Seventeen states have joined this effort, which is funded by The Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Lumina Foundation for Education, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Ford Foundation (quite the line-up).

I’m not sure whether this new effort will really make a dent in the problem, but I can attest that something is rotten in American academia.  Our graduation rates are a national disgrace.  Even as we are sending students of to college in greater numbers, fewer than half of those who start a bachelor’s degree ever complete it.

Colorado is not one of the 17 states participating in the new effort. But it certainly should.  The table below shows that only four of Colorado’s public institutions of higher learning beat the national average.  And several of them have embarrassing graduation rates.  If these institutions were companies, they would be closed by now for lack of customers.  Who would want to attend a school that promised less than a 25% chance of getting your degree?

Graduation and Retention Rates

Universities and Colleges in Colorado

While there are many complex reasons that explain these low graduation rates, the time has come for taxpayers to express a little more outrage at this state of affairs.  Would we permit the Registry of Motor Vehicles to have a 50% success rate in getting our license renewed (never mind how long it might take)?  Or how about the Department of Public Works filling only half of our potholes?

Check out ENGINEERING.com | The Engineer’s Ultimate Resource Tool.

Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant

Parents:

Don’t ask too many questions, either in the information session or during the campus tour.  Even if your kid is silent, try to restrain yourself.  Silence does not indicate that your child is comatose.  I can guarantee that even the most taciturn teen is taking it all in, trying to incorporate new ideas about their own future, some of which are really exciting, and some of which may be sort of terrifying.  Don’t try to fill the silence by embarrassing or annoying your child.  I can’t tell you how many tours I’ve taken on which students and their parents have traded eye-rolls, verbal jabs, elbows to the ribs.  This is a stressful time for everyone, so don’t your parental instincts interfere with your child’s experience.

Do help your student to brainstorm the questions he or she has about this college and its campus before the visit starts. What information do you already know about this campus, and what questions remain? What things are important to see during the visit—facilities that may be important for your child?  Encourage the student to ask the questions by helping to formulate the right questions in advance.

Do seek answers to your own parental questions.  If you have particular questions about financial aid, for example, that remain unanswered in a general information session, you may want to call the financial aid office and seek their counsel.  Similarly, if you want to learn more about a particular sports program, an academic offering, or more details about the curriculum, make sure that you check the college website thoroughly.  Colleges have become pretty adept at putting tons and tons of information online.  If you can’t find what you seek, by all means pick up the phone.  Better, if it’s a question that you and your child share, encourage the student to do the communicating.  Empower the student to take charge of gathering the information that will help him or her find the right college match.

Don’t even think about accompanying your student to the interview with the admissions officer.  Just asking the question could be a red flag for admissions officers who really don’t want to have to deal with overbearing, bossy, and domineering parents.  Assume that you are uninvited, and be surprised (and pleased) when the admissions officer engages you in some conversation before or after the interview.  If such a conversation does take place, don’t talk about anything beyond pleasantries.  The worst thing you can ask is, “what are my kid’s chances?”  Not only will they not answer that question, but they may be a bit annoyed that you even ask it.  So don’t.

Students:

Do take charge of the visit.  Don’t be passive. Don’t let mom and dad do it all for you.  Look at the maps and figure out where you are and where you’re doing.  Take the lead as you wander around campus.  Know what you want to learn during the visit, and know how you are going to learn it.  At this stage of your transition from high school to college, every parent is a bundle of nerves, and they hate a power vacuum.  When parents sense that their student is disengaged, they engage more forcefully.  So don’t give them the chance.  Do your homework, be involved in planning the visit, and take charge of the visit once underway.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions.  This is a big decision, and you are going to make it based on information you have gathered.  This is not the same as asking a question about a proof in geometry class or about mitosis in biology. This is about your future.  Everyone (including your parents) knows that you have about a zillion questions rolling around in your brain during a college visit.  So ask a few, especially those that you think that a tour guide or an admissions officer can ask. If you can’t figure out how to formulate your own questions, perhaps memorize one or two from this list.

Don’t be afraid to talk to other students on campus, and to ask them what they like about their school.  In most cases, students on campus love their choice of college, and will be only too happy to share their thoughts with you.  You can also ask them what they don’t like—for no place is nirvana.  Usually they will readily tell you.  Of course, the answers they give will be based on their own, personal experience of that campus, and cannot be said to represent the entire student body.  But if you ask several students the same question or questions, you may find a patter that will help you confirm (or disconfirm) your own impressions.

