The College Solutions Blog

September 2, 2009

All week I’ve been sharing great tools to research colleges. Today I want to feature the federal College Navigator. The College Navigator is a dull-looking website, but it contains incredible tools that tap into a vast college database that the U.S. Department of Education maintains. To illustrate what College Navigator can do, I’m using as an example Ohio State University,...

September 2, 2009

I wanted to let you know about a new college blog that you should check out. Washington Monthly just launched its own college blog, which I consider to be great news. While US News & World Report hogs most of the press attention when it comes to college coverage, I’ve always admired Washington Monthly’s thoughtful higher-ed pieces. Washington Monthly launched...

September 1, 2009

If you want to shrink the cost of college, you should become acquainted with something called the Common Data Set. The Common Data Set was dreamed up years ago as a way to satisfy collegiate publishers like US News & World Report and the College Board, which have voracious appetites for higher-ed statistics. Rather than answering every publisher’s questions, schools...

September 1, 2009

As I mentioned yesterday, most teenagers don’t know how to truly evaluate colleges and universities. Finding the right academic fit, however, is crucial, which is why this week I’m going to be sharing my favorite tools to research colleges. Today I’m focusing on CollegeResults.org. CollegeResults.org, which you’ll find on the Education Trust’s website, provides the four-, five- and six-year graduation...

August 31, 2009

Despite all the hype about Ivy League schools and other elite private colleges, most teenagers end up attending public universities in their own states. Too many teenagers, however, pick state schools on a whim. I rarely find teens who ask meaningful questions and instead they select schools for these sorts of lame reasons: I love the football team. It’s my...

August 30, 2009

Don’t have time to track down relevant stories about college admissions, financial aid and important topics for families with teenagers? No worries. You can find lots of them right here at TheCollegeSolutionBlog.com and each weekend I also provide the links to the college posts that I write over at CBSMoneyWatch.com. Here are my CBS stories from the past week: Top...

August 29, 2009

I want to welcome all my new visitors today, who discovered my blog thanks to the radio show that was broadcast this morning around the country. If you’ve got teenagers and you’re stressing about college, my blog should be a huge help.  You’ll find some of the best stuff in my college blog’s archives. Here are sections of the archives...

August 28, 2009

The year that I started college, Richard Nixon resigned, pocket calculators started appearing in stores and Jethro Tull was oh, so cool — at least with the kids I hung out with. I realized how dramatically different the experiences of today’s college freshmen are after I read Beloit College’s Mindset List. Each year the liberal arts college releases an amusing...

August 27, 2009

Out here on the West Coast, I know parents who believe that their children will be condemned to mediocre lives if the University of California, Berkeley, doesn’t send them an acceptance letter. Okay, it might not be that bad, but plenty of parents and teens believe that getting into UC Berkeley is the ultimate academic achievement  for a teenager. Unfortunately,...

August 27, 2009

The other day I brought up the “E” word with my son. Ben is about to start his senior year in high school and he needs to begin thinking about the college admission essay that he’s going to write. Ben’s reaction was typical of a lot of seniors:  He groaned. Undeterred, I  told him that he really needed to start...