Great College Advice

I received an interesting question today from a friend and colleague who does tutoring and test prep for the ACT and the SAT. Here’s what she wrote:
Hi, Mark. I have a quick question. I have a student who is interested in applying to Stanford. She asked whether she would be able [...]

Two more colleges have readjusted their financial aid policies in the wake of Harvard’s decision to woo the middle classes by offering richer aid packages (which I wrote about here). The changes were reported in Inside Higher Ed:
Two more colleges have joined the growing number pledging to eliminate loans for low-income students. Claremont McKenna [...]

With only 950 students, Pitzer College may seem tiny, but its relationships with the other Claremont Colleges allow it to also seem “medium sized.” Originally a women’s school, it went coeducational soon after its establishment, and developed a focus on the social sciences. The curriculum is more free-form than the other Claremonts (e.g., [...]

Pomona College was the first of the Claremont College (see my post about the consortium here). It was established as a “college of the New England type,” and both physically and philosophically, Pomona is true to the New England model. Pomona is a traditional liberal arts college, offering a wide range of majors [...]

On Wednesday of this week I spent a few hours on the campus of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. The director of admission joked that what distinguished LMC from other campuses in the US is that Loyola Marymount is the only medium-sized, Jesuit university in Los Angeles. Which, of course, is true.
The [...]

I spent a few hours on the campus of Marymount College in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. This two-year, private college is located on the heights of the Palos Verdes peninsula, and sports a commanding view of Santa Catalina Island off in the distance. The view is spectacular and inspiring.
Marymount offers Associates degrees, and [...]

Earlier this week I spent a day at the five Claremont Colleges: Pomona, Pitzer, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, and Scripps. I enjoyed the red carpet treatment I received as part of a tour organized by the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA), of which I am a member. We had the time to tour [...]

I spent a few hours last week on the campus of the California Institute of Technology (a.k.a. Cal Tech), and was pleasantly surprised by the attractive campus, and our tour guides–both women–who demonstrated that not all Cal Tech students are total science dweebs.
There are only 800 undergraduate students and only 1500 graduate students in all [...]

Today I spent a few hours on the campus of Chapman University in Orange, California. The first pleasant surprise was the drive into town. The old town of Orange is actually quite quaint for the Los Angeles area. If it weren’t for the palm trees, I would have thought I was in [...]