The College Solutions Blog

Valuable insights from Lynn O’Shaughnessy
a nationally recognized college expert.

Academic majors
October 3, 2012

50 Schools That Produce the Most Science and Engineering PhD’s

Note: I ran this college blog post last year, but it’s equally relevant today… I got an email this week from a California mother who was happy that her child would be a attending St. Mary’s College of Maryland, a wonderful public liberal arts college, in the fall. Her husband, however, remained skeptical. He worried that his daughter would be...
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October 1, 2012

6 Tips for Selecting a School for Art Majors

I want to major in art. This is the college major that perhaps more than any other strikes fear in the hearts of parents, who worry that an art degree will condemn their children to a life eating Cheerio’s for dinner and driving old subcompacts with bald tires. The truth is there are a myriad of careers in a wide...
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September 16, 2012

Getting Real About Majoring in Engineering

It seems to me that too many parents are stressing about what their children should select as a college major. I’m of the opinion that what’s important is getting a degree. I believe it’s less relevant what that degree is. Students are more likely to be successful if they choose a discipline that they are passionate about. In this rush...
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August 24, 2012

6 Great Ways to Pick College Classes

I wrote the following post last August, but with college students heading back to school, I decided it was worthwhile to run it again. LO Before my son Ben left to start his sophomore year at Beloit College, we talked about the advice in a chapter of The Thinking Student’s Guide to College: 75 Tips for Getting a Better Education....
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August 21, 2012

12 Ways to Find and Research Colleges

How do you locate good colleges and universities? I get that question a lot. Today I want to share some online resources to find and research schools. In no particular order, here are resources to check out: 1. Do-It-Yourself College Rankings. Do-It-Yourself College Rankings is the creation of Michelle Kretzschmar, the mother of a college student, who has a background...
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July 23, 2012

Researching College Majors

Today I’m sharing a wonderferul resource for students, who want to learn more about college majors and their career paths – College Majors 101. I’d urge everybody to spend some time on this website, which is stuffed with valuable information about college majors as diverse as biology, video game design, dance and biomedical engineering.  . The goal of College Majors...
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June 19, 2012

Sharing a College’s Return on Investment

In my last post I discussed a serious dilemma facing families searching for colleges. When we send our teenagers off to college, we expect that our children will return to us smarter, wiser and employable. But it’s nearly impossible to determine which schools are in the best position to help make this happen. Here is the post: College + Degree...
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June 11, 2012

The Advantage of Not Declaring a Major

I once bumped into a father I know whose daughter had attended the same middle school as my son. I asked him where his daughter was attending college and he told me that she was enrolled at a community college. I was surprised because Rachel is a very bright girl. The dad explained, however, that his daughter didn’t know what...
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June 1, 2012

A Look at Why Colleges Are Failing Students

I wrote the following college blog post last year, but I think it’s worth repeating because I believe that more teenagers (and their parents) are focused on getting into college rather than making the most of the experience once they arrive. I’d love to know what your thoughts are on this post. If you don’t mind sharing, please use the...
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March 5, 2012

Are the Professors Any Good?

Have you ever taken a look at RateMyProfessors.com? I’m assuming that you haven’t. It never occurred to me to head to the extremely popular site when my two kids were checking out colleges, but it might be worth a look. At RateMyProfessors, you’ll find more than 13 million student comments and ratings of professors at colleges and universities across the...
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