Moneyball College Admissions Rules: Use Your College Experience to Get What You Want

Pencil erasing a mazeAt first glance, Billy Beane’s fourth Moneyball rule wouldn’t seem a good fit for the college application process: “Know exactly who you want and go after him (Never mind who they say they want to trade).”  After all, it doesn’t seem likely that many students will convince colleges to  change admission requirements or how much financial aid offered simply based on their determination to attend a specific school.

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Moneyball College Admission Rules: A College is not a Guarantee

Dead piggy bank If you’re looking for data for your own Moneyball college admission search, check out the sample spreadsheet in the DIY College Search Spreadsheet class for free.


In Moneyball, Michael Lewis lists five rules that Billy Beane uses when shopping for baseball players just before the trading deadline. It’s important to remember that these aren’t just any players.

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Moneyball College Admissions Rules: Ignore the Status Quo

Bowling ball knocking down pinsLast week I talked about taking a Moneyball approach to the college admissions process. The idea being that as in Major League Baseball, the college admissions market is not operating efficiently resulting in some players/schools being significantly undervalued where others are way over-priced.

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The Moneyball Approach to College Rankings and Admissions

Have you seen the movie “Moneyball” or read the book by Michael Lewis? The story is about how the Oakland A’s baseball club managed to come up with winning seasons despite being one of the poorest teams in professional baseball. “Moneyball” refers to the strategy of identifying players used by the Oakland A’s general manager, Billy Beane.

What does Moneyball have to do with college admissions?

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College Search Spreadsheet Questions

thinking woman statueI’m taking a break from my 50-50 highlights this week. I’ve been thinking about doing a class on how to use the DIY College Search Spreadsheet and wanted to get some feedback. I’m trying to figure out what questions people have when using the spreadsheet so that the class will be focusing on the stuff people want to know.

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50-50 Highlights: Top Research Universities and Colleges Ranked by Research Expenditures

student in research labAfter the Ivy League schools and their competition as ranked by US News, the next level of desirable institutions of higher education tends to be top research universities, usually state flagship institutions. While there are many different reasons why high school students want to go to research universities, for a certain group of students, the reason is the access to and influence of research.

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Comparison of Top 11 College Search Engines

Three directional arrows on a pole, labeled "Good" in green pointing left, "Better" in red pointing right, and "Best" in blue pointing upward—perfect for comparing college search websites.

Good Better Best Steet SignsSometime ago I did a series of posts comparing college search websites. I tried to complete a search for colleges with specific characteristics and evaluated how easy it was to do in eight different websites. I think it’s time to once again compare college search websites but use a different approach. This time I’m going to organize the posts by search feature rather than website

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Best Colleges for Pre-Med

Med school books(The following is a guest post by? John Rood of Next Step Test Preparation)

After astronaut, princess, and pro football player, doctor is one of the professions that people know they want to enter when they are young. Of course, doctor is the one that students generally stay with. For students who plan on going into medicine, choosing a college with a great pre-med program is a critical step.

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The Key Element in the College Decision Making Machine

Decision making chart and calculatorDon’t you wish there was a college decision making machine? You just enter some basic information on what you’re looking for in a college, what you can pay, click a button and you get the results–go to school X now! Well Tier One Athletics has created just such a college decision making machine.

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