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It’s no secret that college gets more expensive every year. Tuition, room & board, books, and fees for a four year school can cost about $26,000 per year at popular CSU’s like Cal Poly or Chico, while the gross cost can run $50,000 or more annually at top private universities. But the bottom line is, how much will the net cost be for you?

The trick, according to Cliff MacDonald who founded the San Ramon college placement service Oxford Advisors, is to get someone else to pay most of the freight. There are billions of dollars available each year from federal, state, and local public sources, as well as private corporations and public foundations. In fact, believe it or not, some of these monies go unused because students and student-athletes do not apply for these grants or scholarships. Moreover, private colleges have millions of dollars in endowments and they use some of these assets to offer merit scholarships to attract students who will make a valuable contribution to their campus.

Thus, like many things in life, those who pay the full sticker price end up subsidizing the athletes, the musicians, the actors, special needs students, minorities and others which the university believes are adding something special to its community. Oxford Advisors matches students’ abilities with the needs of some of the top colleges in the country, and then helps their families to find money to pay a large portion of the college expenses.

Many parents whose children have had success in youth sports dream of athletic scholarships to help them pay for college. MacDonald is uniquely positioned to help make those dreams come true. He has coached youth soccer, baseball and hockey. His work with the San Jose Jr. Sharks Club program in the early 1990’s included qualifying for elite, invitation-only international tournaments throughout Canada, the Midwest and New England.

Each of MacDonald’s three children earned sports-related college scholarships with his help. His hockey-playing son, C.J., went from Amador Valley High School to a prep school in Connecticut which led to a four year scholarship at Wesleyan University where he became a captain of the hockey team. Daughter Candice earned a four-year Division 1 soccer scholarship and also was a 2 time captain at Villanova University, while daughter Caitlin earned a significant scholarship and financial aid package at Dartmouth of the Ivy League, because of her strong academics and soccer skills.

Besides his own children, over the years Cliff has worked with hundreds of student-athletes who have received financial aid or scholarships at four year institutions. “We understand which sports in our region are viewed as particularly strong by college recruiters,” MacDonald said, specifically listing girls’ and boys’ soccer, baseball, girls’ basketball, softball and volleyball. “We have connections with elite club teams and we know how to generate attention for our athletes. The top 1-2 per cent will be discovered by the colleges, but everyone else has to work to be noticed.” MacDonald says he brainstorms with families and pulls out what he knows schools are looking for and then highlights that information in the materials they send to the colleges.

MacDonald’s tactics include detailed resumes carefully formatted to highlight athletic and academic accomplishments, various teams for which the athlete has played, coach’s comments and honors earned. “I strive to get the ducks off the water for my students and then show them how to develop relationships with college coaches,” he said. “I also train my clients in how to write cover letters and conduct themselves in an interview. Nearly everything we do with our students teaches them skills they’ll be able to use the rest of their lives.”

Despite the scholarships available, MacDonald insists that young people should only play sports as long as they are fun. “The scholarship is not the goal,” he said. “Developing character and skills, meeting new friends, having fun, and making lifelong memories are more important. I see far too many cases of parents pushing their children to play a particular sport just because they believe the child has exceptional aptitude, and it rarely works out well. This type of pressure often leads to burn-out, where the teen quits the sport, and usually leads to hard feelings and wasted money.”

MacDonald also pointed out that lots can happen to young athletes. “Kids gain weight, lose weight, stop growing, go through puberty and shift their interests,” MacDonald said. “It doesn’t make sense for parents to focus on athletic scholarships until at least ninth or tenth grade, and more likely when they reach 16 or 17. Before then they should just play as many sports as they can and have some fun.” MacDonald did acknowledge that at East Bay Athletic League schools like Amador, Foothill, San Ramon, Cal High, and Monte Vista, it is difficult for most students to make a team in more than one sport. “The competition is very tough at those schools,” he said.

Although MacDonald has been involved with college admissions for over 25 years, he did not start up Oxford Advisors until 2005. MacDonald and his team provide one-stop shopping for their clients. “Between our staff and our network of partners we can provide strategic college planning, national college searches, specialized SAT and ACT prep, application management, essay consultation, a resource for financial aid; as well as creating distinctive athletic resumes, DVDs and video links to show off a teen’s athletic skills; and even recommending surgeons, physicians and physical therapists if our athletes are injured! The breadth of our services makes us very unique in the college placement field.”

