The College Solutions Blog

October 2, 2009

Where do you find a great college? I hear that question all the time. You can pour through the big fat college guides from folks like the Princeton Review and Fiske, but they ignore most schools. For instance, Princeton Review’s latest guide covers 371 schools, but there are more than 2,200 four-year colleges and universities in this country. What I’m...

September 30, 2009

I  spent some time yesterday afternoon listening to  Peter Johnson, the dean of admissions at Columbia University, talk to a dozen or so attentive students at High Tech High in San Diego.  The visit from an Ivy League admission dean at my son’s school isn’t as unusual as you might think. During the fall, it’s common to see admission officers...

September 24, 2009

College rankings are sexy and fun to read, but have you ever wondered if they are really legitimate? If you have, I urge you to check out my latest story for CBSMoneyWatch.com that explores a variety of college rankings. In my article, I take a look at the methodology of various college rankings and then rate the rankers. My favorite...

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...

August 20, 2009

U.S. News & World Report released its 2010 college rankings in the wee hours this morning. For those who couldn’t wait to see the latest results, the magazine had posted a clock on its website that informed rankings enthusiasts of how many days, hours and minutes were left until the unveiling. In the university rankings competition, Harvard and Princeton tied...

August 7, 2009

If you look at the just-released college rankings from Forbes Magazine, you’ll notice some peculiar numbers. Forbes ranks Cornell as the 105th best school in the country, but U.S. News & World Report ranks it as the 14th best national university. Forbes rates Dartmouth and the University of Pennslyvania as the 98th and 83rd  best schools, but US News college...

July 9, 2009

I had lunch this week with a professor of medicine at Stanford University. Mercifully, the conversation didn’t dwell on his specialty (urology), but the professor did feel the need to gripe about Stanford’s endowment, which has cratered. In an attempt to cheer him up, I mentioned that Stanford’s endowment problem looks like a mosquito bite compared to Harvard University’s endowment’s...

June 4, 2009

The annual U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings edition is fun to read. In the past, I’ve poured over it myself. The rankings, however, are flawed. I’ve covered many of the reasons why U.S. News & World Report’s rankings are sketchy in my book, The College Solution, as well as in some of my blog posts. Here’s one reason...

March 30, 2009

No doubt most teenagers who attend state universities never look beyond their borders. If you’re a kid living in Los Angeles, the cost of going to UCLA or Berkeley is going to be cheaper than attending another flagship like the University of Texas or the University of Michigan. What keeps plenty of kids from wandering too far from home is...

February 15, 2009

No doubt most teenagers who attend state universities never look beyond their borders. If you’re a kid living in Los Angeles, the cost of going to UCLA or Berkeley is going to be cheaper than attending another flagship like the University of Texas or the University of Michigan. What keeps plenty of kids from wandering too far from home is...