The Colorado Free Application Days campaign is an initiative designed to inspire more Coloradans to continue their education. From Tuesday, Oct. 7 through Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, all 32 public colleges and universities in Colorado and several private institutions will waive their application fees, making it free for anyone to submit an application. By waiving application fees—a common barrier to higher education—Colorado Free Application Days aims to improve access to further education and training, which is becoming increasingly critical in the state’s rapidly changing economy.

For more information, visit the following Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) for more details, including the list of participating colleges and universities, here and here.

In 2024, there were over 65,000 applications received during the Colorado Free Application Days including almost 12,000 at CU-Boulder and over 4,300 at the University of Denver.

The CDHE also provides a lot of educational materials on its My Colorado Journey site. It includes resources for high school course selection, career exploration, college research , financial aid, and test preparation.

Best of luck to your student as they begin their senior year of high school and please reach out to the team at Great College Advice if we can help with their Colorado (and beyond) applications!

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TRANSCRIPT:

So here at the University of California at Santa Barbara, it was pointed out to us that about 50% of students here on this campus engage in research. And again, because this university is dominated by the undergraduate population — 19,000 out of 22,000 students are undergraduates — 50% of those students are doing some sort of research. That’s really impressive. But then I started to talk to our tour guide about her experience in research. And I asked how that really works. Of course when I hear “research,” I’m thinking, “Wow, cool, these undergraduates are working with Nobel laureate professors. They’re working alongside these professors in their laboratories or doing research with them.”

The Hierarchy of Research

Well, as it turns out, in the biology department in any case (that was the department where our tour guide was from), I asked her how it worked. And she said, well, the graduate students are hired by the professor dependent upon the research grad that the professor pulls. And so they have a certain amount of money and they can hire a certain number of graduate assistants. Then, if the graduate assistants want, graduate students can then hire undergraduates to work for. Not the professors, but for the graduate students to help them in their work in the lab.

So it is true that you can get experience in a laboratory as an undergraduate at a place like UCSB. But again, it’s really important to understand, what does that really mean? Undergraduates at a research university are going to be at the bottom of the pile. In terms of the hierarchy in the research pecking order. This student that we did talk to, she mentioned that her project, she was actually hired by the professor. Because the professor was more interested in maintaining the quality of his lab. And really wanted to know who his undergraduate assistants were. So she had to be vetted and she had to apply to the professor.

Liberal Arts Research

But the tour guide was clear that in most cases, the undergraduate researchers are working for the graduate assistants. So again, there’s a hierarchy. This is very different from, say, a liberal arts college where there are no graduate assistants at all where a student — because of the lack of graduate assistants, the student is going to work with the professor. Now, the research project may not be as prestigious. It may not be as well-funded as one here at UCSB because this is, again, a major research university in the United States.

So when you’re deciding what’s important to you. And when you’re thinking about research as one of those factors, please make sure that you ask the questions. To understand how the structure of that research is. How do you actually get one of those jobs? And for whom will you actually be working in the department that you’re most interested in? Because if you just assume what the admissions offices and the nice, fancy, pretty brochures tell you, you’re not necessarily going to get an accurate picture of what it takes for you to get that research job. And what kinds of work you’ll actually be doing.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Right now I’m on the campus of Union College, which is in Schenectady, New York. It’s raining right now. Which always has an impact on a visit. Because it’s kind of gray and cloudy and drizzly, but a beautiful campus. And you can see the Nott Memorial behind me. That’s a memorial to one of the longest-serving presidents of the college, who was very much of a polyglot. He had a lot of different interests as an academic. But it was explained by the director of admission that that sort of philosophy of this guy Nott is very much the philosophy of Union. Union’s only about 2,100 students. But it has engineering, which makes it one of the smallest colleges in America that offers engineering. So technology is a big thing here.
But I want to mention two things.

Freshman Writing Program

First is that like many other colleges, they have a freshman writing program called the Preceptorial. And this is a course that has research on it, but it is an introduction to college writing. That’s very common on colleges campuses.

Sophomore Research

But the other requirement that I thought was interesting to learn about was the sophomore research requirement. There is a course that every student must take that helps them become researchers. To learn how to actually do research at the college level. And one of the things that the director of admission mentioned was that these courses teach students how to use the library.

