Everyone understands that graduating from high school is one of the major milestones of life. Walking across the stage and receiving your diploma signifies that you have acquired the knowledge and skills to begin pursing your career in a college institution. I think I can speak for all high school students when I say that choosing the right college is difficult. By the time your junior year starts, you begin to receive countless offers from hundreds of colleges, and you must work to eventually narrow it down to your top five. Afterwards, you must apply and see if you get accepted. Then you go on visits and review the pros and cons of each, and eventually, you choose the best fit for you. You may not see the parallels at first, but choosing a college is a lot like shopping. You are, in a sense, the consumer, and the colleges use marketing techniques to get you to choose their institutions. The marketing techniques colleges use today try to ensure that they attract the best students in the nation.
             A recent article I have read by Mark Edmundson would say otherwise, however. Edmundson believes that college marketing strategies mislead students because instead of presenting stressing the caliber of the academics of the institution, they advertise new facilities and athletics. He argues, "The physical layout of my university has been changing; to put it indecorously, the place is looking more and more like a retirement spread for the youth." Edmundson plainly is stating that students more often choosing colleges for all the fancy, new facilities instead of analyzing the educational quality and opportunities of each school. Edmundson presents the notion that universities are turning into sports and fitness emporiums because colleges today accept and give more scholarship money to student athletes than to academically gift students who have little to no of history of participation in extracurricular activities.
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