When looking for a college, it’s a good idea to keep geography in mind. Apparently most families do but not in ways that will improve financial aid or enhance the student’s college education. According to The American Freshman: National Norms Fall 2016, 53% of freshman attend college within 100 miles of home. Only 17.3% enroll … Read more
The following is a guest post by Kevin Newton who specializes in helping students apply to college in Europe. While there are a number of advantages to pursuing a degree abroad, “because it is no extra effort to apply” is definitely not one of them. Although there is a small list of universities, mainly those … Read more
Are there any good 50-50 schools for students majoring in the Visual and Performing Arts? Unfortunately, I can’t say since I don’t really know much about what defines a quality music program or which schools have the best reputation in theater or dance. Just from the little I’ve read, I suspect that the category is … Read more
Many high school students are attracted to the idea of attending college in an urban environment. Never mind that most probably don’t participate in the activities unique to such environments once they move in, the desire is there. Although sometimes I suspect it’s more of an “I don’t want to go to school in the … Read more
People are generally a little surprised when I recommend using 50% as the minimum graduation rate for looking for colleges. It does seem like a pretty low standard but the fact is that only approximately a quarter of colleges and universities have a four-year graduation rate of 49% or higher. If you use the five-year … Read more
Students may be accepted at ten colleges but they can only attend one. When they finally decide which school to attend, students become part of the college’s yield rate. The yield rate is the percentage of accepted students who actually end up attending the school. So you figure the yield rate for Harvard would have … Read more
The ACT test has four sections, English, Math, Reading, and Science, each scored on a scare of 1 to 36. The ACT also calculates a composite score which is an average of all four test. The single composite score is generally used when discussing ACT scores. However, the total of all four scores, 144, is … Read more
One of the problems with college rankings is that much of the rankings are based on inputs. How good are the students who go to the school, how much money does the school spend on students and faculty. It’s kind of weird when you think about it. If we ranked hospitals by their inputs, the … Read more
In general, there really isn’t any reason to search for schools solely by their “public” or “private” status. Debating public versus private colleges is likely only to result in missed opportunities.
