Resources for college admission info

[lulu]

I did my PhD in the US and have been working at higher ed here for several years, but I confess an almost compete ignorance of how the admission process works for undergraduates. I have a tween daughter now and I am searching for information for people like me who have never attended or applied to a US college, and whose experience in other countries was completely different than the liberal arts model here.

There are tons of websites, books, videos, and other stuff out there, but I'm having trouble sifting through it all, so I'm looking for recommendations. Do you have any that you find particularly useful for learning about how the admission process works?

[pgher]

No particular advice, but some sympathy. It has changed a LOT since I was in high school. Also, I'm an engineer but my kids went liberal arts and pre-med. On college visits I realized that I live in a totally different world. I will say that the time I've spent here, plus reading IHE and CHE, has really helped.

[Parasaurolophus]

Perhaps an easy place to start would be with your own university's admissions office, and finding out what their process looks like. It's probably not at all dissimilar to everyone else's.

I started my own search here in Canada with the Maclean's university rankings. Not for the rankings--they're worthless--but for the wealth of qualitative information they put into their university issues (each institution gets a pretty decent description of its culture, strengths, etc.). Then I visited some of these institutions that looked like they spoke to me and my priorities and took the tour. After the tour I ruled some out, and applied to the others.

I don't think the USNews rankings are quite comparable (they're also more garbage!), but presumably you can start somewhere in that vicinity. Actually, maybe you guys should start by getting a handle on what the tween's priorities might be (e.g. is she really into theatre? Music? History? Math? Sports?), and then look at institutions that can match those priorities.

[lulu]

Thank you for your input, pgher and Parasaurolophus. It makes sense to familiarize myself with the process in my own university.