Yes, it seems that they decided against ranking the colleges and are just presenting the financial informaiton and graduation rates and letting that information help guide students and families in their choices. I like that the salary is based only on students who received federal financial aid, so I'm assuming Pell recipients. When the average salary 10 years after graduation includes all students, it can be a bit skewed as some of the highest SES students will have the family and connections for very high earnings. I wish that they could further break down the amount paid for college based on those who received a Pell grant. Some students going into college have retired parents, so their income is close to nothing, but that doesn't present the whole picture as they may have huge investments and savings. So the number for families earning less than 30K isn't what a low income student would likely pay. Just a breakdown of that and the next higher income level would make the info even more relevant and helpful to lower income students.

It sounds like they're referring to dual enrollment classes which are held in the high schools and taught by high school teachers. I understand that this is a convenience for schools and students, but the lower level of instruction and rigour is one of the reasons why many colleges won't accept any dual enrollment credits Which are not taken on the college campus with regular college professors and college students. To me the benefit of college classes is so much more than the actual course content and much is lost by trying to teach it in the usual high school setting with the same high school teachers and students. IMO a good solution to the problem in Minnesota is to provide transport for students to take classes at the community or state colleges. Of course this involves more expense, but at the least they could offer them free tuition if they're able to arrange their own transport. If they can't do either of those, perhaps the college professors could teach their classes at the high school and follow the same syllabus as is used on campus.

At the other end of the spectrum it's not much different. Dd must have submitted about 100 essays in total for colleges and scholarship programs. It's what you do when you have to find an affordable option. For dd the unknown wasn't merit aid, but whether she would get into the schools which truly meet full need. She could have applied to fewer scholarship programs and fewer colleges, but until the decisions are in it's nearly impossible to know which ones to omit.

Good thought, but it's not alphabetical. When you put in engineering, for instance, Harvard and Fairfield are both on the first page, neither of which are the first schools to pop into my mind for being tops in engineering. (US News ranks Harvard as #20 for graduate program in engineering and Fairfield isn't listed. I have no idea if they have a graduate program, but they do have undergraduate.)

Yes it may be a work in progress. My question is that when you pull up programs and degrees and enter a specific program without further sorting, what determines the order of colleges listed? I know that you can further sort for graduation rate or salary, but what puts the colleges on the first page there as opposed to elsewhere. I'm doing some searching.

Has anyone played with this? When searching for specific programs, I'm not understanding what determines the order of the colleges listed. Any idea?

My dd is in her fifth year of full-time college as she was in DE during high school. The transition to her commuting to college was very different than the transition to her living on campus hundreds of miles away. The first semester, until her first visit home, seemed very long and I definitely missed dd as she did us. But the second semester was much better as is this year. We all deal with it differently and I think that distance, time intervals away, the relationship, personalities, involvement in other activities, and whether there are other children still at home all play a factor in our personal experiences. I think we're also influenced by how well our children adjust on their end. Because of that I think I felt more of an emptiness than sadness. I think that Nan's suggestion is a good one. I wish I had done that and should have started early during the high school years, but by senior year, my role as guidance counselor was very time consuming. It's okay not to feel any sadness and it's okay to feel sad, but know that either feeling can change as circumstances change. And for those struggling, the time from Thanksgiving to Christmas flies and the spring semester is much easier than the fall.

The Dept of Education has put out this site for searching for colleges and comparing them on several issues. It's actually user friendly and informative. https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/

FIU might work very nicely. NMF are eligible for full tuition, fees and room and board if they are selected for one of the FIU scholarships. http://admissions.fiu.edu/costs-and-aid/scholarships/ No snow. No cornfields. 54K student population so there should be a few coffee shops available. In Miami. Southwest flies out of Ft Lauderdale which is less than 30 miles from Miami. Language course offerings for 2015 http://dll.fiu.edu/undergraduate/undergrad-courses/ Majors include: Asian Studies Global and Social Sciences Honors College International Business International Relations Political Science Political Science: Education

Your in-state universities may be your best bet or OOS public universities where the OOS cost is within the range you're looking for. University of Alabama of course would be free tuition for her NMF stats but I have no idea if it meets the other criteria. I did see it listed on the link of affordable options.

This list might bring up some possibilities. http://www.collegeaffordabilityguide.org/subjects/foreign-language/ I also think that the State Department or the Homeland Defense, or something like that, offers students scholarships to study the languages that are most needed. I remember reading something about it in the past. This sounds interesting! https://melikian.asu.edu/cli The above program is available to anyone 16 or older. They offer Russian through Russian 6 and the advanced courses are taken abroad. Costs are very low. 8 this might be something your daughter would be interested in before college.

