The College Solutions Blog

October 11, 2011

How happy are a college’s freshmen? It’s a question that any families should be asking as they evaluate schools. Ideally you want to attend a college or university where the vast majority of freshmen return for a second year. The schools that enjoy the highest freshmen retention rate are going to be the most selective institutions. This makes sense because...

October 5, 2011

If you do poorly on the SAT or ACT, you can always apply to colleges and universities that are test optional. It’s been awhile since I wrote about this subject and you can find the link to a previous post below, but today I want to share with you a new twist to the trend. Getting Into Great Schools With...

September 27, 2011

When families look at financial aid packages they often assume that a school’s financial aid support will remain the same for four years. That, however, is a dangerous assumption to make. The financial support that some colleges and universities give students will shrink after their freshmen year. Bait and Switch? Why would this happen? I can’t speak for schools that...

September 24, 2011

I’ve been in New Orleans this week attending the annual conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. At the conference I’ve been doing short interviews with college experts whom I think you’ll enjoy hearing from. I’m going to start out today with an interview that I conducted with Robert Morse, who is the man behind US News &...

September 22, 2011

Last week US News & World Report unveiled its 2012 college rankings to the usual fanfare. What typically gets overlooked during the annual rankings season are the schools that aren’t media darlings. During last year’s ranking season, I devoted a post to these overlooked schools. I want to share what I wrote again because I think it is helpful to...

September 13, 2011

As many of you know, I’m not a fan of US News and World Report’s college rankings even though I write a college blog for the magazine.  The methodology is flawed and the rankings sponsor does not try to measure what kind of education students receive at their schools. What I find even more troubling is the fact that  college...

August 29, 2011

I spent last week urging, some might say browbeating, people to look beyond the most obvious name schools when drawing up a college list. Beyond their local schools, I urged people to look at more than super expensive private East Coast schools, as well as prestigious state flagships that are charging obscene amounts of money — in some cases over...

August 26, 2011

If you’re willing to cast a wider net to find colleges, where do you start? Here is one way: Look at alternative college rankings. While US News & World Report’s college rankings hog the press coverage, I much prefer the college rankings that Forbes releases every summer. The Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a nonprofit education think tank, developed...

August 11, 2011

Some things about college are easy to measure. It’s easy to determine the win-loss record of the football or basketball teams. It’s easy to find out how many kids graduate in four years. (Nationally only about 35% pull this off.) It’s easy to determine if the campus is pretty or if the dorm food sucks. It’s awfully hard, however, to...

August 8, 2011

I got an email yesterday from a mom whose teenage daughter wants to become a registered nurse. The mother wanted to know how her daughter could find a list of colleges and universities that offer nursing degrees. This is a great question and the answer is relevant to anybody who wants to cast a wider net when looking for colleges....