The College Solutions Blog

January 5, 2012

There are a lot of expensive colleges and universities in this country, but as I’ve mentioned many times before on my college blog, the sticker price is meaningless. The only figure that matters is the college’s net price. This is the price you get after any grants (free money) that you receive from a school are subtracted from the sticker...

January 4, 2012

I’ve been writing posts for my college blog recently about the W-R-O-N-G way to assemble a college list. If you missed them, here are my the posts: Another Dreadful College List Applying to the Wrong Universities Assembling a solid list of schools to apply to is critically important, but I’d argue that the vast majority of teenagers do a lousy...

December 13, 2011

In my last post, I promised to share some resources that can help you evaluate the generosity of colleges and universities. If you missed it, here is that post: Sniffing Out Financial Aid Awards Today I’m going to focus on the College Board’s website, which is a quick and easy resource for anyone interested in getting financial aid statistics on...

December 12, 2011

This week I’m going to focus on some financial aid nuts and bolts. I want to address one of the questions that puzzle families the most:  Will a college award my child any money? Most parents have no clue how to answer this question. In fact, they usually don’t find out if a college is willing to kick in some...

October 17, 2011

Should colleges be evaluated more like baseball players? I’m raising this question today because the St. Louis Cardinals are going to the World Series! I had the good fortune of growing up in the 1960s in St. Louis when the Cardinals made it to the World Series three times. Among my fondest childhood memories was being able to watch the...

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...