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 […]
Archive | Ivy League
A Fresh, New Way to Evaluate Colleges
By Lynn O'Shaughnessy on September 21, 2008 in College rankings, Evaluating Schools, Ivy League, Liberal Arts 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 […]
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 […]
A College Admission Hoax Uncovered
Whenever I’ve been in the vicinity of a bookstore lately, I’ve felt compelled to walk in. I wander over to the section with the college guides and the ponderous SAT prep titles and I look to see if my book, The College Solution, is on the shelf. If I can’t find a copy of my […]
The Over Hyped Ivy League: Giving the Ivy League Too Much Credit
When Harvard sneezes, the media rushes to cover it. It’s amazing how Harvard and the seven other Ivy League schools can command so much interest in the national media when so few students even attend these schools. Here is the reality: The only Ivy most teenagers are going to come into contact with is the […]
Pell Grants and Ivy League Hypocrisy
The most emailed story in The New York Times on Monday focused on Berea College, a little school in Kentucky with a heart of gold. The college charges no tuition and only accepts low-income teenagers. Every student graduates with no debt. Not surprisingly, the school is mobbed every year with applicants. Berea is dedicated to […]