall into any of the previously aforementioned categories, then you probably got yourself a 3.5% tuition increase. Click (here) to read that particular article from last week.

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Harvard Lays Smack Down On Transfer Students

If you had your heart set on transferring to Harvard, you're in for a bit of disappointment. Harvard announced that they're putting a moratorium on transfer students for the next two academic years.

The reason? A student housing shortage. Doesn't Harvard own pretty much all of Harvard Square? Many of you probably weren't reading this blog back in October, but I blogged about how Harvard let a space sit vacant for 7 years because they wanted to handpick their tenant (here). Way to not plan ahead guys.

That pretty much ruins it for most current students. Assuming you're a freshman right now, by the time the moratorium is up, it'll be your senior year. No one spends three years at a school they don't like and then transfers just for their senior year.

Click (here) for the Globe article.

PS. To my friend Eric who works at Harvard - I've decided to place all the blame on you for this one. Cheers!

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Harvard Law Waives Tuition for Public Sector

Someone is going to have to explain the math to me because it doesn't really make any sense - but I'll get to that later. Harvard Law School announced yesterday that they will now waive your last year of tuition if you promise to commit to work in public service for five years.

One year of tuition runs around 41K. For arguments sake, let's say that's equal to about 60K in pre-tax dollars. Spread out over the five years, that's 12K per year. Now let's look at what the Globe says average salaries are:

"First-year salaries at firms with more than 500 lawyers rose last year to $145,000"
"The current entry level salary for prosecutors in Massachusetts is $37,500"

Assuming the corporate lawyer gets no pay raises over the first five years that he/she works (highly unlikely). That's still over $500K more in salary that would be earned at the corporate job vs the 60K in free tuition he/she got from Harvard.

This program will NOT persuade anyone to work in the public sector. What it will do is make life a little easier on the folks that were already planning to do this type of work.

Click (here) to read the Globe article.

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Harvard Applicant Information Stolen

If you applied last year to grad school at Harvard's School of Arts and Sciences there is a good chance that someone has your personal information. They were hacked last month and someone may have pulled data off their servers.

University officials also announced that they will send notices today to approximately 10,000 of last year's applicants, who were exposed during the breach.

For approximately 6,600 applicants, the information included Social Security numbers, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, test scores, and school records. The remainder of the sensitive data did not involve Social Security numbers.

If you're paranoid like I am you could consider using a service like FreeCreditReport.com and their credit monitoring service to keep an eye on things for you. I did it after the whole TJ Maxx debacle (here).

Click (here) to read the Globe article.

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Denzel Washington at Harvard Tonight - 12/18

Denzel Washington is going to be in town tonight for a special screening of his new movie "The Great Debaters." According to the Harvard Crimson, he will be attending a black-tie premiere at the Carpenter Center on Dec. 18 (here).

The Great Debaters tells the the true-to-life events of Wiley College during 1935 - the year the debate team from the all-black Texas school took on a prestigious white university to become the first black college to win the National Championship (here).

I don't think this is the type of event that us normal folk would have been able to get tickets to, but if you know any Harvard students, their was apparently a lottery for students to get tickets.

Per usual, though, if you go to the usual celebrity haunts like the Four Seasons, the Ritz Carlton, or Boston Public, etc you might be able to see him.

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Avoid Mass Ave This Weekend

Four blocks of Mass. Ave., from Waterhouse Street to Wendell Street starting at 6pm on Friday, June 22 until 5am on Monday, June 25. If you can guess why, you win a pat on a back and a cookie.

If you guessed: repaving the road - you're wrong. If you guessed: street festival - you're still wrong. If you guessed: so Harvard can move three buildings that they own about a block and a half North, then I owe you a cookie.

That's right folks. If you were planning on driving up Mass Ave. in Cambridge this weekend, think again. Harvard's Ukrainian House, Baker House, and what's described as a 'carriage house' will be lifted and moved on hydraulic lifts this weekend so that Harvard can build something else there. Apparently this process will take 3 WHOLE DAYS!

Click (here) for more details courtesy of the Boston Herald. Good thing I prefer spending my time in Boston and not Cambridge. For those of you driving in Cambridge, I' sure there will be lots of people that didn't get the memo, so anticipate that traffic will be horrible all throughout that area.

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Sex Sells ... But You Already Knew That

Let me apologize in advance to any conservative readers out there. This post contains questionable material, and because of that, I will not provide any links this time around. If you're really curious, you can Google it on your own.

My new issue of Stuff Magazine came in the mail yesterday. I was leafing through it this morning and lo and behold, a tiny blurb about a porn magazine run by college students in Boston. I was shocked and clearly had to investigate. The publication in questions: Boink Magazine. And it's published by BU students.

Here is what I assume is their mission statement:

Boink is what happens when a group of undergrads from a major Boston area university decide to publish a sex magazine. Boink is the only national adult magazine made by and for college students. We deal openly with sexual themes that are relevant to college-aged men and women. Inside our pages you will find graphic stories, prescriptive advice, confessions, and naked pictures of REAL university students.

From my college days, I remember hearing about Harvard students starting a sex-themed publication called the H Bomb. And I remember hearing about MIT students who were running a website called Geek Porn.

That makes 3 sexually oriented publications from area Universities. Anyone know of any others? I'm sure the Jesuits at Boston College wouldn't be too happy if something like this was going on at BC.

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