How to Use Libraries for Research

Now, that, on the one hand, could be a turn-off for people. Because if they — come on, a college, I should already know how to use a library. But you know, I really think this is a fantastic recognition of what students do and do not know when they enter college. Students may know how to write. They may have a really good writing background.

Also they may know how to analyze things like primary documents,. Maybe they’ve taken an AP class or an advanced class where they’ve been required to analyze and make sense of primary documents. But in most cases students have not actually learned how to use the library and find academic articles on topics that interest them.

They know how to use Google. They know how to use Wikipedia. But how do you research academic journals and find, using things like key words. Those boolean things, you know, boolean is a little bit old-fashioned now with all the kinds of library sciences going on. But really learn how to find the information that they need in order to be good academics.

Senior Thesis

So when students at Union go on and do their senior theses — most students, apparently, at Union do theses — when they’re going on to do their individual research, they’re prepared. They have that support. It is not just assumed at Union that every student coming in has that experience.

So it was kind of funny when the admissions director was talking. “We’re going to teach you how to use the library,” I think some kids might be turned off by that and say, “This is too elementary, I don’t need to learn how to do that.” But having been a professor myself, and having, at the introductory level, having to put together seminars in the library so that I could teach my students how to do it. I am totally, totally comfortable with the idea here at Union, that they do need to teach these skills, and at Union, they are doing it.

So fantastic liberal arts college with strong engineering. And an ethos that is very multidisciplinary and broad as well as deep. Certainly someplace you should consider if you want a liberal arts college. Or if you want to learn how to properly use libraries for research.
 
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TRANSCRIPT:

I’ve been travelling around New England and New York for the last week visiting colleges, and it’s helpful sometimes to visit a whole bunch at one go because it helps me, anyway, to make some meaningful comparisons among schools and among the different approaches that these schools have, not only to specific academic elements of the curriculum, but also in how they market themselves.

One of the things that’s interesting is that every one, every school I’ve been to this last week, has focused on research and how important research is at the university or the college, and how many opportunities there are for students to do research. Research is just seen as vital by all these colleges to present in their information sessions and in their tours.

Required Research

But the comparison, again, is helpful because you start to see that everybody’s talking the talk, but not everybody’s walking the walk. So for example, a couple of universities that I visited, Bates and Princeton, both require a senior thesis. Every student who goes to those schools must do independent research with a faculty advisor. It’s not optional. So when those two schools talk about research, there’s no doubt that every single student at that school is doing research that is meaningful. Now of course, some are doing it really, really well and getting As on their research projects, and some are not doing so well and probably getting Bs because of grade inflation. But there’s a variety of student engagement in that research. But it’s required of everyone.

False Advertising on Research

Then you go to a place like Tufts, and they were talking about how — I think 15 minutes of the one-hour presentation was on research. And the admissions officer was going on and on about all these different programs for research, and then it becomes clear that when pressed, it’s less than 50% of students actually do research, and he talks about these summer scholars programs and how kids are doing this and that and oh, my gosh, it’s so fantastic, and you could see the parents, their eyes widening, wow, totally cool!

Well, that’s only about 40 students that do that every year out of 5,000. So while they’re emphasizing the research, it turns out that that’s not necessarily part of every student’s experience at the college. If you want to be lazy at Tufts and not do a senior thesis, you certainly can. You can’t do that at Princeton, you can’t do that at Bates.

Honors Students

The other school that was interesting was Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. And they were, again, emphasizing maybe 15 minutes of the whole presentation was all about research. And it’s true that there is a lot of research that goes on, and it’s certainly available to every student. But most of the students who do that are the students who are going for honors. And in order to do that research, they have to have a minimum GPA in order to do it.

Now, Bates and Princeton, that’s not the case. It doesn’t matter what your GPA is at Bates; you’re going to be doing research because otherwise you don’t graduate. At Wesleyan, if you don’t want to do research, you don’t have to. Even if you have a high GPA, you don’t have to do it.

Now, again, the opportunities are there. Many students are doing it. But it’s less than 50%. So the fun thing for me is that I can see that these opportunities do exist, and it’s really important for students and parents to hear this in their marketing pitch when you go visit them. But it’s really important to think about your own priorities and also the kinds of people you want to be around.

It’s Up to You

If you really believe that research is important for your own academic future, then go to a school that requires it of you. Go to a College of Wooster. Go to an Allegheny. Go to a Bates. Go to a Princeton. And make sure you do it. Or, if you go to a school that doesn’t require it, then make sure that you know what steps you need to take to ensure that you can, and that you will, do that research.

