College newsletters aren't just for making you feel inadequate. They're often wonderful outlets for freelancing and make for very pretty clips.

First, do you have to be an alum to write? No, although it might be easier to start at your alma mater. "Once you're in, they just keep coming at you with one great story idea after another. There they are, all these smart people doing interesting research under one institutional roof. I don't think I've even been offered a story by an alumni magazine that didn't pique my interest. And they often spill over into other stories for other publications," says Kristin Ohlson, who has written for Case Western Reserve University and Oberlin, and is the author of Stalking the Divine.

Do you need to take a certain rah-rah tone for the university, though? Not always, but don't be surprised if your publication doesn't want to do a hard-hitting piece on the latest scandal to plague the school. "Sometimes you're required to do a little bit of spin, and have a subject talk about why they chose the particular college or why it was the right choice or whatever, but that's not always the case," says Erin Peterson, a Minneapolis writer who spent five years editing an alumni magazine and now freelances for university magazines frequently.

"One thing that I like about writing for alumni magazines is that the subjects get to review the article before publication. I like the fact that when I'm writing about highly complex scientific or technical subjects that are new to me, someone will eye my article and correct boneheaded errors. I don't recall that there were many errors in any of my pieces, since I usually am very careful about the details, but still-- I like that assurance. What's different about alumni magazines: you're basically writing PR in an article format. While some alumni magazines will allow you as the writer to be less boosterish, some will be very concerned that you not write anything that might reflect poorly on the institution," says Ohlson.

"I was a little more aware of who I was interviewing and who needed to be quoted," says freelancer Kathy McCabe, who edits the "Dream of Italy" newsletter in addition to writing for her alma mater's magazine. "There's definitely a pecking order in academia and the right administrators, professors needed to be in the piece. Obviously, the piece is going to be positive."

However, like any good freelancer, you should check out the publication and their pay rates before you go pitching away. "I wrote for the University of Louisville alumni magazine a few times," says one writer I spoke with. "They tend to pay very poorly - I think, on average, it was $300 for a full-length feature. That's one reason I stopped. Plus they do most of it in-house now and it tends to be PR-ish."

"I recently pitched a story to an editor at an Arizona college who responded, after viewing my web site, that its pay was so lousy, he wouldn't tell me what it was. I took him at his word and didn't even ask," says another write I spoke with.

However, many pay decently. "I try to get $1/word, but I think that the higher you go up the collegiate food chain the more you'll make," says Ohlson, plus, some of the publications on the low end take reprints.

Most people I spoke with, though, were happy about their university publication experiences. "I could happily write for alumni magazines all day long," says Medland. Okay, so how do you break into them?

"I broke into Case Magazine about ten years ago, basically by begging the editor to let me write for her," says Ohlson. "She was convinced that my background [English major] didn't equip me for writing about scientists. I argued that it made me better equipped, since I would have to basically learn their discipline from scratch and ask a million questions to translate whatever the scientist was doing for a lay audience. She finally had another writer fall through and put me on a story, and I've written for almost every issue since then. One of my articles for that publication was a finalist for a CASE award and another one was a winner.

"After I won the prize, I started sending letters off to other alumni
magazines saying I'd be happy to write about their grads who were living near Cleveland. Got some interested nibbles, but nothing panned out-- except for the Oberlin alumni magazine. I've been writing for that editor for a few years now, although mostly about complex social issues rather than science. Every assignment is great because it immerses me in a new subject area and introduces me to interesting people doing interesting research. They're often good at talking about their work, too, since they're used to explaining complex topics to students."

"I'd say your best bet is to introduce yourself and send along clips. It's hard to pitch alumni magazines (in general), and I only pitch stories once I'm really familiar with the school. On the other hand, I've gotten almost all my first jobs with universities just by introducing myself and sending a link to my Web site. If they like you, they'll continue to feed you ideas," says Peterson.

"I would advise other writers to start with their own alumni magazine first -- I really think the editors like to be able to use alums as writers. It gives the entire publication a community feel and indeed gives the writer instant credibility with the readers," says McCabe.