Author: Editor

The Counselors That Change Lives Award recognizes those whose dedication to the college counseling profession reflects the CTCL ideals. By helping students frame their search beyond the ratings and rankings to find a college that provides the foundation for a successful and fulfilling life, these counselors change lives. Ana Almeida — Onward We Learn (RI)Nominated by Christopher Muñoz-Calene of Clark UniversityAna demonstrates an extraordinary commitment to understanding and representing her students’ experiences and perspectives while growing as a college access professional. She believes that authentic conversation, connection, and partnership with admission professionals and their colleges and universities is necessary to create greater opportunities for the college bound. Because she i...

Trying to save money on college applications? Good news! There are actually quite a few colleges that allow you to apply for free. In this article, I'll provide some general information about application fees along with a comprehensive list of all the schools that offer free applications.   Application Fees at a Glance Most colleges charge application fees in the $50-60 range, but they can sometimes be as high as $90 (looking at you, Stanford). Many top schools charge application fees of $75 or more. To put this in context, suppose you are applying to five different schools. If three have $50 application fees and two have $75 application fees, you'll be spending $300 on applications alone. (And that doesn't include the cost of any ACT or SAT scores you might send as well.) That's not sma...

Most students think a lot about their GPA in high school. There's no doubt that GPA is one of the most important pieces of information colleges will consider in your application. However, GPA can vary drastically in the way it's calculated at different schools. Some high schools use unweighted GPAs and some use weighted GPAs. I'll give you an overview of the differences between the two and what each type of GPA might mean in the context of your personal experiences. (more…)

You might be interested in going to a small college, but just how small is "small," exactly? In general, schools that are considered "small" have fewer than 5,000 students in total. However, quite a few schools are actually less than 1/10 that size! In this article I'll describe the characteristics of small colleges and then provide a list of the smallest colleges in the nation by category. That way you can decide if going to a small school really is the right decision for you.   List of the Smallest Colleges in the US These are the smallest four-year, non-profit colleges in the nation sorted by type and enrollment number. This list includes schools with fewer than 500 students but more than 50 students because colleges with fewer than 50 students are extremely rare and not relevant to e...