The Erin Scale

Although I still have a few more things to do before actually choosing a law school (for example, being accepted into a law school), I came up with a nifty mathematical formula to take into account the side elements in choosing a school. I call it "The Erin Scale."

I'm thinking about the education, prestige and opportunities that each school offers. But Erin, as the worrier of the family, is more focused on tuition costs, debt, cost of living in a new town, etc. Plus, Erin thinks about how far away a school is from our families, whereas for me it's almost a non-factor.

With the list of 14 schools I'm applying to, I found the cost of tuition, percentage of students who receive half- to full-tuition scholarships, percentage of students who receive grants, average debt after graduation, distance to Mosier, OR (my hometown), distance to Tomball, TX (Erin's hometown), cost of living, and annual premiums for school health insurance.* Then, I ranked each school in each category. Finally, I added each school's ranking in each category to come up with the "Erin score."

Ready to see the results?

44 on The Erin Scale - BYU
45 - Baylor
48 - Texas
51 - Ohio State
51 - Utah
53 - Minnesota
54 - North Carolina
62 - Notre Dame
62 - Iowa
63 - Arizona State
69 - UC Davis
69 - Washington
75 - Oregon
91 - Virginia

BYU was #1 in lowest tuition and lowest debt, #3 in health insurance cost and #5 in cost of living, percentage of students who get scholarships and in distance from Mosier.

I'm pretty sure we would still pick some schools before picking BYU, because even though distance from home was one component of The Erin Scale we still want some sort of adventurous unfamiliarity.

But, it's interesting nonetheless.

Here's how all the schools ranked in each category:

Annual tuition:
1 - BYU - $10,280**
2 - Utah - $18,231**
3 - Oregon - $29,953
4 - North Carolina - $31,218
5 - Arizona State - $35,147
6 - Washington - $37,299
7 - Ohio State - $39,418
8 - Minnesota - $40,388
9 - Notre Dame - $40,805
10 - Baylor - $40,904
11 - Iowa - $42,922
12 - Texas - $44,638
13 - Virginia - $47,500
14 - UC Davis - $50,595

Percentage of students who are given half- to full-tuition scholarships:
1 - Baylor - 29.9%
2 - UC Davis - 24.4%
3 - Iowa - 22.4%
4 - Minnesota - 19.2%
5 - BYU - 18.3%
6 - Ohio State - 14.7%
7 - Utah - 13.4%
7 - Arizona State - 13.4%
9 - Notre Dame - 13.0%
10 - Texas - 12.8%
11 - North Carolina - 10.7%
12 - Virginia - 9.0%
13 - Washington - 5.3%
14 - Oregon - 4.2%

Percentage of students who are given grants:
1 - Texas - 91.2%
2 - North Carolina - 85.4%
3 - Baylor - 85.2%
4 - UC Davis - 81.7%
5 - Ohio State - 78.8%
6 - Notre Dame - 77.2%
7 - Minnesota - 62.7%
8 - Oregon - 56.1%
9 - Utah - 54.3%
10 - Virginia - 51.3%
11 - Washington - 48.7%
12 - Arizona State - 48.6%
13 - Iowa - 30.5%
14 - BYU - 30.4%

Average debt:
1 - BYU - $52,315
2 - North Carolina - $60,212
3 - Utah - $61,665
4 - Washington - $63,393
5 - Texas - $78,408
6 - Ohio State - $81,408
7 - Iowa - $87,891
8 - Arizona State - $89,038
9 - Minnesota - $91,314
10 - Oregon - $91,353
11 - Notre Dame - $92,310
12 - UC Davis - $98,179
13 - Baylor - $100,795
14 - Virginia - $107,384

Distance to Mosier, OR:
1 - Oregon - 177 miles
2 - Washington - 234
3 - UC Davis - 576
4 - Utah - 698
5 - BYU - 750
6 - Arizona State - 1,277
7 - Minnesota - 1,661
8 - Iowa - 1,835
9 - Texas - 1,999
10 - Baylor - 2,047
11 - Notre Dame - 2,131
12 - Ohio State - 2,347
13 - Virginia - 2,730
14 - North Carolina - 2,770

