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My DD's IB middle school encourages their students to spend their middle schools years evaluating their interests and creating rough drafts options of their future schooling. In other words they are encouraged to begin looking/comparing colleges and degrees which may be a good fit for them. The problem is, I have absolutely no clue as to what the difference is between Harvard, Yale, and the community college down the street, so I don't feel that I am in any position to offer assistance or guidance. DD does not come from a college bred lot, yet I am certain that she has the self motivation and brains to go anywhere she wants.

Does anyone have a good non-biased website or reference book which outlines many of the US schools in qualitative not quantitatve terms? The web is full of ratings and rankings, but they are of little use to us at this point in the game.

Please understand that I am not looking for your personal college opinions: merely seeking a reference starting point in which to narrow the field so DD can do her own research further into her areas/schools of interest.

Thanks!

Go to www.collegeboard.org You can look up all sorts of stats on colleges and you can do college comparisons. Put a college name in the college search (left side of page), then it takes you to the "Big Future" portion of the site. You'll find SAT/ACT scores, size of student body, % applicants accepted and much more. Then hit the Compare Colleges and you can compare stats for three schools.

The College Board tool (linked above) also allows students to sort based on costs, location, setting, and program emphasis. I wanted to mention that there are ways of looking at the qualitative factors that you're interested in.

The one sorting tool that we've looked (unsuccessfully) for is one that would allow sorting on the basis of pedagogy/academic culture. That is, are most classes taught with an interactive, intimate kind of philosophy involving faculty and classmates, or are they taught as cogs in a larger well-oiled 'machine' that has more-or-less interchangeable parts and uses the same script year after year while only the players (students, instructors) change? (That's not to say that the latter, if high-quality, isn't good for some students-- it's a learning style issue, mostly.)


In that mode, one must rely more on "best party school" lists as a negative indicator; in some sense also on size as a proxy for "more probably large/impersonal and less interactive." Research institutions may have a focus on efficiency at the lower-division undergraduate level, too.

I'm mentioning that because there are some limitations that I think it is important to be aware of when using sorting tools.


None of these measures are perfect, as you're probably well aware, and as soon as there IS a measurement tool, colleges will begin jockeying and 'spin-control' to make themselves look more appealing using that tool.

Forbes also had a recent college sorting tool that was fairly remarkable in that it differs significantly from the rubric that USN&WR uses, and also differs from College Board's.

Triangulation is a pretty good way to find institutions that offer what interests you-- at least theoretically. It's also a good way to find schools that make PR a top priority. Obviously.

This academic culture depends on the department as well as the school.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/2/14/concentration-satisfaction-results/
Smaller Concentrations Receive Highest Satisfaction Ratings
By FRANCESCA ANNICCHIARICO, JESSICA A. BARZILAY, JOHN P. FINNEGAN, and BRIANNA D. MACGREGOR, CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
Harvard Crimson
February 14, 2013

The humanities reigned in the latest round of concentration satisfaction ratings, followed closely by the social sciences and life sciences. As was the case in previous years, smaller concentrations generally outperformed larger ones in the survey, which is taken every spring by graduating seniors.

Women, Gender, and Sexuality achieved the highest satisfaction rate among members of the Class of 2012 with a 4.78 out of 5. Only nine graduating seniors last year concentrated in WGS.

“Our students receive a lot of one-on-one attention,” said director of undergraduate studies in WGS Caroline Light.

Government and Economics, which boast two of the largest pools of concentrators in the College, placed in the bottom five in the most recent ratings.

The results did not surprise the government department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies Cheryl B. Welch, who said that satisfaction is usually inversely correlated with the size of the department.

The Fiske Guide to Colleges is one option. It has both some qualitative and quantitative information on over 300 colleges. Typical information you can find in a given college writeup in Fiske:

- a brief history of the college
- location and environment description
- a breakdown of the main academic focuses and strongest majors
- information on class sizes and academic tone/tenor
- an idea of the breakdown of the student body (geography, ethnicity, some less quantitative comments)
- housing information
- activity and extra curricular information
- test score ranges
- cost range
- size of college
- acceptance rates

It won't give you info on colleges like your local community college or state "directionals" (eg, Southern University). But the better state flagships are there, and a lot of private colleges.

