The College Solutions Blog

September 20, 2009

On Thursday evening, I asked my son Ben what he knew about Drew University. “It’s got lots of squirrels,” he shot back. When we visited Drew during a college tour last year we did notice the squirrels on the New Jersey campus that is nestled in a lovely forest. I wanted to be sure, however, that Ben remembered more pertinent...

September 15, 2009

What are the best colleges in America? Not so fast with your answer. The best colleges aren’t always the ones that enjoy the biggest, shiniest name brands and monopolize the rankings. So how do you find the colleges and universities that do a fantastic — if unheralded — job of educating students? You’re going to have to dig a little...

September 14, 2009

My son Ben’s best friend just returned from a tour of some liberal arts colleges that I suggested he visit in the Midwest. Nathan visited Carleton, Grinnell and Macalester colleges and I’m sure that any one of these schools would be thrilled to welcome him as a freshman next fall. Nathan is slated to be his high school’s valadictorian, his...

September 8, 2009

One of my most vivid memories at the University of Missouri was of the strange grade that I received on an honors term paper. The English professor gave me a  “B+ +” for the final paper in my existentialist literature course.  When I saw that grade I was ticked off. What the heck, I wondered, was a B + +?...

September 6, 2009

Being the mother of a college junior and a high school senior, I’ve bought and skimmed through a lot of college books over the years. Many of them disappoint me because they are often focused on getting kids into the Ivy League. This fixation is ridiculously misplaced when you consider that only .2% of kids attend these eight schools. Frankly,...

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...

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 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 26, 2009

Are professors spending too much time publishing and not enough time teaching? Absolutely! What I want to share with you today is an research paper that argues that professors are neglecting students because they are so busying writing papers and books that hardly anybody cares to read. The reason for the fixation on scholarly research is simple, according to Mark...