Distance to Tomball, TX:
1 - Texas - 139 miles
2 - Baylor - 158
3 - Iowa - 1,057
4 - Notre Dame - 1,157
5 - Ohio State - 1,169
6 - Arizona State - 1,184
7 - Minnesota - 1,185
8 - North Carolina - 1,199
9 - Virginia - 1,321
10 - BYU - 1,413
11 - Utah - 1,457
12 - UC Davis - 1,957
13 - Washington - 2,360
14 - Oregon - 2,419

Cost of living (compared to Provo, UT):
1 - Baylor - -24%
2 - Notre Dame - -19%
3 - Ohio State - -10%
4 - Iowa - -1%
5 - BYU - 0%
6 - Texas - 3%
7 - Arizona State - 4%
7 - Utah - 4%
9 - Minnesota - 8%
9 - Virginia - 8%
11 - Oregon - 13%
12 - North Carolina - 30%
13 - UC Davis - 44%
14 - Washington - 50%

Annual premiums for school health insurance plan:
1 - North Carolina - $2,364 plus summer term***
2 - Minnesota - $4,368
3 - BYU - $4,680
4 - Texas - $4,710
5 - Baylor - $4,864
6 - Washington - $4,908
7 - Ohio State - $5,054
8 - Utah - $5,212
9 - UC Davis - $5,254
10 - Notre Dame - $5,828
11 - Virginia - $5,834
12 - Arizona State - $6,328
13 - Iowa - $6,720
14 - Oregon - $7,164

And, the scores in each category:
Arizona State - 5 + 7 + 12 + 8 + 6 + 6 + 7 + 12
Baylor - 10 + 1 + 3 + 13 + 10 + 2 + 1 +  5
BYU - 1 + 5 + 14 + 1 + 5 + 10 + 5 + 3
Iowa - 11 + 3 + 13 + 7 + 8 + 3 + 4 + 13
Minnesota - 8 + 4 + 7 + 9 + 7 + 7 + 9 + 2
North Carolina - 4 + 11 + 2 + 2 + 14 + 8 +12 + 1
Notre Dame - 9 + 9 + 6 + 11 + 11 + 4 + 2 + 10
Ohio State - 7 + 6 + 5 + 6 + 12 + 5 + 3 + 7
Oregon - 3 + 14 + 8 + 10 + 1 + 14 + 11 + 14
Texas - 12 + 10 + 1 + 5 + 9 + 1 + 6 + 4
UC Davis - 14 + 2 + 4 + 12 + 3 + 12 + 13 + 9
Utah - 2 + 7 + 9 + 3 + 4 + 11 + 7 + 8
Virginia - 13 + 12 + 10 + 14 + 13 + 9 + 9 + 11
Washington - 6 + 13 + 11 + 4 + 2 + 13 + 14 + 6

For all you law school experts out there: what do you think of The Erin Scale? Should I give more weight to certain categories, like more weight to tuition and debt and less to who gets scholarships? Should there be some adjustments for schools that are only a few percentage points or dollars apart?

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Also, last night I finished two more personal statements, for Virginia and Ohio State. Five out of 14 applications done! And here's something awesome: for those five, I've only had to pay for two of them and had fee waivers for the rest!

I've learned something that I maybe wish I had known before. My initial strategy was to apply roughly in order from toughest schools to easiest schools, because the head start could be an advantage for those tougher schools. So that also means the most important personal statements are being written and submitted first.

But as I'm borrowing parts from previous personal statements, I'm finding mistakes that I let slip through as the statements were sent to Texas, North Carolina and Notre Dame! Silly mistakes, like saying "As an employee at BYU Multicultural Student Services, I was in charge of the BYU's Celebration of Culture events ..." Oh well. We'll see what happens.

* The number I chose for my calculations was the cost for a student and a spouse, but realistically we would be paying to add child(ren) to the plan or a family plan.
** In-state tuition sure is nice!
*** I couldn't find a figure for an annual cost or for a summer term, just a price for fall and spring terms without summer term.

A Day in the Life

While mindlessly waiting for video files to compress, and given no compatible headphone jack for catching up on episodes of Arrested Development, I am left to entertain myself with blogging in the heavy and sagging air of the Harold B. Lee Library Multimedia Lab.