I like Fiske because it is a mix of qualitative and quantitative information. You get the "flavor" of the college, not just the facts. We would often then go dig into the specific website of the college after deciding it was worth following up on from the Fiske guide.

But as howlerkarma said, the colleges are pretty heavily invested in marketing. Getting to the real pros and cons of a given college can be a challenge. Even with Fiske you have to read between the lines -- they don't really give negative reviews, but I have learned to spot a luke warm one, or the use of an adjective that tells me that a college might not be what we are looking for. But Fiske is a pretty approachable guide that might help you D start to look at some options.

One thing she might want to do is to attend a college fair - this is where reps from a bunch of different colleges are all available to talk to prospective students at the same time. It's a great way to have a chance to talk to people who've actually attended each college, and also to talk to college reps in person about what campus life is like, and whether or not your dd's interests and career goals are a good match with specific institutions.

You'll still be hit with marketing, but fwiw, when I've volunteered as a rep for my college I've been quite candid about life at the school, amount of studying etc required, and whether or not it's a potential fit for the potential student I'm talking to. That's what our college *wants* us to do as reps.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I have a somewhat different perspective to offer.

You said that you don't know much about different colleges. Given this, my opinion is that it's too soon to ask you and your DD to make choices about specific colleges. It's kind of like asking someone who doesn't know how to swim to choose the stroke he wants to use for racing in 5 years. He can't make an informed decision when he doesn't even know the difference between butterfly and crawl. He needs to learn about different swim strokes first --- and so do you and your DD.

So my advice would be to start with the basics. Sit down with your daughter and learn about the differences between Harvard and a community college and so on.

Here's some very basic information to get you started. After five minutes, you'll know the difference between different types of colleges.

Here's some more basic information.


This information is from the US Department of Education. It's old-ish, but it has more detail and nearly all of this stuff hasn't changed anyway (the only stuff that's really different now concerns costs). This set of pages has excellent information about different types of institution, different programs, recommendations for what to study in high school, etc. The really good thing about this site is that it lays it all out in a very easy way to follow. You do NOT want to get stuck somewhere clicking relentlessly and feeling like you're getting nowhere.

Finally, this site is for first-generation college students. Read it last, not first.

After reading Val's informative links one can read about unconventional options such as "virtual colleges", described in this op-ed:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/opinion/my-valuable-cheap-college-degree.html
My Valuable, Cheap College Degree
By ARTHUR C. BROOKS
New York Times
January 31, 2013

^^^ This really what I was aiming for. DD is what I would call the research type who would thrive best in smaller classes with open/interactive student led format.....although at this point I wouldn't be surprised if her organized/leadership qualities turned her to government.

When I said I didn't know the difference between Harvard and community, I was exaggerating a bit. I do understand the basics and am well informed as to our local central Florida options. We live within an hour of USF and UCF which will certainly be on her list to investigate. However, when it comes to the top schools, I am at a total loss as to what (other than money) makes them so special. I have been taking classes at our local community college for a couple of years. And while I love the educational experience, I am fairly confidant that 1/2 - 3/4 of these kids barely graduated high school. We live in very low performing county. DD who is much brighter than I, would be miserable there.

I ordered the Fiske Guide and found the CollegeBoard website to be great. Thanks! I like the sorting tool options: it will give her a place to start narrowing down the field a bit. I really like how CB has the option to sort by (% of need met). I was surprised to see that most expensive/prestigious colleges were the ones most likely to cover the tuition for those of us on the lower end of the income field. << This makes mama relax.

In anycase, thanks for all the input. I'm sure we'll back with more questions and worries when things get more serious.

Not wanting to add to your concerns... but relaxing about having your tuition covered because your kid is high performing and you are low income would not be a good idea. Here is a link to a very long discussion out here a few weeks ago that included some discussion of this.

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/162887/1.html