On the other hand, there are things you should remember not to do:

days of professors marrying their

promising students are long, long gone. Nowadays, even the hint of favoritism can ruin a

professor’s career—let alone any actual relationship-type behavior. Unless your professor is a total

sleazebag, any sign of flirtation will make him or her shut down immediately. They simply cannot

risk it.

Second, don’t always prepare for satisfaction. Depending on how far you’ve let your studies

slide, there might not be anything a professor can do and still be fair to the rest of his or her

students. Or it might not be technically possible: arranging make-up tests, for example, is difficult.

Your professor probably spent hours writing his or her syllabus, and probably spent another hour

explaining it to you at the beginning of the class, so he or she’s got a lot invested in the rules it

Third, don’t threaten. Professors get threatened with lawsuits a lot, and even threats of physical you probably don’t have much of a reason for a professor to help you out, and you should start

thinking about how to do better next time.

didn’t become professors because we wanted to make students’ lives miserable. We became

professors out of a passion for our disciplines and a desire to share our knowledge with you. As a

general rule, professors respect commitment and genuine curiosity, and will go out of their way to

help if they feel you are honestly interested in doing well. On the other hand, professors get to

feeling pretty used by the numerous students who work hard only at gaming the system, and if they

feel you’re one of those students, they’re not likely to bend very far to make life easier for you.

Good luck!

SECTION B INTERVIEW

W: Two million high school seniors are gearing up this fall to apply to nearly 3,500 US colleges. So,

which are the strongest academically that are toughest to get into, and yah, of course top party

schools. We all need to know that, right? Well the Princeton Review ranks The Best 361

Colleges: The Smart Students Guide to Colleges. Robert Franek is the lead author. Rob, good

morning, good to see you again.

M: Well. Thanks for having me back.

W: Look at the size of this thing. I mean this is a lot of information here. And...

M:It’s a lot of information, you’re right. We’ve reached up to so many

students—110,000—students to put best 361 colleges this year.

W: So this is a survey of just the students then with their feedback on their campuses?

M: Exactly. We think we know a lot about schools at Princeton Review, but we went directly to

whom we considered power experts.

W: To the source? How does, how does this differ to US News and World Reports rankings, and