Ideally, MacDonald likes to start with clients during their sophomore year of high school, though he has helped students in their mid-twenties who are stalled in the community college system. “Our process takes at least a year, so if a student doesn’t come to us until their senior year, we can’t do any planning. For we start the application segment in September of the senior year. Yet, we are proud of our systematic or business-like approach and our extraordinary success rates. Nothing is more satisfying for us than placing a student in his or her dream school and using our methods, contacts and resources to help pay most of the expenses. We love hearing how happy they are after we enable them to fulfill their educational dreams!”

Those interested in learning more about Oxford Advisors can call its offices at 925-855-3220 or visit www.Oxford-Advisors.com.

 

“What a difference a day makes.”  This line from an old song could easily be expanded to demonstrate the political turmoil that alters a travel site from “friendly” to “avoid” in a few blinks of an eye.

The other evening while browsing through a few of my unpublished travel accounts, I ran across a story I had written in 1999. It had a newspaper article attached dated October 7, 2004. I read through the two stories and found myself mesmerized by the events – one about twelve years ago and a second just under eight.

I ask you to bear with me as I relive some of the past and compare it with the current policies reflected in our newspapers today.

 

In 1999 there seemed to be a lull – an uneasy peace – between the Palestinian population and the Israeli government. Bethlehem was classified as an “open city,” and tourists from around the world flocked to this historic town. Less than a block from the entrance to the “place of Christ’s birth” Palestinians shops sold souvenirs and joked easily with the tourists. We saw no reason not to exploit this calm and booked a trip.

It was our intent to visit Jerusalem, Bethlehem and some other usual tourist sites in Israel. We included a visit to Masada, the plateau which housed the final Jewish resistance to Roman rule. But to start our vacation we chose to spend a leisurely week in Eilat. Driving south in Israel, auto traffic along the Arabian Wadi which connects the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Acaba flowed freely, devoid of checkpoints. This Jewish resort area is located on the southern tip of Israel and borders the Gulf of Acaba. The weather here is pleasant, and the sea water is a near perfect temperature. If you look on a map you will see this tiny neck of Israel borders Jordan to the east and Egypt to the west. It is an ideal location to explore a segment of all three of these countries.

It was an easy trip, for example, to cross over the Jordanian border and motor to Petra. The trip is just over an hour’s ride, and although you are required to hire both an Israeli and a Jordanian tour guide, the visit to the fortress of Petra is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

On our third night in Eilat, we decided to cross the border to Egypt. The Egyptian city just a few kilometers from the Israeli border is Taba. We took a taxi to the border in Israel and explained to the immigration officer that we planned to have dinner in Taba and return. He obviously was mystified as to why anyone would want do this, but with much eye rolling he passed us on. We walked a hundred yards along a road with high wire fences on either side – with apparently a field full of mines beyond that barrier.

The Egyptian border guard was also amused by our plan, but he stamped our passports and hailed us a cab which took us into Taba. We asked the cab driver for suggestions for dinner and a little shopping, and he suggested the Hilton Hotel on the east side of town.

Here stood the multi-storied building, in typical Hilton style. A circular drive led up to a large front entrance with a footman available to open the door for us. The lobby was populated with men in abayas, business suits, and casual clothes, while the ladies wore more feminine abayas, fashionable dresses, and even jeans. We shopped a bit, had cocktails and dinner, and at about nine o’clock in the evening retraced our steps back to Eilat.

As I mentioned in my introduction, there is an article attached to my story about this visit. On October 7, 2004, just as my first book was being printed, a vehicle drove up this beautiful circular drive in front of the Hilton. Just as the footman approached a large bomb was detonated – blowing the entire front of the building away and eventually collapsing almost the entire multi-storied hotel. The devastation was enormous, and the loss of life severe. The building was completely destroyed. But, to the best of my knowledge, in the intervening years it was totally renovated and today is once again, the Taba Hilton – a lovely resort hotel on the Gulf of Acaba.

