College Search

Avoid Failing Colleges ( that aren't upfront about this):

Colleges sometimes go out of business. Here's a good article about how to try to foresee this:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SD3Why8A5krKMq3RAYpDB9Vw2NQqhq5gz-iwMks65Us/edit

On the same topic, here's a website to check the financials on any college you're considering:

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/?utm_source=The+Hechinger+Report&utm_campaign=c3e19e6867-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_07_08_03_54&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-c3e19e6867-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

College Research Form (to help in the search process): https://docs.google.com/document/d/14B3oNnOv2vM_RNAWJ1MSVpE5axHWFCRnAdhoRlRcMEk/edit?usp=sharing

Hope Scholarship in RI and a deal for Massachusetts residents:

Rhode Island has been in leader in free tuition with free tuition at CCRI if you go directly from high school and keep up good grades and, alternately, free tuition for years 3 and 4 at Rhode Island College if you didn't get the free tuition at CCRI.

Massachusetts is now offering The Bridgewater Commitment: Free Tuition for Massachusetts Families Earning $125,000 or Less at Bridgewater State University

College Fairs

College Point: A free college advising service from Bloomberg Philanthropies for lower and middle income families. This augments what we do and The College Planning Center of RI, which is also free. This is a big enough decision to make a second opinion worth the time. It's endorsed by Michelle Obama. https://www.collegepoint.info/

Two helpful guides from Teenlife (updated annually) for students interested in these sorts of colleges:

Performing and Visual Arts Colleges: https://guides.teenlife.com/performing-visual-arts-colleges

STEM (math/science) colleges: https://guides.teenlife.com/your-future-in-stem

Article about new Gates Foundation College Comparison Site: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Oyk5INV5WVStvBqH6mgIs6cd7qAkGusgwWhmrn4j_lU/edit?usp=sharing

New York Times's new (3/23) college search tool: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/27/opinion/build-your-own-college-rankings.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20230327&instance_id=88738&nl=the-morning&regi_id=114854477&segment_id=128856&te=1&user_id=c7362b1c86efb2d4a660eeaf75be17ea

2024 Update about URI's Talent Development Program (highly recommended for students from underrepresented groups or those who have overcome significant hardship):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fDrZCwRtkG3A-Drwt_IAjeGA0e56-sul/view?usp=sharing

A resource about Rhode Island Colleges:

https://www.intelligent.com/best-colleges-and-universities/rhode-island/

Free Online Freshman Year of College

(can't recommend as we don't have experience with them, but it sounds interesting)

www.realclearlife.com/education/modern-states-freshman-year-for-free

Site To Search For colleges by SAT or ACT Score;

https://www.collegesimply.com/guides/colleges-by-test-score/

For nursing programs in MA and RI, here's a link with lots of information:

http://www.nln.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/click-here-for-2017-schools-of-nursing-directory.pdf?sfvrsn=0

A new (2019) government site that allows you to see at a glance graduation rates, total cost and average actual cost and then get more information. While this is a useful tool, it's far from perfect as the second college I searched on it didn't exist in its database:

https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/

The theme of several of these is that colleges don't like to hear from parents except in the area of financial aid, and it makes the students seem immature. A more general article on the parenting colleges seek to avoid can be found at

http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/08/28/434350484/how-schools-are-handling-an-overparenting-crisis?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social

Here's a link to a recent Atlantic article about the sorry state of admissions to elite colleges these days. Remember that this only applies to about 200 of the most competitive of 4000 US four year colleges, but if you're looking at those 200, it's instructive: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/10/elite-college-admissions-broken/572962/

The articles below cover a range of topics that generally fall within college search. In moving to the Google Site, it made sense to create more specific categories because it's much more time consuming to organize links on this site, so the area of the General State of College Admissions has moved from this Header to its own page.

Great suggestions about parents and students working together on college search:

Very good advice about what to consider in your college search 25

Parent advice regardling the college search and process22

4 tips for developing a college list 22

How parents and teens should collaborate on college list 22

Why "top notch" colleges aren't necessarily what you want and suggestions to parents 22

More general articles about college search

Non-Academic Factors to consider when choosing colleges 24

Tough love truths about college admissions23

Factors in a good college FIT 23

Keys to creating a strong college list 22

30 Colleges That Give out the Most Merit Aid 22