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7 Tips for Narrowing Your College List
Tweet Share on Facebook December 17, 2010 Comment (7)One of the hardest and most important tasks in picking a college is composing the initial list: the set of colleges that includes all you'd be content to wind up at. It's often easy to find one, two, or three colleges you'd really like, with ideas from a parent or older sibling, high school counselor, or website. But it's much harder to find relevant alternatives: colleges similar to your first choice, but ones that, for one reason or another, are better for your needs.
In helping our nephew with the college quest this fall, we've discovered a great new website, College Results Online (CRO), that not only helps you compose your list of colleges to apply to, but also provides a wealth of authoritative data not easily available elsewhere, all in a user-friendly, easy-to-navigate presentation. To help seniors still undecided on their final list and juniors who want to get an early start over Christmas break, we've invited guest blogger Mamie Lynch, a higher education research and policy analyst at The Education Trust, to share the secrets of using the site—and finding wonderful, hidden choices for college, in the process:
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Top 15 Hot Tips for Finals
Tweet Share on Facebook December 10, 2010 Comment (13)It's finals time! These time-tested tips for studying for, and taking, your final exams can make a huge difference in your results, and send you off happy to your holiday break:
1. Count your way forward. Many students, when starting to think about preparing for finals, look at the dates of their finals, then count their way back. "Biology final on Wednesday? That's two or three studying days needed. I guess I'll start hitting the books on Sunday." A far better idea is to count up from the day the study questions are handed out (or if your prof doesn't bother with such niceties, a week before the exam) to the day the exam will take place. "Seven days? Then I'll divide the course into sevenths and study two weeks' worth of lectures each day."
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10 Tips for Getting Financial Aid for College
Tweet Share on Facebook November 10, 2010 Comment (12)Tight economy. College tuition increasing at 6 percent a year. More and more, the ability to go to college depends on how much financial aid you can get. This week, we invited visiting blogger Don Betterton to offer his best tips. For 30 years, he was director of financial aid and a member of the admission committee at Princeton University, and now a certified college planner at Betterton College Planning.
1. Get on the stick. If you are like most parents of collegebound students, you have spent nearly all of your time on admission related issues: courses, grades, tests, activities, college visits, essay writing, and so forth. But now, with a high school senior, you are starting to worry about how you are going to afford the tuition bill. It is time to bring "How am I going to pay for college?" concerns front and center.
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8 Clues to Figuring Out That College Midterm
Tweet Share on Facebook October 6, 2010 Comment (4)Midterm time is test time. And, for some college students, nothing will match that moment of terror when they look down at their test and find questions they've never even thought of staring back at them. But at that same moment, there's usually a student in the room feeling smug satisfaction at having sussed out the exact questions in advance. How can you figure out what's going to be on the midterm—and dramatically increase your chances of acing that test? Here are 8 clues from behind the curtain:
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18 Etiquette Tips for E-mailing Your Professor
Tweet Share on Facebook September 30, 2010 Comment (19)Professors, like everyone else, have gone electronic. In addition to the one-on-one office hour, they're quite willing to communicate by e-mail. Here are some things to consider before clicking the "Send" button:
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Top 10 Tips for Your Last Two Years at College
Tweet Share on Facebook September 22, 2010 Comment (2)Many students, when thinking about how to do well in college, focus on the first year or two. That's when college is new to them, and there's much to adjust to and manage. But there are lots of things you can do the last two years of college, which will not only make your second half of college go more smoothly, but will put you in the very best position for what comes next: be it a career, or graduate or professional school. Here are our 10 best tips:
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10 Tips for Writing the College Application Essay
Tweet Share on Facebook September 15, 2010 Comment (28)No subject is more fraught with anxiety for the high school senior than the essay on the college application. Whether it is as bizarre as the University of Chicago's "How do you feel about Wednesday?"; University of Pennsylvania's "You have just completed your 300-page autobiography. Please submit page 217."; or Tufts University's "Are We Alone?"—or whether it is a more mundane question about a formative experience you've had in your life, or about some controversial social or political issue, students tremble at the very thought of writing the essay and being judged on it.
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10 Tips for Veterans at College
Tweet Share on Facebook September 8, 2010 Comment (4)Just two days ago, in his Labor Day speech, President Obama had this to say about veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan: "On the day I announced the end to our combat mission in Iraq, I spent some time, as I often do, with our soldiers and veterans. This new generation of troops coming home from Iraq has earned its place alongside that greatest generation. Like them, they have the skills and training and drive to move America's economy forward once more. And from the time I took office, we've been investing in new care, new opportunity, and a new commitment to their service that's worthy of their sacrifice." A central part of this new opportunity is the chance to attend college under the new GI Bill.
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The 5 Biggest Mistakes College Students Make
Tweet Share on Facebook September 1, 2010 Comment (5)Next week, more than 3 million students will start college. Many will make basic mistakes that can easily be avoided—if you only know what they are. This week we point out the five most common mistakes, and offer parents tips on how they can set their child on the path to success at college:
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10 Ways to Ruin a College Paper
Tweet Share on Facebook August 25, 2010 Comment (23)Learning to write well is one of the most important skills you can learn at college, yet many students think paper writing is something you do only in a "writing" course and then never have to think about again. Wrong! Many employers today are looking for workers who have strong communication skills, and that includes the ability to write. You'll be sure to improve your writing skills if you know the 10 biggest mistakes college students make in writing papers—and how to avoid them:
