How long until it comes out that the Feds ordered the Toyota & Honda recalls to kill their competition?

CKoz

Remember, our government owns a car company now!!!

Answer
That was the first thing that I thought of when I heard the news of Toyota. Something is fishy because they have always been on the top of the reliability rankings.

What's the best ranked SUV in the $18K to $50K range?

Jacob

Hi, need to help buy an SUV for my parents. They want the best value foremost, but are willing to spend anywhere from $18K to $50K total if it's worth the money for them since they are pretty wealthy. I don't own a subscription to Consumer Guide Reports for cars, so are there any other reliable sources on the internet for rankings? What's the best SUV in the $18K to $50K price range?

Answer
It depends on what category you're looking at. Are you looking for the best safety? Reliability? Performance? Luxury? Overall value?

As a quick answer, US News provides rankings that are pretty helpful. Good luck!

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Why dont certain colleges allow freshmen to park on campus?

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carl

Im going to college in a few days, and apparently Im not allowed to park on campus. I dont know what Im gonna do, because I have a job off campus and also I dont wanna be hanging around my college all the time. Is there anyway I can be allowed to bring my car? I mean, how am i gonna get to work?

Answer
The schools that do this are usually private, and while most school's are ostensibly non-profit, it's obvious most of the motivation a school's administration has for doing anything is financial.

You can trace back all of a school's BS policy and dirty tricks (like inflating teacher/student ratios by counting reference librarians as faculty) to maintaining their entirely constructed prestige for the benefit of US News and the like (in other words, money).

So what's parking got to do with it? They want you to live on campus--join a frat, make some pals, run for student government: get invested so that by the time you realize they sold you sizzle and very little steak, you still want to stay. Beside generating a significant amount of their total revenue from room and board, they realize that the social element of school keeps kids IN school (the incompetent instructors surely aren't). Retention rates are a huge part of their scores in the annual rankings, and bored, isolated teenagers don't stay in school.

As with everything in America, there's also a racial element. Commuters are often low income, often people of color, often people with lower standardized test scores (which drag down schools in the rankings). I'm not saying the schools make it hard to park to keep certain races out, but parking issues nevertheless create a difficult situation for the most financially vulnerable students on campus.

Now the schools do realize the demographics involved, and they know that most commuters are struggling--the first in their family to go to school in many cases. People like this are often bad for their retention numbers, and they offset the risk by trying to indoctrinate people of color/low income people into their white academic world with promises of "the college experience," which (besides an increasingly useless piece of paper) is really what school's sell. Colleges are the worlds crappiest destination resorts (once you eat at the caf, you'll see what I mean). In short, it's a way to take inner city kids who are rightly skeptical of the corny BS in the brochures and get them to make friends with the predominantly white student body. You have no idea how much college's exploit and count on interpersonal relationships to keep their retention up (and the school's revenue stream flowing). Having a good diversity number is great for schools too, just not too many dark skinned kids to scare away white moms and dads (hypocrites!).

There is obviously a practical reason for all this too: there is often limited parking space--colleges are run like hotels, they are kept at maximum occupancy. If everyone has a car, it causes problems.

Nevertheless, it stands to reason that they only give a means of escape to kids they already have their hooks in (upperclassmen). The decision probably save a few lives, too (drunken freshman and a ton of steel don't mix).

How do I get more exposure for my website?

Victoria

How/where/what can I do to get the most exposure for my type of website online with minimum to zero cost? I already tried Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, fliers, advertise on hat, shirt, car, and my social media accounts and going broke. Iâm not asking about SEO. Iâm working on that already.

My website is http://mistakesinlife.net

Thanks for answering!

Answer
Here are some shoestring marketing ideas that can help you get the visitors you need at the least cost possible:

1. Create the best content you can with the best products you can possibly offer. Your content is your best advertisement - if visitors love your content, then they will go back and spread the word to others.

2. Use social media. Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon, LinkedIn, Reddit, Digg and others can be a big source of traffic for your business. Make it easy for users to recommend your site. Viral marketing is very important -- and easy to tap on the Web. But give your users the tools.

AddThis http://www.addthis.com

3. Rank well in the search engines (organic search results, not the pay per click). SEs can be a big source of traffic. The key is to create the best content in your niche. If you have good content, other websites will gladly link to you and offer your site as a resource to their audience. Check the on-page factors and be sure to get linked from authority sites in your topic area.

Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (PDF format) http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf
Brett Tabke of WebmasterWorld.com's "Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone: 26 steps to 15k a day." http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/2010.htm

4. Send out press releases. While outfits charge as much as $650 per release, there are free press release submission places on the Web. Press releases allow you to (a) attract media attention; (b) get more back links to your website without sending each website an email request; and (c) get more visibility especially if your press release gets in Google News or Yahoo News.

http://www.przoom.com/
http://www.prweb.com

5. Submit articles. Write articles and submit them to websites accepting author submissions. You get exposure for your business; establishes you as an authority in your field, and allows you to get backlinks for your website. If 50 websites publish your article and it contains a link back to your website, then you easily get 50 links from a single article. The more links you have, the greater your chances for increasing your search engine rankings.

Here is a comprehensive list of where to submit your articles http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1006022407481

6. Post a link to your site for free where it is allowed (always read the Terms of Use). Examples are:

Craigslist http://www.craigslist.com
Google Base http://base.google.com

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Is getting a degree at Harvard Medical school a waste of money, does it matter where you go to medical school?

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Greta

I'm planning to apply to 13 different medical schools, among them are Harvard and Columbia, but does it really matter where a doctor goes to medical school? Would I really be heads above other people when applying for positions with a degree from an Ivy League school?

Answer
All medical schools are created equal and that equality is assured by the National Board of Medical Examiners and the accrediting authority, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education. People who allege one medical school is better than another, based on the education provided, are wrong. If any medical school was inferior to another it would lose its accreditation or, stated another way, no medical school is permitted to graduate a majority of "C" students while other schools graduate a majority of "A" students. All medical schools are required to administer the NBME's Shelf Exams at the end of each class. These exams are scored by the NBME, not the schools. If Harvard produced superior results to the Medical College of Georgia, do you think that MCG wouldn't adopt Harvard's curriculum or that MCG would be continued to be allowed to produce inferior doctors?

Would you accept that a Volkswagen was the best car based on 5 people saying that it was the best car? Would your opinion change if all 5 worked for Volkswagen? Many people respond to questions about "the best medical schools" and cite the US News and World Report's annual article about medical school rankings. They don't have a clue how the magazine made those determinations. In the most recent published rankings list there were as little as five respondents and those were all medical school college Deans. Hardly a statistically valid sampling, wouldn't you agree? Why were there so few respondents? Because the Association of American Medical Colleges objects to the criteria used and the method of sampling, so the majority of medical schools refuse to participate.

If you're going to become a physician you need to know the source of any data you're going to rely on or prove it yourself--and in this case, the information is readily available on the Internet--all you have to do is Google it.

To correct some other misinformation--all medical schools have to have research opportunities available for medical students (it's an accreditation requirement). At primary care oriented schools the research is an option. At research oriented medical schools it is mandatory and the focus for the students is not the research itself but the proper scientific method for conducting and reporting how research is done. The research is done by both instructors (that's one of the carrots used to attract top research scientists to teach at medical schools) and paid researchers.

In addition, most medical researchers have advanced science degrees, not just the MD.

So why do the Harvards and Johns Hopkins of the world have reputations as being "the best"? It's a three part answer. First, the "best" known names have earned their reputations on the quality of the residency programs provided (and residency programs have nothing to do with a medical school), the quality, number and types of research conducted (again, nothing to do with the medical school itself) and the medical centers associated with each program. Secondly, the history of the Ivy League schools arises from over a century ago when only the wealthy could afford to go to college. As the economy changed and more of the 'common' people could afford college, the "Ivy League" schools raised their tuition to keep out the riff-raff, thus maintaining their standard of catering to society's elite class. But many of the programs at Ivy League schools do produce superior graduates. The MBA programs at Harvard and Wharton are the 'Gold" standard in business. The law programs at Princeton and Yale are also "Gold' standards. the same for engineering, physics, etc,, but not medicine. Medicine is the only specialty that has a quality assurance governing authority. Third, reputations are really marketing's sleight of hand. For example, the National Insitute of Health is the other often-cited ranking system for medical schools. However, this 'ranking' is based on the amount of research dollars given to each school, which, again, has nothing to do with the quality of the education provided at a school. But that doesn't stop some schools from claiming "We're # X according to the NIH".

So, to answer your question in a different way, would you be heads above other people with a degree from an Ivy League school? Maybe to the naive. But the medical community only cares where you did your residency, as that denotes the quality of your education. You can spend $50,000/semester at an Ivy League school or less than $20,000/semester at your own state's university medical school and both will get you to your MD. The name of the school on your diploma doesn't get you into the better residency programs. What does get you in are the scores you obtain on the USMLE exams and the quality of the reviews you received during your clinical rotations.

One last little poke in the ribs--UCLA came to the University of Maryland to copy UM's Emergency Medicine residency program and that's why the University

How long until it comes out that the Feds ordered the Toyota & Honda recalls to kill their competition?

CKoz

Remember, our government owns a car company now!!!

Answer
That was the first thing that I thought of when I heard the news of Toyota. Something is fishy because they have always been on the top of the reliability rankings.

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