Basically, I like finding out stuff that helps people make good decisions.
In graduate school, I looked at stuff that caused students to drop out of high school. In my first job, I collected information to help agencies train and place people in the job market. Next, I provided census data and maps to people looking to make decisions for their organizations. After that, I put together information for hospital administrators to decide what services to provide and where.
Finally, I spent a lot of time researching information on homeschooling to decide if we should homeschool our son. We decided “yes” and that has brought me to finding out all kinds of stuff about curriculum, teaching, and socialization for the past ten years. During this time, I created a website to share all the stuff I found out with other homeschoolers.
I just finished the biggest test of my ability to find out stuff, I got my son accepted in a college with merit money and the opportunity to play baseball. He was accepted at all ten schools he applied to with average merit aid of $15,000 and the possibility of playing baseball for four of the schools. I feel like I just passed the ultimate graduate exam for homeschool parents.
During my son’s last two years of high school, I spent most of my time being my son’s college guidance counselor. Given I had only one student, I’ve probably spent more time researching possibilities than the average public school guidance counselor who is responsible for 400 or more students. So I’ve decided to share what I’ve learned about the college search process so that others can get the information they need to decide which colleges to apply to.
You can reach me at [email protected]
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Michelle, love your site and enjoying the data sheet I purchased from you. Almost. On one of your articles you included a video or text description of how to use highlighting as part of a sort for visual cross-referencing. Can you tell me where to find that? I don’t see a site search feature.
Thanks, Bendan
Hi Bendan,
Glad you enjoy the site. As for the highlighting, click on the Get Your Spreadsheet Data button at the top and watch the video on the page. Towards the end of the video, I show how you can highlight fields.
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
Michelle
Thanks Michelle. There’s so much good info here – my only problem is knowing where to find it again. And fyi, in Excel 2013 I found conditional formatting on the Home tab as opposed to on the “Format” section (or left click).
Best,
Bendan
Michelle, on our downloaded data set, where is “% of need met?” Thank you.
Hi Michelle,
Can you touch on 5 and 6 year programs? If, for example, a student enters a 5 year MOT (Masters of Occupational Therapy) program or 6 year DOT program, do they get to keep their merit aid the first 3 (undergraduate) years? 4 years? more?? These programs tend to be high value as they save a year of tuition, but we are trying to plan on when to anticipate the spike to graduate tuition and the loss of merit aid. Are there other aid options that become available to graduate students? Thank you!!!
Hi Jill, excellent question! I have to admit, this isn’t something that I’ve looked into before but will start. In the meantime, your best bet is just to ask the admissions or financial aid office. It really can’t hurt. And I’ll start taking a look into it as well.