One statistic that’s highlighted is that 80% of all crimes are committed by students against students as reported by Security on Campus Inc. Some may find this quite credible in light of the well publicized horrific campus shooting at Virginia Tech and other schools but bear in mind that the statistic also encompasses other crimes like sex offenses, aggravated assaults and burglaries which perhaps do not get comparable publicity.

Alison Kiss of Security on Campus emphasizes that the most dangerous period of a student’s life is the first six weeks of college when crimes like acquaintance rape find vulnerable victims. It is important to bear in mind though that one should not let one’s guard down after this red zone period as the facts show that crimes will occur at any time. Burglaries especially are relatively common with a reported 40,000 taking place on college campuses per year. Remember the students want a home away from home and so their computers, printers, cameras, cell phones, dvd’s, cd’s and cash are prime targets for thieving criminals.

A few of the best practices highlighted due to their measured success include:

1. Emergency notification system warning students via text messages, emails and strategically placed plasma screen e-boards of security breaches or unsafe happenings on campus (St. Johns University, New York)
2. More than 100 Smart cameras posted around campus to detect suspicious activity (Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore)
3. Training program for staff from janitorial to faculty to help them detect signs of emotional illness (Cornell University, New York)

In addition to the systems implemented by the institutions here are some steps that security experts suggest for students to ensure their safety:

1. Sign up for campus emergency system
2. Secure windows and doors especially those in rooms on the lower floors
3. Cover windows with blinds or curtains to prevent peepers
4. Install a GPS unit on computers to facilitate tracking its location
5. Keep valuables in safe heavy enough to deter removal
6. Install a battery powered smoke detector if none is pre-installed in dorm room
7. Identify two exits in case of fire
8. Program cell phone with emergency numbers and charge phone regularly
9. Keep a working flashlight
10. My personal contribution: Be alert and follow your instinct. If you feel that something is amiss get out fast!!

Reader’s Digest invited 291 colleges and universities to take part in a survey to measure their security and safety readiness. Johns Hopkins University, University of Texas New York University among others ranked high given their scores for variables such as dorm rooms with self locking doors, full time security, attendants and cameras. Of the 291 institutions contacted only 135 colleges participated and the results which can be seen here show that many schools are addressing safety concerns with seriousness. Still there is quite a bit of work to be done.

1. I adore French and speak it moderately well but I'd love to learn to speak French fluently
   

2. In order to achieve this I'd love to immerse myself in the French culture in the south of France of course and then I'd start a French/France blog.
   

3. Learn to tango in Argentina
   

4. Partner with Denzel Washington in Dancing with the Stars; note this comes after my tango lessons
   

5. Learn to ride a bicycle. I am not kidding I never did learn I had a tricycle
   

6. Visit a relatively peaceful country in the Middle East like Jordan or Dubai or both of them why not?
   

7. Float in the Dead Sea on my trip to Jordan then spend a night in a Bedouin tent in the desert .

8. Reconnect with old friends I haven't seen since prep school and my cousin Sean Ross who went to England 20 odd years ago.
   

9. Sit in the cockpit of a jet and pretend to be a pilot for the entire transatlantic flight to France or Argentina as opposed to my trip to the Middle East
   

10. Float in space with my son. To do this I’d have to find a rich sugar daddy unless that Virgin Airlines tycoon guy can get us two spots in his space ship for free.

Have you ever given this a thought? Maybe if you did make your own bucket list you might actually achieve some of your goals one day. What's on your list?

• Womenomics - The theory that women play a primary role in economic growth.

• Lifestreaming - An online record of a person's daily activities, either via direct video feed or via aggregating the person's online content such as blog posts, social network updates, and online photos. So some of us here are lifestreamers.

• Mockbuster - A low-budget movie with a title and plot similar to a current blockbuster film.

• Fauxtography - The practice of creating faked photographs, usually by manipulating the images with software. Some of us know some real good fauxtographers.

• Brand slut - A consumer with no loyalty to a particular brand aka savvy consumer.

• Biotechture - Architecture that incorporates elements of biology.

• Friend - The act of adding a person to one's list of acquaintances, and vice versa on social networking websites.

• Photolurker - A person who obsessively and anonymously browses strangers' photos posted to online photo-sharing sites.

• Microblogging - Posting short thoughts and ideas to a personal blog, particularly by using instant messaging software or a cell phone.

• Ecosexual - A single, environmentally conscious person with a strong aesthetic sense.

Hilary is trying to lay blame
For Barack having victory in Maine
Barack struck back
With a counterattack
And both have lost sight of McCain.

Barack Hussein Obama
Has Swept sweet home Alabama
Hilary’s crying
Her campaign is dying
It’s a predictably sad melodrama

John McCain has won
Romney, Ron Paul they are done
John’s sorely trounced them
Renounced and denounced ‘em
And stands alone: number 1.

Who the hell is Ron Paul?
He has pride and guts and gall
He’s still in the running
But McCain’s lead is stunning
He’s holding Ron Paul by the balls

The Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright
Has changed the campaign overnight
He called U.S.A
A big KKK
And Hilary is convulsed in delight

Personally I like Barack
Intellectually he’s leading the pack
He can speak like King
Winning’s his thing
And oh yes, he's young, gifted and black.