Do focus on academic factors at least as much—if not more—than social, environmental, and geographical factors. Remember, you are choosing a school, not a vacation resort.  You will spend a great deal of time in class, studying for exams, preparing lab reports, and writing papers.  And you will spend a lot of time interacting (or not) with professors.  So try to gather relevant information about the academic program. Tour guides will all say that “professors are accessible” and the “average class size is low.”  Dig beneath those platitudes, especially when you talk to other students on campus.  Are professor-student interactions limited to office hours?  Do academic departments host activities open to all students?  Do guest lecturers come to the campus, or is there not enough of a scholarly audience (or budget) to attract them?  Do professors offer open lectures frequently about their research or other timely and interesting topics?  How active are academic societies on campus?  Do the honorary societies merely hand out certificates, or do they sponsor academic activities? How often do individual professors or departments host meals or other social events for students?

Campus visits contain some of the most important moments in the entire college selection and application process.  You need to prepare.  You need to be aware.  And you need to know what things are important to you—and which are not. As with every other aspect of the college search process, the focus should be on you:  your abilities, your preferences, your desires, your needs, your aspirations.  The primary question in your mind should be, does this campus fit me?

The more you are able to keep yourself at the center of the visit, the more productive and helpful your campus visit will be.

Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant and Professional College Tour Taker

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When touring a campus, it’s important to remember that in choosing a college you are also choosing the community in which the college or university exists.  So make time during your visit to investigate the town and the campus environs.  You should drive into the neighborhoods that surround the campus.  Be on the lookout for commercial centers near campus.  Find out if the college offers some sort of shuttle buses:  where do these go, and how regularly do they run?

As you become acquainted with the area surrounding the campus, here are a few thing to keep in mind:

Most Students Stay on Campus Most of the Time
For some students, the primary criteria for choosing a college is it’s relative proximity to a large city.  Some want to be right in the urban core.  Others want the boonies.  Others seek the best of both worlds.  The thing I always emphasize with my students is that most students spend the overwhelming majority of their college years on the campus they have chosen.  No matter whether it’s in the burg, ‘burbs, or boonies, you will spend most of your waking (and sleeping) hours in and around the campus property.

Consider Where You Will Buy Essentials
Some campuses, whether urban or suburban or rural, can be far removed from commercial centers where you might expect to do business.  Where will you buy toiletries?  Is there a drugstore or two nearby where you can pick up toothpaste, or do you need to drive to a shopping center?  What about groceries?  I used to save money by opting for a small fridge, and stocking with breakfast supplies so that I could cut down on the number of meals on my meal plan.  Think about where you’ll get your hair cut (any salons or barbershops within walking distance?).  You may find ATM machines on campus, but is there a branch bank nearby?  You may want to find out where the local student haunts are, such as the local pizza joint, the Chinese take-out place, or the burger bar.  You’ll normally find screenings of many films on campus, but if you want to rush out to see the latest release from Hollywood, how far will you have to travel and how will you get there?  Many campuses, whether remote or not, will have their own campus convenience stores and other amenities.  So it may not be absolutely essential to have a major shopping mall right nearby.  But the point of visiting the campus—and its surroundings—is to get a better picture of what your life will be like for the next four years.

Consider the Necessity of Owning a Car
The considerations above may make you think about another important life necessity in 21^st century America: the car.  Some campuses, no matter whether they are located in an urban, suburban, or rural setting, are oriented in a way that make it completely unnecessary to have your own, personal automobile.  Mass transit options may be fantastic. Or perhaps everything you’d ever want and need is within walking distance.  Other campuses may be very isolated, making it impossible to renew your toothpaste supply without a trip in the car.  Moreover, consider the activities that you plan to participate in while in college.  If, for example, you choose a campus because of it’s proximity to the ski slopes, how will you actually get to those slopes?  Is there a shuttle or regular bus service?  It is safe to hitch a ride?  Or do you need to have your own wheels?  Conversely, if you want to live in the city but envision that you will want to get out and about on the weekends (to the beach, perhaps, or into the woods as an escape), how will you get there?  Is public transportation available to get you where you want to go?  Keep in mind that some colleges and universities restrict which students can have cars on campus, and sometimes parking costs are prohibitive. If you think you really need to have a car, then make sure you know what the school’s policies are in this regard.  Also, I’ve noticed that more campuses in urban and suburban areas becoming hubs for hourly rental car services, such as Mint or ZipCar.  If you want to save a bundle on car insurance, parking fees, and car maintenance, these services will be something to check out.

Don’t Overplay Attractions That You’re Unlikely to Frequent
I hear some students (and their parents) talk about certain attractions or amenities near campuses that really don’t matter much in one’s daily life as a student.  Does it really matter how far the campus is from Disneyland?  If you don’t much care for museums or concerts, does it matter that these cultural facilities are within walking distance of campus?  Of course, just because you don’t have a lot of familiarity with particular cultural or physical features, doesn’t mean you won’t learn how to enjoy them. But put the local surroundings into their proper context: how likely is it that you will take advantage of the area surrounding the campus? And please remind yourself of the first item on this list (i.e., “most students spend most of their time on campus”) before you answer that question.  Once again, the campus should be the focal point of your college visit.  Yet understanding the surroundings will only help you in your final determination of which college fits you best.

