The College Solutions Blog

June 4, 2012

How’s this for a college mystery: Every year Barron’s releases its Profiles of American Colleges directory that categorizes schools based on their selectivity. During the past decade, the number of schools that are considered the easiest to get into declined considerably while the number of schools that are characterized as the most elite rose. According to a new report by...

November 10, 2011

Are college students getting smarter? If you looked at the grades they are “earning,” you might assume the answer is yes.  The average GPA in college is 3.1. At private schools, the norm is a 3.3 GPA. In contrast, the typical college student had an average GPA of 2.52 in the 1950s. (That’s just about the GPA that my dad,...

March 5, 2010

Are college students getting smarter? If you looked at the grades they are “earning,” you might assume the answer is yes.  The average GPA in college is 3.1. At private schools, the norm is a 3.3 GPA. In contrast, the typical college student had an average GPA of 2.52 in the 1950s. In nearly every decade, the GPA has inched...

October 11, 2009

Last week I was talking to the college counselor at my son’s high school about research findings that suggest that Asian students face much greater odds in getting into Ivy League and other elite institutions. During our conversation, the counselor took a hardback from his book-lined room and suggested I read it. School of Dreams: Making the Grade at a...

September 13, 2009

The biggest buzz last week in the higher-ed world was the release of a serious tome entitled, Crossing the Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities. The book, which was co-authored by William G. Bowen, a former Princeton president, and two other academics is chock-a-block full of stats and astute observations about why many students manage to graduate from college,...

May 11, 2009

One morning at a breakfast chat with parents at my son’s high school, the principal mentioned that he is always amazed at how few students at the end of each semester ask teachers how they might improve their grades. It should be a no brainer, the principal suggested, for students to ask their teachers if they can do extra credit...