The College Solutions Blog

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

Universities

Cutting the Price of Out-of-State Universities

The price tag for attending an out-of-state public university can be quite high. It’s easy to understand why. States are interested in holding down the costs for their own residents. You might, however, be able to capture a higher-ed bargain if your state maintains a reciprocal agreement with its neighbors. States commonly maintain reciprocal agreements with public colleges and universities...

What Size is a Small College?

This week, I’ve been looking at the size of colleges and explaining why size matters. It drives me nuts that students routinely pick schools by size without understanding the educational ramifications of their choices. Here are my three previous posts on this subject: My Pet Peeve: Picking Colleges By Size Research Universities: What You Need to Ask What’s a Medium-Sized...

What's a Medium-Sized University?

What does it mean when a teenager says, “I want to go to a medium-sized university?” This week I’ve been discussing the issue of college size. Kids often base a great deal of their decision about college on its size and why that can be a problem. Here are my past two posts: My Pet Peeve: Picking Colleges By Size...

Research Universities: What You Need to Ask

In my last blog post I complained that too many high school students pick schools based primarily on size. And most of these students only want to look at schools that are large. Here is where I vented: My Pet Peeve: Picking Colleges by Size What’s more important, I argued, is a school’s mission. Today, I want to explore a...

My Pet Peeve: Picking Colleges By Size

Here’s one of my biggest pet peeves about how teenagers look for colleges: When teenagers put together a list of potential colleges, a campus size requirement is often way up at the top of their criteria. I want to go to a big school. I don’t want to go to small school. I’m interested in a medium-sized school. Hardly anyone...

More Liberal Arts Colleges In or Near Cities

Because so many college students like to attend schools in metropolitan areas, I wrote a post yesterday about 30 liberal arts colleges that are located in cities or close to them. Here is the link: 30 Liberal Arts Colleges In or Near Cities When I compiled the list, I figured that I had overlooked some liberal arts colleges and so...

11 Great Colleges – Mostly Off the Beaten Path

What do the University of Notre Dame and Raritan Valley Community College have in common? They both made the short list of great colleges that are doing an exceptionally good jobs. The list was complied by Andrew Hacker, a professor at Queens College and Claudia Dreifus, a New York Times writer, who are the authors of How Colleges are Wasting...

Choosing Colleges: 5 Things You Must Do

Need help in choosing colleges? It so, you’ll be interested in this college blog post by David Montesano. David is an admission strategist with College Match, an educational consulting firm that aims to help families find great colleges at discount prices. Here are 5 things that David suggests that you keep in mind when when are looking for college matches:...

Top 10 Best College Websites

What are the best college websites in the country? I tried to answer that question earlier this week when I wrote my first college blog post for US News & World Report. In the post, I nominated my own favorite college websites which can be invaluable for finding colleges, researching schools, pinpointing the generosity of individual colleges and learning about...

Top 50 Colleges That Produce Science PhD's

I got an email this week from a California mother who was happy that her child would be a attending St. Mary’s College of Maryland, a wonderful public liberal arts college, in the fall. Her husband, however, remained skeptical. He worried that his daughter would be jeopardizing her chances of going to graduate school if she went to an obscure...