There are windows of opportunity that open to us travelers. Often they stay open only a short period, and then they close for generations. Even today, as we read our daily papers, we are bombarded with stories of Palestinian/Israeli conflict, and the evolving “Arab Spring” taking place in Egypt. We must be alert – for most often these are just fleeting opportunities.

Many of us find ourselves humming or singing a favorite tune or other songs we know while driving or in the shower. But how many of us think about how or where the song came from?  We may or may not know the composer, but is the song their original material or did it come from somewhere else? Believe it or not, many so-called modern songs originated from classical music.

The great master composers of the seventeenth, eighteenth or nineteenth centuries apparently had no qualms about “borrowing” or “lifting” tunes from each other. Musical literature is rampant with this questionable practice. I suspect that plagiarism was not the big deal in those days as it is today.

Most, but not all youth today, view the great music of the past as not relevant, out of step with the times and even boring. Creative and imaginative teachers use this phenomenon of classics to pop to teach students classical music by showing them how themes are adapted into pop/ rock musical genres. The aim or goal in this type of instruction is to show that all types of music are important and should be appreciated.

Instruction may include having students listen to the original classical theme then listen to its adaptation into popular music. In this way students learn about the classics if pop music is used to introduce it in a non-threatening and interesting way. These classes have been shown to be most effective when teaching modern day students.

The hope is that students, through this type of teaching about music they didn’t understand or appreciate i.e. classical music, would come alive for them and eventually assure its survival in the world.

The following illustrates the popular music that was generated by the great classical composers of the past:

• 1890’s -“O Promise Me” from the musical Robin Hood based on an Italian opera Mala Pasqua
• 1910’s -“I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” from Fantasie Impromptu by Frederic Chopin; “The Marine Hymn” from Gendarmes Duet by J. Offenbach
• 1920’s -“Going Home” from the Largo from Dvorak’s Symphony #9 – The New World
• 1930’s -“Song of India” from the Song of the Indian Guest from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sadko; “In an 18^th Century Drawing Room” from Mozart’s Piano Sonata K. 545
• 1940’s -“Tonight We Love” from Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto #1 this was Freddy Martin’s theme song “Till the end of Time” from Fredric Chopin’s Polonaise in A Flat
• 1950’s -“Stranger in Paradise” from the Broadway musical Kismet, based on Alexander Borodin’s Polovetsian Dances. Also from Borodin is Baubles, Bangles and Beads; “Catch a Falling Star” from J. Brahms Academic Festival Overture
• 1960’s -“It’s Now or Never” based on Elvis Presley and also O Sole Mio, “Hello Mudduh, Hello Fadduh” from Ponchielli’s Dance of the Hours; “A Groovy Kind of Love” based on Sonatina in G Major by M. Clementi
• 1970’s -“Pictures at an Exhibition” by Emerson Lake and Palmer from M. Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition; “Could it Be Magic” inspired by Chopin’s Prelude in C Minor;
  “A Fifth of Beethoven” – a disco version of Beethoven’s 5^th Symphony; “Night on Disco Mountain” from M. Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain
• 1980’s -“Midnight Blue” from Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata; “Rock Me Amadeus” from Falco; “Mars” from Mars the Bringer of War from Gustav Holst’s The Planets
• 1990’s -“All Together Now” based on chord progressions from Pachelbel’s Canon; “Everythings Gonna Be Alright” from Bach’s Air on the G String; “Love of My Life” from J. Brahms 3^rd Symphony
• 2000’s -“Remember” from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake; “Road to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ode to Joy in the 9^th Symphony; “Lacrymosa” based on Mozart’s Lacrymosa movement from the Requiem; “Yatta” from Pachelbel’s Canon

It is interesting to note that in my research I found many more popular songs were based on Pachelbel’s Canon then any other musical source.

The above list is far from complete. This is just a sampling of some of the most well known songs. There are too many to mention in this brief space. The number of modern day composers using classical themes in writing popular songs is nothing short of staggering. The next time you hear classical music being put down, remind that person that there is a good chance they are hearing a classical theme that inspired the popular song they are hearing.

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