Today in academia: cattle ranch college goes co-ed, 'helicopter parents' are still a thing, a dangerous college party and one way to stay rational during the application process.

• The term 'helicopter parents' is still over-used. OK, that's not the point of academic adviser Lionel Anderson's blog post at The New York Times (it's advice for students and parents for dealing with the transition to the college years). But when he writes "the term, albeit clever, is usually derisive and does little to help the students whose parents are hovering" we couldn't help but think that someone should come up with a new phrase to describe a still very real phenomenon. Anyone? [The New York Times]
• This was a really big party: Police arrested over 48 Colby college students at an off-campus party last Saturday night, the Portland Press Herald reported. Since minors were present, and it appears from the article that there was one person hospitalized, it looks like it will be a serious matter for the school and police to deal with. [The Portland Press Herald]
• No one is rational when picking a college.  When you were a high school senior, sifting through hundreds of brochures of smiling undergrads at appealing looking campuses, did you really have any idea how you settled on your five choices for schools? The Wall Street Journal didn't think so. And the newspaper offers a typically Journal-like solution to the problem: make a spreadsheet. Parents "should make a spreadsheet and record all the offers they receive in a common format: how big is tuition, how much aid is in loans and so on. Then they can compare the schools' offers head to head, free of the framing that is imposed by the colleges' descriptions." [The Wall Street Journal]
• After a secret ballot vote, 94-year old cattle ranch college officially will allow female applicants. The Chronicle reports on landmark decision for a mens college located on a cattle ranch that only accepts 13 students a year. Deep Springs College, after nearly a century, will let women join their ranks as fellow students. There doesn't seem to be much hand-wringing about the decision, the college's president was quoted by the outlet as saying "I personally believe this decision will change the Deep Springs experience a lot less than most people think." [The Chronicle of Higher Education]
• The Huffington Post has a slideshow for every single college ranking. So why not list the "best" straight-edge colleges also? Straight-edge types, as we understand it, are those who tend to abstain from drinking, drugs and sex, but not necessarily for religious reasons. Here's how HuffPost delicately introduces a list originally created by data site Unigo: "Do you like milk? Do you prefer bowling to grinding? Have you ever played solitaire online instead of doing a keg stand? You are not alone!" Brigham Young University leads the slideshow. [The Huffington Post]

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Erik Hayden