Admissions officers nationwide point to several possible reasons for the drop in applications. Some students have pared their college lists this year. Many more are looking at less-expensive state universities. Many institutions accepted more students under binding early-decision programs, and each such acceptance drains off an average of 8 to 10 regular-decision applications. And some experts suspect that students are delaying their college plans.

I hope that the last sentence here is somewhat correct. I wrote last April about an article talking about how more students are deciding to take time off in-between high school and college. The suggestion above by the New York Times might be the proof to the previous article.

Many students would be much better served by taking this time off and getting an internship or an entry-level job somewhere. So long as high school graduates do not begin to get themselves into a mountain of debt, the option to apply to college and begin a more rigorous study is always available. Now, of course it would not be a good idea to prolong the college activities for too long. But if high school graduates are beginning to think about alternatives to the quick entrance into college, then I think that can only be a good thing.

Besides giving the students a bit more of a real world view on issues (which is often lacking in the academy), the decline in students who immediately enter college could put colleges in a new position where they have to prove the value of their education. In other words, colleges might be put in a position to have to show how each dollar spent by a student (or his/her family) can translate into real dollars earned post-graduation.

Some forward-thinking departments at the local college are already putting these facts out there – or at least trying to generate the right numbers to put out to the public. Talk about a powerful piece of information for the college applicant. Imagine being able to look at a variety of business schools and choose from the ones that have a proven track record of creating the highest paid executives? There’s some education reform that everyone can believe in…

First, while the stores were filled with shoppers there was still room to move around (except Wal-Mart – more on that later). In previous years I remember going to some stores and being jammed into the shopping areas literally standing shoulder to shoulder with other shoppers. With that memory in mind, I was somewhat relieved that I had room to move around the stores and do some shopping without having to worry about bumping into people or tripping over product.

Second, the roads were less congested for the entire extended weekend starting on Wednesday. I drove everyday from Wednesday through today and I was never caught in anything other than normal traffic. That’s not bad!

Third, retailers did put out some significant deals. A few weeks ago I wrote about how I was gearing up for Black Friday and using a certain website to find out what the big deals would be for the day. That website combined with the various flyers which came in the Thanksgiving Day newspaper showed a retail industry that wanted to attract buyers into their stores this year. The big item this year seemed to be bargain basement prices on high definition LCD and plasma screen televisions. In terms of comparison to previous years…well some four years ago I had a comment or two about the lack of deals at retailers.

Fourth, Circuit City employees tried to overcompensate for the company’s current financial position – to their detriment. I went into Circuit City yesterday and I was amazed at how bad of a shopping experience I had at the store. In almost every aisle that I walked down, an associate asked me if I needed any help. The first two times that someone asks you this, it’s very respectable. The second two times, it becomes a bother. By the fifth and sixth time a different employee asks you if you need any help you wonder what’s going on and why these people won’t let you shop. Frankly, I felt like I was being tracked by one of the employees as though I was going to steal something – it makes for a very unpleasant shopping experience. I was going to buy something at Circuit City, but thanks to the overzealous sales staff I got out of there as quickly as possible.

On top of that, Circuit City had rows and rows of videos games out in buckets (buckets are the traditional sign of “sale on these items”). As I was browsing through the buckets some kid who works at hte store was trailing me and putting the items back as soon as I picked them up (at one point taking the items out of my hands). Then I asked him if any of these games were on sale. He said they were not, but were selling for regular retail prices between $50 and $60. Yeah…that will get people to purchase the product. Dummies…

Finally, the level of common courtesy towards fellow shoppers was somewhat high in all stores except for Wal-Mart (on Black Friday – Wal-Mart was okay on Saturday). I have a million pet peeves about bad shoppers and they were all on display at Wal-Mart on Friday: people standing at the end of the aisles talking to a friend and blocking passage out of the aisle, children running wild through the store with no parental supervision, shoppers putting their cart on one side of the aisle and standing in the other side of the aisle creating a roadblock, and consumers stopping short in the flow of traffic and turning around thus creating the “trout jumping upstream” effect. It was enough for me to get the hell out of Wal-Mart almost as soon as I got in there. But hey – at least I didn’t get trampled by a mad mob (more about that coming up in a future post).

All in all, it was a decent Black Friday and most of the retailers stepped up to the plate in an attempt to get their balance sheets in the black as well as shoppers through their doors. If you have any crazy Black Friday stories, I’d love to hear them in the comments section below.

Senator John McCain gave one of the noblest, most honorable concession speeches that I’ve ever heard and congratulations go to him for running a tough campaign. The awesome nature of Obama’s win will overshadow the rest of the 2008 results, but it is worth mentioning that while Obama/Biden dominated in the Electoral College, McCain/Palin received approximately 48% of the vote. That’s no small potatoes. In previous years, liberal extremists would have been picketing all over the country calling for recounts. I guess we’ll see if conservative extremists push the same buttons, though I doubt it.

I’m glad that the Presidential contest is now over and I’m glad that the candidates both addressed the nation tonight was in nonpartisan tones. President-Elect Obama has a huge job ahead of him (as all Presidents-Elect do) and I agree with Senator McCain when he says that all Americans should be ready to help.