New York State's colleges and universities have a lot of depth: the state offers Ivy League universities Cornell and Columbia, strong SUNY colleges like Geneseo and Binghamton, top liberal arts colleges like Hamilton and Vassar, and some real bargains within the CUNY system.

My list of the top 12 New York State universities and colleges includes small, large, public and private schools. If there's a school I've omitted that you think should be on the list, share your opinion below.

Top New York State Colleges and Universities originally appeared on About.com College Admissions: U.S. on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at 15:03:35.

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Today's college spotlight takes us to Fairfield, Connecticut, an affluent town on the Long Island Sound with easy access to New York City. Founded in 1942, Fairfield University is a relatively young school that has quickly grown in national prominence.

Fairfield is a Jesuit university, and part of its mission is to foster a student's sense of social responsibility and to integrate the intellectual and the spiritual. Undergraduates enroll in one of five colleges or schools; the College of Arts and Sciences and the well-regarded Dolan School of Business have the highest enrollments. Majors in Finance, Communication Studies and Nursing are the most popular among undergraduates.

While some of the preprofessional programs at Fairfield have the highest enrollments and strongest reputations, the university is grounded in the liberal arts and sciences. In fact, the school's strengths in the liberal arts and sciences earned it a chapter of the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society. Overall, Fairfield is impressive on the academic front with a 90% first-year retention rate and a 75% four-year graduate rate. It's one of the main reasons Fairfield made my list of top Catholic colleges and universities.

The university also offers students the excitement of NCAA Division I athletics. The Fairfield Stags compete in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.

To learn more about the Fairfield University and the school's admissions standards, visit the Fairfield Admissions Profile and the university's official website. If you have visited or attended Fairfield University, please share your impressions below.

Every week I spotlight a great college that might be off the radar of college applicants. If there's a college you'd like to see featured here, please post your recommendation in the College Admissions Forum.

Spotlight on Fairfield University originally appeared on About.com College Admissions: U.S. on Sunday, March 14th, 2010 at 10:39:47.

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The United States has some amazing colleges and universities affiliated with the Catholic Church. Boston College, Georgetown and Notre Dame all have highly selective admissions, strong academic programs, chapters of Phi Beta Kappa, and well-known Division I athletic teams. And now in the frenzy of March Madness we're seeing several excellent Catholic universities winning a lot more than they're losing, schools such as Xavier, Gonzaga, Siena and Villanova.

I've chosen the schools on my list of the top 22 Catholic colleges and universities using a range of factors including reputation, retention rates, graduation rates, academic quality, value, student engagement and curricular innovations. The schools vary widely in size and institutional type.

If you're wondering what it takes to get into these Catholic colleges and universities, each school on the list is linked to an admission profile that includes acceptance rates, average test scores, costs and other information. You can also check out these tables of data for matriculated students:

• SAT score comparison for top Catholic colleges
• ACT score comparison for top Catholic colleges

Finally, if there's a Catholic college or university that isn't on my list that you think should be, you can share your recommendation with other readers.

Top Catholic Colleges and Universities originally appeared on About.com College Admissions: U.S. on Saturday, March 13th, 2010 at 09:32:03.

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As students anxiously await responses from the colleges to which they applied, many will find themselves the recipients of bad news. The country's top colleges and universities send out far more rejection letters than acceptance letters. But is a rejection letter always the end of the road? Is it possible to appeal a rejection?

In the majority of cases, no. A rejection letter means the game is over for that college. However, some schools do allow appeals if a student has significant new information to present, or if the student knows of an administrative error that may have weakened the application. Read this article on appealing a rejection to learn more about legitimate grounds for an appeal and to see a list of circumstances that do not justify an appeal. Also be sure to check out this sample appeal letter.

Can You Appeal a College Rejection? originally appeared on About.com College Admissions: U.S. on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 13:22:18.

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NAFSA: Association of International Educators announced today the winners of the 2010 Senator Paul Simon Award for Comprehensive Internationalization. Senator Simon was a strong supporter of international education and foreign language study, and the colleges that win the award all show impressive efforts at preparing students to succeed in a global economy and interconnected world.

The five schools being recognized in 2010 for their overall efforts at internationalization are

• Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania
• Hobart & William Smith Colleges in New York
• Loyola University Maryland
• Northeastern University in Massachusetts
• University of San Francisco in California

Top Colleges for Internationalization originally appeared on About.com College Admissions: U.S. on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 11:32:37.

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"The Choice," the college admissions column at the New York Times, recently ran an article on Hamilton College's decision to move to "need-blind" admissions. Hamilton, in other words, will no longer consider a student's ability to pay as part of the admissions decision. The college will cover the added financial aid costs associated with "need-blind" admissions through a gift from trustees and a fund-raising campaign. A representative from the college noted that the college will continue to meet the full demonstrated need of every admitted student.

