The College Solutions Blog

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

Admissions

College Vacancies: 240 Colleges Where You Can Still Apply

Don’t like where you’re heading to college in the fall? Take heart: There are still at least 240 schools with college vacancies. Most of the schools with college vacancies have room for both incoming freshmen and transfer students. All but one school on the list still has financial aid available and 236 still have dorm space. You can find the...

Check Out College, Inc., Tonight on PBS

I’m going to veg out on my couch tonight and watch College, Inc., on my PBS station. College, Inc., is a FRONTLINE production that explores the explosive and controversial growth of the for-profit higher education industry. One of the universities profiled in this investigation is the University of Phoenix, which is a darling of Wall Street. University of Phoenix is...

College Applications: What If You're Not a Leader?

Colleges love applicants who are leaders. This collegiate desire to find leaders doesn’t jive with the fact that most teenagers — or Americans in any other age group — just aren’t leaders. But here’s the good news: A teen doesn’t have to be the president or v.p. of his or her class to be considered a leader. In fact, teenagers...

My Son's No. 1 College Choice Is ….

My son has decided where he’s going to college in the fall. After visiting 14 colleges and applying to 8 of them, Ben selected Beloit College. I wrote about why he decided to choose Beloit College on my other college blog over at CBSMoneyWatch. It was a long process, but the final result made all the hassles, including SAT prep,...

Graduate School Programs? Shopping for the Right One

How do you shop for graduate school programs? With the economy still floundering, more Americans are considering attending graduate school. But how do you find the best ones? Writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Thomas A. Benton, an English professor at Hope College made a stab at answering that question. He observed that the universities receiving the highest graduate...

Waiting List Cry Babies: Stop the Tears

I have been reading the annual sob stories from students who are stuck on waiting lists at the nation’s snobbiest schools. These are the colleges and universities that reject almost everyone. The students on these waiting lists, which can contain 1,000 or more names, complain mightily about being stuck in limbo. They can’t psychologically get on with their lives until...

College Visit: 8 Things You Must Do

It’s college visit season. Juniors are fanning out to visit schools and seniors are on the go too as they visit colleges for the last time before making their final decisions. Too many teenagers and their families zip through college tours. It seems to become a contest of seeing how many colleges they can tour in the shortest period of...

College Search: 6 Ways to Find the Right College

Where do you begin a college search? When you research colleges, you’re going to want to find schools that will provide your teenagers with an excellent education and get them out the door in four years. But how do you even start such a daunting college search? Scattered around my blog, I’ve written plenty about how to conduct a college...

Ivy League: Rejecting More Students – Yawn

Surprise. Surprise. The Ivy League and other elite universities have just gotten even more selective. The Ivy League schools will be notifying applicants today whether they won the higher-ed lottery. And, according to some preliminary numbers gathered by The New York Times, more applicants will be receiving bad college admission news this year than ever before. Or, what is more...

Transfer Students: Your Ticket to a 4-Year College or University

Today I’m running a guest column by Lan Ngo and Chris Goodmacher, who wrote the The Transfer Book that focuses on advice for college transfer students. Both started at community colleges, but they transferred to Stanford University and Dartmouth College where they graduated. They also received graduates degrees from prestigious institutions including Oxford University and Columbia University. Yes, there are...