I don't know why you eliminated the other ivy colleges, but Barnard comes to mind. In and of itself it's small, but with Columbia across the street and all it's quite large. They have two Russian majors and of course all the languages at Columbia would be available to her as well. She can even opt to use Columbia's dorms after the first year. I think Barnard offers some merit, but I"m not sure on that. I think that Columbia is slightly better on need based aid alone, but Barnard isn't bad. I'd be looking at all the highly selective colleges if you want your need to be met. Many of them do that even for families with a fairly good income. Another thought would be to check out SUNY Stonybrook as it's close enough to NYC and their OOS tuition is reasonable. I would think that being in or near DC or NY would be ideal. Other major cities should have internship opportunities as well.

Here's a link to their undergrad scholarships. http://drexel.edu/drexelcentral/finaid/grants/merit-scholarships/ Nevermind, that's wrong as it's for currently enrolled students. When I follow the links for prospective students, it puts me into a very unproductive loop. I can't get there either and I don't even have a sinus headache. I hope you feel better and someone else is able to find the right info. I did see that the NMF scholarship is for full tuition.

Thanks fo rlinking this - interesting! Not at all familiar with Rockefeller University, graduate level only, and it's listed at #33. Small with only 195 students, but in a great area in NYC. I think that the US News does take teaching factors into account in their rankings. Looked it up and 20% is based on faculty resources. Included in the computation are class sizes (less than 20 and more than 50), faculty salary, proportion of professors with the highest degree in their fields, the student to faculty ratio, and the proportion of faculty who are full time. I'm sure that the teaching also comes into play when the colleges are rated by peers. For looking at this aspect, I like to see actual student reviews of their professors as a whole and ones specific to their major(s).

It's wonderful how they've seen to his needs and are allowing him to start at the more local one and then transfer to Ann Arbor. Nice!

:lol:

Patrick Henry College isn't included, but Grove City College is ranked #134 of National Liberal Arts Colleges.

I also found the US News rankings on Best Value universities and colleges interesting. According to their methodology they take into account the ratio of quality to price (obviously subjective as it's based on their ratings), percent of undergraduates receiving need based aid, and the average amount the total cost was discounted for students receiving need based scholarships and/or grants. The schools listed are divided into national universities, liberal arts colleges, regional universities, and regional colleges.

I admit that I find the rankings interesting, but entertaining as well. Yes most changes are subtle, but over time there have been some interesting movements of some colleges. The overall rankings helped me to see a college relative to others, and to discover some I wasn't at all familiar with. I agree that a point or two or even ten or twenty may not be at all significant, and if one school is a better fit than another, then the ranking really isn't important at all. Creekland what you did is help your sons to find the best school for them with their individual interests. That beats any generalized rankings. One thing I noticed this year is that there seem to be more colleges which are tied for rankings. Maybe this is an acknowledgement of how little separates them and that it's more accurate to look at tiers rather than individual rankings.

People have shared with you what they do. It's just different from what you plan to do. ;) Do what's right for your family. Personally, I would include the student in the conversation to get their thoughts. Just as there's merit in spending to help out family, there's also merit in saving.

I thought it was a good article. I love what CUNY is doing with their ASAP program. 52% graduation is great. As was pointed out in the article, the additional costs for supporting the students while attending are more than made up for later in tax revenues and reduced spending for public programs.

Taking the ACT with writing eliminates the need for SAT II scores at many schools. Sometimes the SAT IIs are required for specific programs and even specific subjects may be required. Here are some sites which give some of the info. It's always best to look up each school and even contact admissions for info specific to the student. According to College Board 160 colleges use SAT II scores and this site lists them. No specifics are given, so it would require further research, but if a school isn't on this list, it likely doesn't need them. CB has a financial stake in listing all the schools, so their list should be comprehensive. Obviously if any of the scores are good, it doesn't hurt to send them to all whether required or not. https://professionals.collegeboard.com/testing/sat-subject/about/institutions This list seems to favor the more selective colleges. http://blog.prepscholar.com/complete-list-of-colleges-that-require-sat-subject-tests When I looked the other day I think I found a site which gives more homeschooler info, but I can't seem to find it now. If anyone has a good resource it would be helpful to list it here. Or maybe we could make up our own list specific to homeschoolers. Edited to add: Oops I posted to the wrong thread.

They're out! http://www.usnews.com/rankings

It sounds like his best option is to go with the earlier class time with the same professor, assuming it doesn't conflict on a different day with other classes. That would be frustrating to get an email so late.

In the guidance couselor letter I included info about having fewer SAT II test scores and asked them to consider dd's college courses instead. Some were fine with that and for others it may have been part of the reason for a denial. Hopefully your son will either decide not to apply there, or will have the time to take the tests. Yes getting fee waivers is not easy as the public schools save them for their own students. Sometimes private high schools will help out if they're able. Some colleges will accept scores if they're listed on the official transcript, so you might want to include them there and then ask individual ones if that is sufficient or if they need an official score report. Applying to a lot of colleges, which is what dd did since there was high need, is costly. Even if all the applications themselves are free, the test score reports and CSS Profile charges really add up.