US News & World Report, the big college rankings  gorilla, released its latest lists of the best liberal arts colleges and best universities earlier in August.  Forbes Magazine rolled out its best college list this month too and the Washington Monthly unveiled its picks for  best colleges a few days ago.

For all you college rankings junkies out there, here’s where you can find the latest results of the annual collegiate beauty pageants:

US News Best College Rankings

Washington Monthly College Rankings

Forbes Magazine’s Best Colleges Rankings

In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be such slavish attention to college rankings. Teenagers would look for schools that work for them academically and financially and pecking orders wouldn’t exist.

Of all the rankings, I like Forbes Magazine’s the best because the academics, who designed the methodology, have attempted to measure the type of learning experience students have in college and what kind of success they encounter getting jobs when they graduate. Strangely enough, US News doesn’t use these measures. The factor that US News weighs most heavily in its methodology is the institutional reputation of each school. To me, that’s just nuts.

If you’re interested, I wrote a post last year on Forbes’ college rankings for my blog over at CBSMoneyWatch:

The Best Colleges You’ve Never Heard Of

Frankly, I’m bored with always sharing the names of the colleges or universities, which manage to win the yearly rankings competitions, whether they deserve to or not, and in the process hog all the media attention.  So today, instead of sharing the names of the top 25 or 50 schools, I’m going to start at No. 50 — Lawrence University — and end at No. 100 — Washington & Jefferson College.

These schools come from the Forbes list, which ranks 610 top four-year colleges and universities. There are about 2,800 four-year colleges and universities in this country.

Forbes Best College List

50. Lawrence University (WI)

51. Colorado College

52. Georgetown University (Wash., DC)

53. Emory University (GA)

54. Bates College (ME)

55. Macalester College (MN)

56. Bucknell University(PA)

57. Brandeis University (MA)

58. Wofford College (SC)

59. Wheaton College (IL)

60. Virginia Military Institute

61. Lafayette College (PA)

62. University of North Carolina

63. Barnard College (NY)

64. DePauw University (IN)

65. University of California, Berkeley

66. Oberlin College (OH)

67. Dickinson College (PA)

68. Principia College (IL)

69. Reed College (OR)

70. Cornell University (NY)

71. UCLA  (CA)

72. Wake Forest University (NC)

73. Kalamazoo College (MI)

74. Hamilton College (NY)

75. Knox College (IL)

76. Washington University, St. Louis (MO)

77. Denison University (OH)

78. Grinnell College (IA)

79. Mount Holyoke College (MA)

80. Skidmore College (NY)

81. Westmount College (PA)

82. Juniata College (PA) (My daughter’s school)

83. Connecticut College (CT)

84. University of Richmond (VA)

85. St. Mary’s College of California (CA)

86. Occidental College (CA)

87. Sweet Briar College (VA)

88. Johns Hopkins University (MD)

90. Furman University (SC)

91. Drew University  (NJ)

92. University of Michigan

93. University of Florida

94. Cooper Union (NY)

95. Wells College (NY)

96. Trinity College (CT)

97. University of Illinois

98. Gustavus Adolphus College (MN)

99. Franklin and Marshall College (PA)

100. Washington & Jefferson College (PA)

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution and she also writes a college blog for CBSMoneyWatch.com. Follow me on Twitter.

Favorite Blog Posts for 2009

In this post, you’ll find some of my favorite college blog posts. They include a post that I wrote about the beauty of women’s colleges, why a “B” average is important for high school students and my daughter’s experiences studying abroad.

10 Most Popular College Blog Posts for 2009

Click on the above link and you’ll see the most popular posts that I wrote for CBSMoneyWatch. In this list you’ll find The Best and Worst College Degrees and The Best Colleges You’ve Never Heard Of.

FYI, my resolution for the New Year is to continue to feed this college blog beast. So keep visiting!

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution, an Amazon bestseller.

