In - Your Guide to College Admissions from The Princeton Review

The Benefits of Women’s Colleges

Research shows that students at women’s colleges gain more from their undergraduate experiences than do female students at coed colleges.

To learn more, check out the following posts:

• “Why Women Should Consider a Women’s College” (CollegeAdmissionsPartners.com)
• “7 Big Benefits of Attending a Women’s College” (StateUniversity.com)

What a College’s Graduation Rate Can—and Cannot—Tell You

A college education is increasing being viewed an investment in one’s future.

To get the full “return” on this investment, it’s important that you not just attend college but earn a degree. A person with a degree has considerably more earning potential than does a person who simply took some courses.

For this reason, graduation rates are justifiably an important factor in college searches. However, Montgomery Educational Consulting cautions against too quickly dropping a school from consideration simply because it has a somewhat low graduation rate. At many inexpensive schools (e.g., community colleges and public universities), graduation rates are adversely affected by factors outside of the school’s control, such as students’ family responsibilities.

Of course, it’s also possible that the school has real shortcomings that frequently make it difficult for students to graduate. If you find that a reputable college has a somewhat low graduation rate, you should dig deeper. Find serious students at the school and ask them questions. Ask them what advising is like and how difficult it is for them to get into the courses they need to graduate. If they are satisfied with their experiences at the school, chances are you will be too.

Click here to read more on the Montgomery Educational Consulting blog.

Your Campus Tour Guide: A Great Source of Information

Many visitors to college campuses don’t quite realize what they have in their tour guide—specifically, a current student whose responsibility it is to tell you about his school.

So don’t let this student get away with just giving you prepared lines about the campus; ask him lots of questions! According to The Choice, the answers you receive can give you a sense of the personality of the student body and the academic culture at the school. Click here to read more.

Which College Is More Expensive?

This year’s admission and financial aid offers are starting to roll in, which means that many students and families will soon have important decisions to make.

Unfortunately, these decisions, tough to begin with, are often complicated by aid offers that are difficult to read—and compare.

Different colleges describe their various costs and awards differently. Some lump loans with scholarships, while others separate them. Some list their full cost of attendance, while others list only their tuition.

Fortunately, MyCollegeCalendar.org has created a financial aid comparison spreadsheet that will help you to organize all of the information you receive in different colleges’ aid awards. It will allow you to directly compare costs, scholarships, etc. Click here to check it out.

Where Do Liberal Arts Grads Get Jobs?

Some people question the practicality of attending a liberal arts college. These folks believe it’s better to attend an institute of technology or a large university with many career-specific majors.

However, a recent project from a professor at Williams College shows that a strong liberal arts education will position you well for work in a number of different fields. The professor tracked the major and eventual career of over 15,000 Williams grads. Click here for a visual representation of his results—you’ll see there’s a lot you can do with a liberal arts degree.

For more on the value of a liberal arts degree, check out this post from the College Solution.

For Juniors, Springtime = Visits, Fairs, and Tests

Spring of junior year is when the college admissions process really heats up. It includes a number of “firsts” for students, such as visiting college campuses as a prospective applicant, attending college fairs, and taking the ACT or SAT.

It can be an overwhelming time. To help you get comfortable with a few of the activities it entails, I’ve compiled some advice from around the ’net:

• How to get the most out of college visits (from The Choice)
• How to get ready for college fairs (from Montgomery Educational Consulting)
• How to choose and prep for standardized tests (from the College Planning Blog)

To learn about other springtime activities for juniors, check out this post from The Choice.

Great “College Towns”

Does your ideal college experience involve plenty of time off campus?

If so, you might be interested in the American Institute for Economic Research's College Destinations Index—a list of 75 great cities and towns for college students. Here are some highlights:

• Best “major city”: Boston, MA
• Best “mid-sized city”: San Jose, CA
• Best “small city”: Ann Arbor, MI
• Best “town”: Ithaca, NY

In identifying these cities and towns, the American Institute for Economic Research considered several factors, including the percent of the population currently in college, the percent of the population with a bachelor’s degree, the average rent of a two-bedroom apartment, and the average salary among residents.

Click here for more info on StateUniversity.com.

Want the student perspective on the best “college towns” in the U.S.? The Princeton Review has a list of the college cities and towns rated highest by undergrads. Click here to check it out.

“Need Aware” Admissions: How It Works

Many colleges will consider whether an applicant can afford to pay full tuition when deciding whether to admit him or her.

This practice—called “need aware” admissions—is very much unfair to those applicants who need financial aid (and most do).

However, it’s also frequently misunderstood. A recent New York Times article explains that, even at “need aware” colleges, the most qualified applicants—regardless of financial circumstances—are on the same playing field. It is qualified applicants on the borderline of being accepted that will get a boost from their ability to pay the full “sticker price” without aid.

There’s an important takeaway here for those who want aid. Specifically, if you’re applying to “need aware” colleges, most of them should resemble “safety schools” for you—i.e., your credentials (GPA, test scores, etc.) should comfortably exceed the typical admitted student’s.  (Click here for more info on choosing safeties.)

As you are looking for aid, I’d also suggest that these schools be ones that offer generous merit aid to students with relatively strong credentials. (Click here to search for schools with large merit awards.)

When choosing colleges, be sure to ask them—politely—whether they are “need aware” (note: “need sensitive” means the same thing). The alternative is “need blind”—such schools admit all students without regard to their financial circumstances. Many of these schools, particularly the highly selective ones, meet the full financial need of all of their admitted students.

Click here to read more on the Times.

Wintertime Campus Visits

If any of the colleges on your list are in places that get really cold weather, you should try to visit them during the winter.

This is particularly true if you’re from a warmer climate; you should experience the cold first-hand before you sign up for it. In some places, winter lasts from October to April.

However, even if you’re quite familiar cold weather, it can still be informative to visit a campus during the winter. Such a visit will tell you how the campus community handles the cold. Are students still upbeat and active? Or are they in “hibernation mode”?

Just make sure to call the school before your visit to make sure it is not on spring break when you plan to go—you want to be there while classes are in session!

Click here to read more about wintertime visits from Montgomery Educational Consulting.

How MOOC Providers Plan to Make Moolah

Almost everything in the world of MOOCs is big: the names involved (the schools and the profs), the number of students enrolled (hundreds of thousands in some MOOCs), and the ambitions (nothing less than revolutionizing higher education).

The revenue stream, on the other hand, is still pretty small. Most MOOCs are totally free to students, though some providers offer proctored final exams for a fee.

With little money coming in, how do MOOC providers plan to stay afloat?

A recent article on the Chronicle of Higher Education discusses some potential revenue sources MOOC providers have discussed. These include the following:

• Allowing employers to recruit their top students.
• Posting advertisements (e.g., from textbook sellers) and product endorsements.
• Licensing their MOOCs to traditional colleges.

If you’re thinking about enrolling in MOOCs to supplement to your college education, you should keep in mind that this phenomenon is still young and it’s changing fast. It might look very different in a few years.

Click here to read more on the Chronicle.