• Make Arrangements for the Child to Travel as Unaccompanied Minor
  

• Provide Your Child with a Cell Phone and Charger or a Phone Card
  

Students lament this issue all the time on college discussion forums. They try to lessen the burden of these expenses by buying books on ebay or buying used books from wherever they can source them, be it amazon or barnes and noble.

At Make Text Books Affordable they have actually launched a joint campaign with students in schools across 14 states to fight for students to have more affordable textbooks. They state that, “Students spend an average of $900 a year on textbooks, which is 20% of tuition at an average university and half of tuition at a community college! And the prices keep going up. Textbook prices have increased at four times the rate of inflation since 1994!”

One solution they have come up with is the establishment of textbook rental programs. According to them, “approximately 20 colleges already rent textbooks, many of which have rented textbooks for more than a century” and “students using existing textbook rental services pay $130 to $240 per year plus some course materials”.

Now if those figures are correct then that is a serious reduction and worth bearing in mind if you need to economize. If you or your child’s college does not have a college rental program, you may consider scouring the internet for textbook rental stores. One such store is Chegg which has a unique approach. They make the point of reminding us that renting texts actually helps the environment as about 20 million trees are lost just to print books sold in the US alone. At Chegg they proudly announce that they plant a tree for every book you rent. So the more books you rent, the more trees you save. So how about it rent some textbooks, save some money and go green.

In case you didn’t know it, Mark A. Rayner over at the Carnival of Satire is a spy. He used his high tech equipment to root out one of my tips on this topic and this has grave implications. I have thus sought to quickly publish this next set of guidelines on an issue which has caused parents and their kids no end of worry lest Mark persists and steals my thunder. Interestingly some of those parents themselves are Ivy League grads, which leads me right into my first guiding principle.

1. Be Born Into the Right Family

This is called benefiting from the legacy tip. Oh yes, you may be your class valedictorian and biting your nails over college acceptances but the boy who might just have made it by a hair into the top 50% of your class and who has the right surname is as cool as cucumber. Why? If you are the favored son or daughter of four generations of Yale alumni then you have nothing to worry about. The accomplishments of your granddad or dad will tip the scales in your favor right into the acceptance stack. Surely you have heard of George W. Bush. Know where he went? Yale of course, and what about his dad and his granddad? GO YALE! If you think I’m kidding check out Yale Daily News which confirms that “about 15 percent of the class of 2010 had parents or grandparents who attended Yale.” Now, if you have an aristocratic name and don’t know where your grandfather went to college or better yet if you don’t know your grandfather, head over to genealogy.com and see if you can find him. Maybe he went to Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth or even Princeton who knows? With the right connections you could end up there too.

2. Be or Become a Minority

Don’t leave genealogy.com just yet. In case you didn’t find that your grandfather had any Ivy League blue blood maybe he or even his father did have some latino or negro blood. Careful now, if he trekked from Asia to the New World you may be in trouble. To benefit from being minority he had to have been from say the African continent or from a Hispanic country. So if he was perhaps an active participant in the slave trade or a fruit picker, you are in business. Now don’t you be silly and mind the role your grandfather or great-grandfather played. This is not a time to have issues, get ethnic and relate, it’s Obama time! You know what they say about having one drop of black blood. That’s right it makes you black, so head to the tanning booth, dye those blonde locks of yours, hide those blues with some dark colored contacts and march over to your interviewer with confidence. That’s right, be proud, say it loud! It seems too that being a man and heading to college is now a rarity, the women are arriving in droves, so if you are a black, male, college applicant, hey you have got it made. One final note on this. The common college application form says, “If you wish to be identified with a particular ethnic group, check all that apply.”[emphasis added] You can check as many as you wish, you decide. Remember though; try to avoid checking the Asian box if you can. You Asians are too smart for your own good. Now you are being penalized.

3. Sell Yourself Like an Internet Marketing Guru

You will have to submit an essay or personal statement with your application. You will have to treat this like how you treat marketing any business. Have you ever seen some of those make money online sites with banners screaming “Want to know how I made $1,000,000.00 in a Day, Sign up!” You need to grab the attention of those jaded college admissions officers in the same way. Now don’t bother getting out the sharpie or making fancy colorful, Photoshop designs; what I mean is that you have to write an essay that presents you as special, unique, distinctive and you have to start from the get go. So you must open your essay with a bang, just like those internet banners. For God’s sake do not write about your journey into the hell of heroin addiction or of your struggle with schizophrenia or some other mental illness. If you just can’t figure how to make yourself look like the brilliant writer whose exceptional life makes you a stellar example deserving of a Princeton education, then spend loads of money on college essay.com sites. Oh yes there are sites out there where you can get assistance from writing specialists on the college application essay writing process. So get cracking and sign up so that you can produce a first-class, one of a kind essay highlighting your accomplishments, your amazing triumph over adversity or your extraordinary plan to eradicate poverty in Africa. You can get it custom modeled, critiqued, analyzed and proofread. By the time they are done you will have a new, improved you. Hey these specialists are Ivy League educated editors so what did you expect?

These guidelines should set you in good stead to achieve your stated goal. There will be several other hurdles to surmount like teacher recommendations and interviews, but I am sure that now you have a feel for the process you can attack those on your own. Remember you are not doing this for yourself alone, you are doing it for God, for your country and for the Ivy league. Once again may good fortune shine upon you on your journey.