Choosing colleges and figuring out how to pay for them is complicated, which is why students and parents often seek college advice from high school counselors. It’s typically difficult, however, for families who want meaningful college information to get much face time with counselors. Any family with high school juniors or seniors already knows that reality.

A new report illustrates just how difficult it can be to spend quality time with a counselor, who can provide college planning advice.  During this school year, public high schools have increased the average workload of counselors by more than 53 students.

When you look at the student caseload at some schools, the numbers are startling. In California, for instance, the typical high school counselor is expected to advice 986 students! The state with teh next nighest counselor loads is Minnesota with 799 students and Utah with 720 students.

Let me state the obvious here: Families can’t rely just on school counselors to provide the answers they need. Families are going ot have to do a lot of the research on their own.

Below you’ll find some links of stories I wrote about researching schools that will help you get a great start:

Further reading:

The Best Colleges You’ve Never Heard Of

The Best Places to Find College Cash

Finding College Cash in Obscure Documents

Hunting for Great College

The Real “Best Colleges”

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution.

I hear that question all the time.

You can pour through the big fat college guides from folks like the Princeton Review and Fiske, but they ignore most schools. For instance, Princeton Review’s latest guide covers 371 schools, but there are more than 2,200 four-year colleges and universities in this country.

What I’m going to quickly share with you today is one valuable resource, America’s Best Colleges from Forbes Magazine, that people can use to find hidden educational gems in their own regions.

The rankings created by Forbes and the nonprofit Center for College Affordability and Productivity include many colleges that the guidebooks don’t cover.  Below you’ll find links to my past posts about Forbes’ college rankings.

What  I find especially helpful for teenagers searching for colleges is that the college rankings are also broken down by four regions– Northeast, Midwest, South and West.  A lot parents don’t want their teens going to college too far from home, but often they don’t know what schools exist beyond the public institutions in their own state.

This week, I sent the Midwest college list to my niece who lives in St. Louis and the Western list to my nephew who lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

The Western list includes instantly recognizable schools like Cal Tech and Stanford, but other highly ranked institutions include College of Idaho, George Fox University and St. Mary’s College of California. The latter two were ranked higher than UCLA or Berkeley. The Midwestern list includes such overlooked jewels as Doane College in Nebraska, College of Wooster in Ohio and Earlham College in Indiana.

Further Reading:

The Real Best Colleges

The Best Colleges You’ve Never Heard Of

Why US News’ Colleges Rankings Are a Joke

If you have, I urge you to check out my latest story for CBSMoneyWatch.com that explores a variety of college rankings. In my article, I take a look at the methodology of various college rankings and then rate the rankers. My favorite college ranker is not the alpha dog — U.S. News & World Report.

Check out who is my top college ranker by reading my story. I won’t ruin the surprise here.

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of  The College Solution.

Not so fast with your answer. The best colleges aren’t always the ones that enjoy the biggest, shiniest name brands and monopolize the rankings.

So how do you find the colleges and universities that do a fantastic — if unheralded — job of educating students?

You’re going to have to dig a little deeper because what you need to know won’t be found in a college’s marketing material.

Luckily, the National Survey of Student Engagement has made the task easier. The NSSE, which is based at the University of Indiana Center for Postsecondary Research, is dedicated to uncovering the college practices that will increase a student’s chances of college success.

In its research, NSSE has uncovered 10 academic practices that significantly improve students’ success in college — regardless of their academic abilities or backgrounds.

Here are the practices that truly matter:

• Freshman seminars.
• Common intellectual experiences.
• Learning communities.
• Writing-intensive courses.
• Collaborative assignments and projects.
• Undergraduate research.
• Diversity/global learning.
• Service learning/community-based learning.
• Internships.
• Capstone courses and projects.

You can learn more about each of these practices, which contribute to college success, by reading a summary that the Association of American Colleges and Universities has posted on its website.

Further Reading:

America’s Best Schools: A College Rankings Duel

Blaming College Students for Not Graduating in Six Years

Attending College Close to Home

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution and she also blogs about college for CBSMoneyWatch.com.