The College Solutions Blog

Valuable insights from Lynn O’Shaughnessy
a nationally recognized college expert.

Ivy League
July 3, 2009

Ten Hottest Careers for College Graduates

For those of you who can’t stop thinking about college — even during the Fourth of July weekend — I’m sharing with you the three posts that I wrote this week for my other college blog at CBSMoneyWatch. 1. Ten Hottest Careers for College Graduates Whether you’re a college student, a recent college grad or looking for a mid-career move,...
Read More
1
June 28, 2009

Troubles at Harvard

When my husband returned last week from a business trip on the East Coast, he brought home a copy of the Boston Globe that contained a story about layoffs at Harvard. Harvard is cutting loose 275 people and this comes on top of other recent cuts, including the postponement of an ambitious and very expensive campus expansion. If Harvard’s in...
Read More
0
June 20, 2009

Weekend College Blog Roundup

Today I’m providing links to the three posts that I wrote this week for CBSMoneyWatch.com where I also write about college. Hey, why be a slave to one time-consuming college blog when you can have two?? 1. Three-Year College Degree In this post, I wrote about what may be a nascent trend — the three-year college degree. Since I’ve been...
Read More
1
March 6, 2009

MBA Degree: Harvard MBA Scoundrels

For many wannabe investment bankers, the key to unlocking Wall Street’s treasure chest was traditionally getting a Harvard MBA. So this shouldn’t come as a surprise:  Harvard tops the list of business school that have produced the most Wall Street scoundrels in our current financial mess. Here are the top three winners: Harvard New York University Cornell University Do business...
Read More
0
February 28, 2009

Runaway GPAs

Earlier this month I wrote a blog post that shared a wild story about my son’s precalculus teacher. When the teacher said no late assignments, he meant it. A cancer patient who was taking his class nearly died from the wrong dose of chemotherapy, but the teacher still wouldn’t accept her late paper. I think there are many more teachers...
Read More
0
January 2, 2009

The Argument Against Snobby Ivy League Schools

It was a rare morning because I spent it eating breakfast out instead of nibbling on toast at my computer. A friend of my husband’s was interested in talking about the stock market over French toast and Mexican scrambled eggs and ultimately the conversation veered to college. His son had just gotten his SAT scores back and he was worried...
Read More
2
December 4, 2008

Harvard & Crocodile Tears

I had just woken up yesterday when my husband Bruce motioned me over to his laptop to show me a news bulletin about Harvard. The august institution had announced that thanks to the turmoil of the financial markets it had lost $8 billion of its $36.9 billion endowment since the summer. My husband’s boss, who happens to work in Cambridge,...
Read More
0
October 2, 2008

Loren Pope: Lessons from a Higher Ed Icon

Loren Pope died last week. If you have ever lingered in the collegiate book section at Barnes & Noble or any other book store, you will probably recognize his name. Pope, a former independent college counselor and New York Times education editor, became famous thanks to his classic book entitled, Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Colleges That Will Change the...
Read More
0
September 21, 2008

A Fresh, New Way to Evaluate Colleges

Finally, there’s a new way to evaluate colleges. No longer will you have to rely heavily on those monster guide books from such corporate types as The Princeton Review, Fiske and Kaplan. Nor will you have to become a slave to U.S. News & World Report’s stupid ranking system. A whiz kid, who graduated four years ago from Wesleyan College,...
Read More
0
September 20, 2008

Gaming the System: College Legacy Admissions

Everybody knows how ridiculously hard it is to claw your way into an elite school like Harvard, Princeton or Notre Dame. Every year though plenty of students who possess lower grades and less impressive resumes find a way to game the system. What’s their secret? They’ve got the right parents. Schools hate to talk about the students who saunter through...
Read More
7