5 Most Popular Free Downloads to Help You Find a College

Woman looking at Free Downloads to Help You Find a CollegeI know that not everyone is able to keep up with all of the information I post to the website. For the past six months or so I’ve been creating PDFs for some of the posts, usually those with lists of colleges but not always. In case you’ve missed them, I’m listing the five most popular posts based on their PDF downloads. And no, there isn’t any fee for downloading.

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What’s Wrong with These 135 Colleges…and Does it Matter?

searching for Affordable collegesYou may have missed the excitement last May when Ronald Nelson announced he was going to attend the University of Alabama. This was a big deal not because Alabama had grabbed the top football recruit in the nation. It was a big deal because Nelson was actually accepted at all eight Ivy League schools, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, and Washington University in St. Louis. He turned them all down to attend the honors college at the University of Alabama.

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50-50 Highlights: 28 Colleges with the Best ROI That You Can Actually Get Into

50-05 Colleges in Money's Best CollegesMoney’s Best Colleges is one of the increasing alternatives to US News Best College Rankings. According to Washington Post, “Money Magazine’s new college rankings finally get it right for students” since it focuses on the cost to the student and likely return on investment. I’m not willing to declare Money’s College Rankings as the way rankings should be done, but I will acknowledge that it’s a step in the right direction.

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84 Best Bet Public Universities for Meeting Financial Need

public colleges that meet 100% of need(Based on some readers comments, I just want to clarify that the schools on this list at the end of the post are only “Best Bets” for residents of the state. Out-of-state students shouldn’t expect any financial assistance from these schools.) If there is a list of the top three things families entering the college search process must know, one of them would have to be that very few colleges meet 100% of need. Just because the federal government and the institution recognize a specific amount of need doesn’t mean the student will receive a matching amount of financial aid. This is why lists of colleges that meet 100% of need are very popular.

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50-50 Highlights: Colleges Producing the Most PhD Degree Recipients

woman researcher doctoral recipientI’m not talking about institutions granting PhD degrees. I’m talking about the undergraduate programs that produce the most students receiving PhDs. This is called the undergraduate origins of Doctoral Recipients. This information is useful for people want to know where they should go as an undergraduate to have the best chances for getting their Doctorate. And it’s not always the places you think.

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Guaranteed Tuition and 4 Year Graduation: Part 1

Hand with guarantee ink stampThe University of Wisconsin offers a guarantee to graduate in four years. The University of Illinois guarantees its tuition for four years. Both offers are fairly new to colleges in general and don’t have much of a track record in terms of students enrolling under the programs. So which is a better deal? Or are they both just gimmicks for colleges to sooth the family fear of rising tuition costs?

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Creating College Lists 101: Copying Data-Part 1

Lesson title creating college lists on chalkboardChances are that you won’t be using all of the data available in the DIY College Rankings spreadsheets. Once you’ve defined some basic filters, it’s generally a good idea to copy the data you want to work with to a different spreadsheet tab in the Excel workbook. This way you can add to or modify the data without accidentally deleting or creating errors in the original data. In this lesson, I’m going to show you the basics of how to copy data in Excel.

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Creating College Lists 101: Introduction to Using Filters

Chalkboard with lesson introduction to using filtersI’m not covering topics in the way most people are taught to use spreadsheets. I’m trying to provide enough information for you to be able to start using the DIY spreadsheets as soon as possible. And then I’ll start filling in other information that you need to know but wouldn’t be as useful in starting to use the spreadsheets.

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