Wooster, OH We love a college with a sense of style. Take the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, a community of 1800 students who take learning much more seriously than they take themselves. The college’s mascot is the “Fighting Scot.” The marching band wears kilts and plays bagpipes. Seniors are each given a Tootsie […]
Read More >Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard
I’ve done my share of ranting about the media’s focus on all the bad news in college admissions today. So it was nice to see this article as a voice of reason in the "Parenting" column of the New York Times. The author, a Harvard interviewer, points out that most of the kids he interviews […]
Read More >Decisions, Decisions
Like many seniors across the country, the members of our Collegewise class of 2007 are making their final college selections before the May 1 deadline. And more than any class we can remember, they seem to be wrestling with their choices, seeking our advice about which college will really be the right choice for them. […]
Read More >Telling It Like It Is
We’ve always been impressed by colleges who aren’t afraid to come right out and say, "We aren’t for everybody." We think kids deserve honest answers about what their life at each college would actually be like, but it’s often hard to get those answers from the slick brochures and flashy websites. Student blogs, however, are […]
Read More >Just Say “Yes.”
We’re always telling our Collegewise kids that where they go to college isn’t nearly as important as what they do while they are there. That’s an even more important concept to remember at this time of year for kids who might be dealing with some admissions rejections. Four minutes is hardly enough time to explore […]
Read More >A Brief Trip to the Soapbox
This year, the nation’s most selective colleges got even more competitive. Is anybody really surprised? Every year they get more competitive. And every year around this time, respected media like the New York Times run articles like this one about acceptance rates dropping, applicant numbers rising, and exceptional students failing to gain access to the […]
Read More >“Fair” thee well…
A lot of students and parents return from a college fair wondering what they really got out of it. But you can make your experience at the fair much more productive with just a little preparation. The National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC) offers some good tips to get the most out of your […]
Read More >Give it the old college try…again.
This is the time of year when seniors get all their news–both good and bad–from colleges. Some of those applicants across the country will, unfortunately, get all bad news and be left with no college choices. This article reminds them (and the rest of us) that there is still plenty of room on lots of […]
Read More >A Fool’s Errand?
A Swarthmore professor of psychology offers his proposed fix for the college admissions craze in this article. While I don’t necessarily agree that drawing students out of a hat is the right solution (though he certainly makes a good case), his premise is absolutey true–"Students trying to get into the best college, and colleges trying […]
Read More >Fake Ranks?
We’re not fans of the US News rankings, and apparently, neither is the president of Sarah Lawrence College. Her recent op-ed piece in the Washington Post argues that the problem with US News college rankings is that they "are far from reliable" and in fact, "some of their numbers are made up." The letter is […]
Read More >