The College Solutions Blog

August 15, 2010

Saturday evening I said goodbye to my son Ben, who officially started his four years at Beloit College. I am grateful that the send-off was better than the one that Scott Bierman, the president of Beloit College, experienced years ago when he dropped his second daughter off at Kenyon College. As the drop-off day wore on, Bierman told a gathering...

August 11, 2010

I’m getting up before dawn tomorrow. My son Ben and I are catching a 6:45 a.m. flight to Chicago. Ben will be starting college on Saturday and he’s nervous. But hey, aren’t all college freshmen nervous? Coincidentally, I found a great blog post today, written by two college professors, who shared ways that college freshmen can increase their confidence. Here...

August 10, 2010

Are AP classes really worthwhile? There is no doubt that advanced placement classes are popular.  Last year, nearly 1.7 million students worldwide took more than 2.9 million AP exams. Twenty five percent of high school graduates have taken at least one AP exam. With teenagers returning to the classroom grind soon, I thought this would be a good time to...

August 1, 2010

It’s been my experience that blog posts that include words like,”Best and Worst ….” or “10 Hottest….” or “20 Tips to….” will generate more traffic to your site. That’s certainly been the case with my college blog over at CBSMoneyWatch. During the past year, the most popular blog post that I wrote for  the network’s financial website was this one:...

July 29, 2010

This week, I’ve been looking at the size of colleges and explaining why size matters. It drives me nuts that students routinely pick schools by size without understanding the educational ramifications of their choices. Here are my three previous posts on this subject: My Pet Peeve: Picking Colleges By Size Research Universities: What You Need to Ask What’s a Medium-Sized...

July 28, 2010

What does it mean when a teenager says, “I want to go to a medium-sized university?” This week I’ve been discussing the issue of college size. Kids often base a great deal of their decision about college on its size and why that can be a problem. Here are my past two posts: My Pet Peeve: Picking Colleges By Size...

July 25, 2010

Here’s one of my biggest pet peeves about how teenagers look for colleges: When teenagers put together a list of potential colleges, a campus size requirement is often way up at the top of their criteria. I want to go to a big school. I don’t want to go to small school. I’m interested in a medium-sized school. Hardly anyone...

July 22, 2010

In my last college blog post for CBSMoneyWatch.com, I wrote about a study that explored how homeschoolers do in college. Here is the link: Can Homeschoolers Do Well in College? I was surprised at the passionate responses that the homeschooler piece triggered. The homeschool supporters seemed especially incensed that I brought up what I perceive as a common belief about...

July 19, 2010

Because so many college students like to attend schools in metropolitan areas, I wrote a post yesterday about 30 liberal arts colleges that are located in cities or close to them. Here is the link: 30 Liberal Arts Colleges In or Near Cities When I compiled the list, I figured that I had overlooked some liberal arts colleges and so...

July 18, 2010

I’ve talked to a lot of teenagers, who are interested in liberal arts colleges as long as they are in cities or at least close to metropolitan areas. Unfortunately for these kids, many liberal arts colleges are in rural areas. My daughter Caitlin is fully aware of this reality because she attends Juniata College, in Huntingdon, PA, which is a...