Last week Wendy Nelson shared her experience of working with her daughter through the college application process. This week she has graciously agreed to reveal the results of the process. Her daughter’s choice, Valparaiso University, is a 50-50 school with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, among the best for institutional aid, in the top 30 for ACT scores,and offers D1 sports. Wendy has an excellent blog, My Kid’s College Choice, where she shares lessons she has learned.
Find a College
Been There, Done That, Ready to Write the Tuition Check
Families are stressed out about college. And why shouldn’t they be? If all you hear about college admissions is what gets reported in the media, you would be certain that outstanding students everywhere are being denied admissions in the schools they so rightly deserve while taking out massive loans for jobs that don’t exist.
Useful Information or Just Data: Library Facilities and No Test Colleges
I spend a good amount of time browsing through? the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) checking on data available for inclusion in the DIY College Rankings College Search Spreadsheet. There are a lot of variables to choose from and as I scroll through the various lists, I start thinking, “Really? There’s more than one answer for this?”
Help Me Find a College: North Carolina
Where to Start Looking to Find a College in North Carolina
The College Foundation of North Carolina (CFNC) is sponsored by the North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority (NCSEAA) and Pathways of North Carolina. The website provides a detailed planning guide for college by grade with relevant links such as links to test prep resources and college matching assistant.? The matching assistant is limited to North Carolina but includes private and public institutions.
More Useless College Rankings
I would suspect that the average parent of a high school junior would think it would be nice to know the most expensive colleges in the country so that they can stay away from them. The more astute parents would really like to know which actually have the highest net price since they realize that most students don’t pay the listed tuition price.
Fantasy Football and Finding the Right College
I didn’t make it to the championship in fantasy football this year. Even though I’m tied for the number of championships in the league, that’s not what really bothered me this year. This year I lost twice to “Stan”-not his real name. Stan always finishes towards the bottom of the league. But this year he came in third and it wasn’t because of any brilliant player moves or insight into drafting. This year, Yahoo drafted for him and he played the players as assigned and he had his best season ever.
College Search Websites: College Data
The College Data Your Online College Advisor website has a variety of interesting features besides its College Match service. Registered users can track college admission results based on test scores and GPA entered by other website users. They can also calculate their chances for admissions at different colleges and estimate net cost.
College Search Websites Reviews: Big Future by the College Board
(You can see an updated review of Big Future here.) 
Big Future is the college search website by the College Board. Since the College Board is the source of all things SAT, you would expect it have a pretty good college search function. It is also a member of the Common Data Set consortium which means it has access to data that isn’t readily available to other websites.