I imagine most of us would agree that this is a move in a positive direction. After all, should a student's financial situation prevent him or her from attending a good college? And doesn't the privileging of wealth go against the educational ideals of most colleges?

"Need-aware" admissions, however, can sometimes be more humane than "need-blind." All colleges have finite financial aid resources. If a college with "need-blind" admissions runs out of financial aid dollars before meeting students' financial needs, the results can be ugly. Students and their families may find themselves in a position where they have to take on an unreasonable and unwise amount of debt to pay for college. Many "need-aware" schools will argue that it is a better policy to meet the financial needs of all incoming students than to provide financial aid packages that fall far short of what students can realistically pay.

Share your thoughts on this controversial issue below. Should all colleges have "need-blind" admissions, or only those like Hamilton that can afford to meet the financial needs of all accepted students?

"Need-Blind" and "Need-Aware" College Admissions originally appeared on About.com College Admissions: U.S. on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 11:47:08.

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Despite the state's current economic crisis, California has some of the best colleges and universities in the country. Several members of the University of California system made my list of the country's top public universities, and members of the Claremont Colleges appear in my top picks for undergraduate engineering schools, women's colleges and liberal arts colleges.

In this new list, you'll find my 12 top picks for California. The list includes big, small, public and private colleges and universities.

Are there other schools you think should be on the list? Share your recommendations below.

Top Colleges and Universities in California originally appeared on About.com College Admissions: U.S. on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 10:43:25.

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If you haven't heard of Randolph College, that's probably because up until 2007 it was called Randolph-Macon Woman's College. This small liberal arts college in Lynchburg, Virginia, recently became coeducational, and in the process the school changed its name. The student body is now about 20% men.

Randolph College's small size (under 600 students), 8 to 1 student / faculty ratio and average class size of 12 mean that students get lots of personal attention. The school prides itself on the high scores it earned on the National Survey of Student Engagement.

For such a small college, Randolph offers an impressive 50 majors and minors, and students also have the option of designing their own degree program. The college's strengths in the liberal arts and sciences earned it a chapter of the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society. Students at Randolph are highly involved in athletics, clubs and other outdoor activities. The attractive campus with its red-brick buildings is located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

To learn more about the Randolph College and the school's admissions standards, visit the Randolph Admissions Profile and the college's official website. If you have visited or attended Randolph College, please share your impressions below.

Every week I spotlight a great college that might be off the radar of college applicants. If there's a college you'd like to see featured here, please post your recommendation in the College Admissions Forum.

Spotlight on Randolph College originally appeared on About.com College Admissions: U.S. on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 08:23:12.

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Tufts University has been in the news a lot recently because of their admission application's optional essay choice #6b: "Share a one-minute video that says something about you. Upload it to YouTube or another easily accessible Web site, and give us the URL. What you do or say is totally up to you."

At the time of writing this blog entry, Amelia Downs wonderfully nerdy "Math Dances" has been viewed nearly 80,000 times, and you can also check out Haley Cottrell's playful stop-frame video, Rachel Goldstein singing and playing guitar in a tree, and numerous other efforts to stand out in the competitive admissions process.

For better or worse, I'm sure we'll see a lot more use of YouTube and other social media by admissions officers in the future. What do you think about the potential of the Tufts experiment? Is this a great way for students to show off their creativity? Is it a cheap way for a college to get exposure in the media? Is there a danger that video essays will hurt rather than help applicants? Share your thoughts below.

Tufts University and Admissions Videos originally appeared on About.com College Admissions: U.S. on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 13:01:24.

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It seems that most of the country's prestigious universities are seeing an increase in applications this admissions cycle. The Johns Hopkins News-Letter reported today that the school has seen a 14% increase in applications this year. The Ivy-caliber school in Baltimore received 18,453 freshman applications this cycle, up from 16,124 last year. And the news is a little worse than that for students hoping to go to Hopkins. Last year the university ended up with more students accepting admissions offers than anticipated, so this year Hopkins is being conservative to make sure they don't extend too many offers.

A lot of colleges aren't quite sure how this admissions cycle will play out, so we're likely to see a lot more activity with waitlists than usual. The economy and the surge in applications has created a lot of uncertainty as to what yield schools will get from their acceptance letters. When there's uncertainty, colleges hedge their bets by creating sizable waitlists.

To learn more about Johns Hopkins and what it takes to get accepted, visit the Hopkins admissions profile or the university's official website.

14% Increase in Applications to Johns Hopkins originally appeared on About.com College Admissions: U.S. on Friday, February 26th, 2010 at 17:43:19.

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