How Colleges Gauge Their Popularity - and Why BYU Ranks So Highly

How Colleges Gauge Their Popularity - and Why BYU Ranks So Highly

Top of Mind with Julie Rose - Radio Archive, Episode 763 , Segment 1

Episode: Popular Colleges, Homesteading, Letterjoy

  • Mar 8, 2018
  • 17:25 mins

Guest: Eric Hoover, Chronicle of Higher Education Acceptance emails will soon be landing in inboxes – if they haven’t already. Social media feeds are buzzing with excited posts from proud parents of the latest young people to be “#BYUbound.” Brigham Young University seems to be among the earliest in the nation to get acceptance notices out. It’s also near the very top of the nation in something called “yield rate.”

Other Segments

The Legacy of Homesteading

15 MINS

Guest: Rick Edwards, PhD, Director, Center for Great Plains Studies, Emeritus Senior Vice Chancellor, Professor of Economics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Abraham Lincoln, who of course issued the Emancipation Proclamation, also signed into law The Homestead Act of 1820, which reshaped the American West and was – according to the National Park Service, one of the “most visionary . . . pieces of legislation in American history.” Today, 20 percent of us in America have an ancestor who was a homesteader. They story of hardscrabble life on the frontier is deeply ingrained in our national identity, with special thanks to Laura Ingalls Wilder and Willa Cather.  But did you know that historians typically see the Homestead Act in less flattering light? They say it was ineffective, filled with fraud and central to the displacement of American Indians. Which vision is more accurate?

Guest: Rick Edwards, PhD, Director, Center for Great Plains Studies, Emeritus Senior Vice Chancellor, Professor of Economics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Abraham Lincoln, who of course issued the Emancipation Proclamation, also signed into law The Homestead Act of 1820, which reshaped the American West and was – according to the National Park Service, one of the “most visionary . . . pieces of legislation in American history.” Today, 20 percent of us in America have an ancestor who was a homesteader. They story of hardscrabble life on the frontier is deeply ingrained in our national identity, with special thanks to Laura Ingalls Wilder and Willa Cather.  But did you know that historians typically see the Homestead Act in less flattering light? They say it was ineffective, filled with fraud and central to the displacement of American Indians. Which vision is more accurate?

Letterjoy

17 MINS

Guest: Michael Sitver, Founder, Letterjoy Those of us of a certain age, remember the excitement of finding a handwritten letter waiting like a little present in your mailbox. This was back when, long-distance phone calls were expensive and texting was a sci-fi dream. The daily check at the mailbox was a highlight because it brought more than just bills and ads.  A 21-year-old undergraduate political science major at The University of Chicago has founded a company that brings that feeling back. It’s called Letterjoy, and it delivers a weekly letter, with a twist: they’re re-creations of historic letters between famous people. For example, a young Wilbur Wright writing to the Smithsonian to request research about birds and flight. Which is the kind of thing you had to use letters for before the internet! If you would like a letter sent to you, click here.

Guest: Michael Sitver, Founder, Letterjoy Those of us of a certain age, remember the excitement of finding a handwritten letter waiting like a little present in your mailbox. This was back when, long-distance phone calls were expensive and texting was a sci-fi dream. The daily check at the mailbox was a highlight because it brought more than just bills and ads.  A 21-year-old undergraduate political science major at The University of Chicago has founded a company that brings that feeling back. It’s called Letterjoy, and it delivers a weekly letter, with a twist: they’re re-creations of historic letters between famous people. For example, a young Wilbur Wright writing to the Smithsonian to request research about birds and flight. Which is the kind of thing you had to use letters for before the internet! If you would like a letter sent to you, click here.