I'm putting together a DVD of this year's BYU Lu'au, hosted by the Multicultural Student Services. It was a lot like Fiesta, only the Polynesian version. Little did I know that it would take hours upon hours to upload, import, convert, re-convert, and re-import files. And all this on a campus computer, meaning no guarantee that my files and I will ever reunite. If only I were techno-savvy enough to own my own Mac...

So, this might be a good chance for some real, mundane, stream-of-consciousness blogging.

I'm almost done with this job. It's easy to complain about it, but I don't want to do that here. Suffice it to say that I am looking forward to moving on.

I am also looking forward to what awaits me job-wise this summer. Thanks to my heroic mother, I've got a number of options lined up back in The Dalles.

1) Work at the movie theater with my sister Kandis. We'll be running the place by mid-May.

2) Parks & Rec, where I can relive my high school  glory days.

3) OCDC (my favorite so far), where I can babysit in Spanish.

I think whatever options present themselves will allow me to actually practice Spanish. I've had Spanish classes at BYU since I've been back from Argentina, but they don't really give opportunities for me to speak it. I feel like I'm slipping more and more into a gringo oblivion with Spanish speaking. I hope this summer saves me.

I registered for fall semester last night. It's more like my immediate-post-mission semester schedule, which I'm realizing now I really miss. All my classes will be in the afternoon or evening. And, unlike that semester right after my mission, I'll fill up my mornings with an enjoyable job.

Next semester is the semester I wait to find out if I get admitted to the communications program. So I'm focusing on my two minors, Spanish and political science. I'm taking

1) Survey of Hispanic American Literature

2) Ibero-American Civilization

3) Introduction to International Politics

4) New Testament Part Deux

5) ...and, Marriage Enhancement

That's right, ladies and gentlemen. By next semester I will have a marriage to enhance.

It's a class that fulfills a requirement for Erin's minor. Plus, talking about marriage and relationships is interesting to me anyway. Why not get college credit for talking about it?

My life is divided into three parts, and "job" and "school" are far surpassed by "Erin." She never ceases to amaze me. She makes dreams come true that I didn't even know I had. I never expected to be with someone as perfect for me as Erin is.

This past weekend she had her first bridal shower. Even though I wasn't there, it was one more step toward us being married. August 21 feels a little closer now. (As Erin would say, "Hallelujah.")

Well, files are far from reconversion, but it's quittin' time.

¡Fiesta!

Now it's time to tell all of you what consumed my life for the past few weeks.

Since June 2008 I have been working as a student assistant in the BYU Multicultural Student Services office. The office does scholarships and guidance counseling for minority students. My job is basically to be an assistant to Lucky Fonoimoana, one of the counselors.

The major responsibility that this job entails is to put together the BYU Fiesta, an annual event that celebrates Latin American culture through dance. I was interested in the job because of my own love for Argentina and Latin American culture. (I was also interested in having a job.)

It was more work than I ever imagined. For every one thing that I did, there were ten that I either was forgetting to do, didn't know how to do, or was never aware that I was even supposed to do it. Not to mention the fact that the office's organization for its Celebration of Culture programs changed this year. I was not only over the Fiesta, but over advertising & DVD production for all of the office's events (Black History Month, Fiesta, Lu'au, and Pow Wow). Along with this new system came extra help. Now someone else was in charge of food for all the events, someone else in charge of decorations for all of the events, etc.

Anyway, when it came down to the night of Fiesta, it went off smoothly and without a hitch and was a success, I think. We had fifteen countries represented, all by dance instructors and dancers who had been working on their acts all semester. Don't forget, these instructors and dancers are all volunteers, and many of the dancers don't have any dance experience. They just want to show off their heritage and have fun.

The costumes were amazing. I think the dancers could have just stood on stage and the night would have been worth the ticket prices.

The crazy part is...after months and months of planning, in a couple of hours it's all over.

Now is the part where I put together the Fiesta DVD. (If you want one, by the way, call (801) 422 3065 and get your name on the list. They are $5 each.)

I'll put more Fiesta pictures up later. In the meantime, here are the posters that I designed for Lu'au and Pow Wow (I got a lot of good Photoshop experience out of these):

BYU Lu'au

Pow Wow