The College Solutions Blog

February 14, 2012

Yesterday I described how you can use College Results Online to help you generate a promising list of college. If you missed it, here it is: Getting Ideas For a College List Here’s another idea:  Head to The Center for College Affordability and Productivity, which is the think tank that generates Forbes magazine’s annual college rankings. On the center’s site...

February 13, 2012

It’s intimidating when families hear that there are thousands of colleges and universities in this country. It’s equally unnerving when families try to grapple with this question:  Where do you find ideas? This week I hope to share some suggestions on web resources that can help you start collecting college candidates. The first one to the plate is College Results...

February 10, 2012

Today I’m sharing with you a great post from Michelle Kretzschmar, who writes a college blog that focuses on using data to create your own college rankings:  DIYCollegeRankings. I hope you read it and also visit her blog. Football and US News Rankings Like more than 100 million other Americans, I watched the Super Bowl. I always like the part...

February 7, 2012

I received an email over the weekend from a mom who is stressing about whether her accomplished daughter would be better off attending a liberal arts college or a journalism school. I happen to be a graduate of the the nation’s oldest journalism school at the University of Missouri (see photo) and I’ll share some thoughts after the mom’s note....

February 7, 2012

I received an email over the weekend from a mom who is stressing about whether her accomplished daughter would be better off attending a liberal arts college or a journalism school. I happen to be a graduate of the the nation’s oldest journalism school at the University of Missouri (see photo) and I’ll share some thoughts after the mom’s note....

February 3, 2012

Yesterday, in writing about the latest college rankings scandal on my college blog, I mentioned that the institutional pursuit of college rankings glory, has hurt millions of students in ways they can’t even imagine. Today I want to elaborate on that observation. If you missed yesterday’s post, here it is: Colleges and Universities That Cheat Millions of students are adversely...

February 2, 2012

Claremont McKenna College recently announced that it had been sending inflated SAT scores to US News since 2005. According to news accounts, the vice president and dean of admissions admitted inflating the scores and resigned. The college’s critical reading scores were inflated by an average of 17 points and the math scores were bumped up by an average of 10.5...

January 26, 2012

What schools produce the most undergraduates who end up heading off to graduate school? The subject came up yesterday because a friend of mine was telling me about a brilliant teenager who wants to eventually get a PhD in physics. The student lives in California, but the mom wants him to apply to schools in the Midwest where she grew...

January 17, 2012

Time is money and that is especially true when it comes to college. College students usually don’t graduate in four years and that comes as a shock to most parents. Yesterday I devoted my college blog to explaining how families can find the four-year grad rates of any schools — and just as importantly — compare any institution’s grad rate...

January 16, 2012

I met a teenage girl during the fall who was excited about applying to Hampshire College. She had visited the campus in Amherst, MA, had met professors and talked with students. She was smitten. She and her mother felt good that they had done their due diligence on the college, but then I asked them a question that drew a...