As the Princeton officer said yesterday, many colleges say, “Oh yeah, we have a lot of research! We have a lot of opportunity!” And then they just roll you out in the campus community and say, “Good luck! Do it if you want! Find a faculty member!” And then there are schools that actually require it of you.

So I’m not saying that Tufts or Wesleyan are bad for not requiring it. That’s just market forces at work and differentiation of the service. But when you’re thinking about your priorities and what’s really important to you, make sure that you understand what the institution’s priorities are and how they’re structured, and are they walking the walk or are they just talking the talk? It’s a different emphasis.

So figure out what you care about when it comes to research, and then find those universities that match that, and also understand how you are going to take advantage of those opportunities when you arrive on that campus.
 
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• Information about the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
• Information about the Yellow Ribbon Program, which allows approved institutions to partially or fully cover tuition and fees that exceed those covered by the GI Bill.

Several websites have compiled lists of veteran-friendly colleges, including:

• Victory Media. This list includes four-year colleges and universities, as well as technical/trade schools that “offer military students the best services, programs, discounts, scholarships, clubs, networking and staff.” The link takes you to a page that gives the history and an overview of the list; to view the list itself, click on “2013 List” at the top. Once there, you can search for colleges by state. This article on NBC News’s website explains the criteria and methodology Victory Media uses to generate its list.
• U.S. Veterans Magazine. According to the magazine’s website, “Military friendly colleges offer some important benefits that are not provided by all schools, such as added support for Post 9/11 GI Bill  Benefits, participation in the Yellow Ribbon Program, availability of tuition discounts and scholarships for military students, and the option to study entirely online.”
• Military Times Edge. This website has a list of the best career and technical colleges for veterans, which includes community colleges. The link takes you to information about the survey used to generate the list; to access the list itself, click “The rankings” under “Read more” on the left. Military Times Edge also has a list of the best four-year colleges for veterans.

There are numerous websites that provide information about scholarships for veterans. Here are a few, and you can find more by doing a search for “scholarships for veterans”.

• Fastweb
• CollegeScholarships.org
• Military.com Scholarship Finder

If you are still in the military and are transferred frequently, you might consider attending a college that’s part of the SOC, or Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges.  The 1900 colleges and universities that belong to this association have agreements to accept each other’s transfer credits, and many of the schools also offer online programs. This website provides more information about the SOC and has a link to the SOC Consortium

Guide, which lists all of the member colleges.

Finally, here is an article from U.S. News and World Report that describes some of the challenges veterans encounter in college and what colleges are doing to address those challenges. The article also mentions an executive order issued by President Obama last April that requires colleges to be more transparent in providing information about financial aid and graduation rates.

Thank you to all of our servicemen and women, and Happy Veterans Day!

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Stories like this beg the question, “Just how reliable are the rankings, and how much should I use them in my college search?”  When looking at rankings, it’s important to know what data went into them and to understand the methodology that was used to generate them.  For example, U.S. News collects data on colleges’ selectivity, financial resources, faculty resources (including class size and the percent of faculty with the highest degree in their fields), freshmen retention rates, and graduation rates.  All of these are factors that arguably indicate the quality of a college’s academics.

Yet, U.S. News’s rankings also are based on what the magazine calls peer assessments — ratings of colleges by presidents, provosts, and deans of admission at “peer institutions”.  In other words, the president of one college is asked to judge the academic excellence of similar colleges.  Additionally, the magazine asks high school counselors to rate colleges.  These two factors are combined for a measure that U.S. News calls undergraduate academic reputation, which accounts for 22.5 to 25 percent of a college’s overall ranking.
It seems to me that there is an inherent problem when college administrators are asked to assess other colleges.  Wouldn’t it be in an administrator’s best interest to rate a peer institution less favorably in order to boost the rankings of his or her own college?

While rankings can be a valuable source of information, they should always be taken with a grain of salt and should be one of many sources of information students use in deciding where to apply and eventually, where to enroll.  When examining rankings, ask yourself, “Are the factors that went into these rankings a good indication of what my experience will be like at this college?”  While U.S. News and World Report collects data that’s helpful in determining what one’s academic experience might be like at a particular college, keep in mind that there is much more to college than academics.  Above all, remember that just because a college is ranked number one on a certain list, that doesn’t mean it’s the number one college for you.

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