On College Data, Guides, and Application Information

Accept this apology for why I don't have a College Guide for you--and what I'm doing about it.

I firmly believe the best way to approach the college application process is with as much information as possible. This is true for high school counselors, for parents, for students, and for independent educational consultants. An unbelieveable amount of nonsense is out there. Anyone that says there is one “Key” or “Secret” to college admissions is flat wrong. Colleges all have slightly different application processes, which means applicants must know every school’s standards and requirements. Successfully applying and getting in at a selective college relies on understanding that school’s admissions process.

With that in mind, I spent much of my summer working on building a College Guide. You might think the world does not need another guide to colleges in the United States of America, and that’s fair. Plenty already exist. Some focus on numerical rankings while others pull from detailed surveys and still more rely on student-submitted responses. Considering that school websites are a…