It’s getting near the end of the year and like most bloggers, I’m taking stock of the year to see what has been successful, popular, and what I might want to reconsider for the coming year. In the interest of killing two birds with one stone (my need to look at the analytics while coming up with another post), I’m listing the most popular 50-50 Highlights list posts below.
The 50-50 list contains all colleges with 500 or more full-time undergraduates that accept at least 50% of students and have at least a 50% graduation rate. Every Thursday, mostly, I highlight some of the schools based on selected characteristics. Often, the point is more about the topic rather than the actual colleges. In other words, the characteristic is something that I think families should be considering regardless of their interest in 50-50 schools.
This makes it interesting to see which lists get the most traffic. Some I expected, but others can be surprising. There are also some big differences between what is popular in social media such as Facebook and what does well on Google in general.
In any case, here’s the list of the top 10 50-50 post according to Google for those who may have missed them earlier in the year. You can get PDF copy of the complete list 50-50 list here.
114 Colleges for National Merit Scholars
This is a post I revise annually and last updated in August of 2016. The point of this post is that being a National Merit Scholar is not a plan to pay for college.
A+ Schools for B Students
I used the requirements from US News A+ Schools for B Students list to create a list based on 50-50 schools. This is from 2014 and I plan on updating this coming year.
Colleges for Asian Students
Another post from 2014 schedule for updating.
Best Colleges for Merit Scholarships
These schools have at least 25% or more of freshman without need receiving merit aid.
Average Endowment per Student
This is one I update every year. However, it’s also one that was more of an opportunity to talk about endowments and financial aid than just list college endowments.
Colleges with Most Generous Financial Aid
All 50-50 schools where 90% or more of freshman receive institutional grants and the average award is 40% or more of the total cost of attendance.
3-2 Engineering Programs
An explainer post for 3-2 Engineering programs. It’s something I’ve been putting off updating since the data doesn’t come in a nice, easy to use spreadsheet. But since it’s from 2014, I’m adding it to my to-do list for 2017.
33 Public Colleges for Merit Aid
Lists 50-50 public schools where at least 15% of freshman without need receive merit aid.
30 Private Colleges to Target for Financial Aid Opportunities
This list doesn’t just look at institutional aid but eliminates schools with high percentages of non-federal loans or PLUS loans.
Don’t Overlook These 104 Liberal Arts Colleges
Another explainer post type about why you should consider Liberal Arts Colleges. It includes references to NSSE and the Baccalaureate Origins of Science and Engineering Doctorate Recipients.