In our final installment on planning the perfect campus visit, we’ll wind up with some general Dos and Don’ts.

Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant and Professional College Tour Taker

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Whatever the format, very little of the information you receive in this information session is different or even more useful than the things you get off the college’s website.  These presentations are often heavily scripted, and admissions folks are coached to “stay on message.”  Still, most information sessions are worth an hour of your time, if only because information you already have will be reinforced and reemphasized for you in a new way.  More information is always better than less–as long as you just keep in mind that these are also sales pitches.

Here are some elements of the presentation you are likely to hear:

Student-to-faculty ratios.  These are useless statistics that supposedly prove that the educational experience is intimate and high quality.  Read this post on student-to-faculty ratios to learn how bogus these statistics really are.  Make sure they tell you about average class sizes, and the percentage of classes that enroll fewer than 25 students.  Also ask how many lecture halls on campus accommodate more than 100 students.

Chances of admission.  You may here things about “average GPA” and “average test scores” in the presentation.  Take these with a grain of salt. These are aggregate statistics and they have little or no bearing on your individual chances of admission.  Your chances may be much better…or much worse.  If you want to ask questions that may give you a better indication, ask things like, “what percentage of your acceptances go to children of alumni?” or “what percentage of your acceptances go to recruited athletes?”

Bazillions of Clubs.  Every college inflates the number of clubs, and then also tells students that if they want to start up a new one, all they have to do is ask.  These aren’t lies.  But the number of clubs is usually inflated because the admissions office never culls the list of clubs or ensures that their figures reflect the number and kinds of clubs being administered by the Student Affairs office.  Thus you will find that a bunch of the clubs on the list have been inactive on campus for five or six years.  Of course, this is not a problem, unless you are an juggler and you see that there is a juggling club, and then you matriculate to find that there is only one member of that club:  you.  Don’t be impressed by the numbers and variety of clubs.  Be impressed if they have an active group of students that cares about the things that interest you.  So inquire as to the health and strength of the clubs that attract you the most.

We are a Community. Every campus wants you to feel welcome; that you will be loved and appreciated; that you will fit in.  So they will stand up and talk about how warm and friendly the place is.  Some people are better at delivering this message than others.  I have students who return from campus tours who have been lulled into a stupor by admissions folks who do a great job of delivering the “we are a happy family” speech.  I’m not saying that this message is untrue.  I’m only pointing out that this is a part of every college’s marketing message.  And it will be incumbent upon you, the visitor, to figure out whether or not you will feel comfortable and welcome in that community.  Don’t take some admissions representative’s word for it!

In the next installment, we’ll explore the importance of visiting the area surrounding the campus.

You may also want to check out earlier posts on general considerations for campus visits, the practicalities of a college visit, and tips for taking the campus tour.

Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant

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General Tips:

• Arrive early.  Sometimes visitor parking is not right next to the admissions office. Leave yourselves time to get lost and found again.
• Sign in at the front desk in the admissions office.  Colleges collect information about which applicants go on tours and which do not.  You want to make sure your name is on the right list.
• Confirm at the front desk any other arrangements or appointments you have made on campus, including meetings with professors, coaches, or interviews with admissions officers.  Make sure you have phone numbers and email addresses of the people you plan to meet.  The admissions staff can sometimes help you confirm these meetings.

The Tour

1. Don’t base your impression of the school on your impression of the tour guide. Some guides are great. Some are not. Some guides are people with whom you will instantly click.  Others will have personalities that turn you off.  Remember that the guide is only one student of hundreds or thousands (or tens of thousands).  This person is only your guide—a paid member of the admissions office staffl—and not an elected or official representative of the entire student body.
2. Remember that the student tour guides are told which route to take, which buildings or programs to highlight, and are coached on how to answer certain kinds of questions.  But there may be many questions that either too technical (e.g., “are chemistry exams normed or curved?”) or too specific (e.g., “what percentage of the student body majors in chemistry?”) for them to answer well. This is why you must find ways to get answers to those questions—from faculty, from admissions staff, or from other students.
3. Keep in mind that the dorms shown on the tour may be the nicest on campus.  Ask the tour guide about his or her freshman dorm and current living arrangements.  Ask which is the worst freshman dorm on campus (and perhaps pay a visit to that one after the tour!).
4. Similarly, the classrooms you will be shown may or may not be representative.  Often you will be shown very nice classrooms; ask about the classrooms in which the tour guide is now taking classes.  Where are those classrooms, and how do they compare with the one you are viewing?  Are they larger?  Smaller?  More or less technologically equipped?  You want to get a sense of the variety of classroom spaces on campus.  Science students, especially, should be sure to see the science laboratory spaces.
5. Take note of which buildings and facilities were not on the tour.  If the library is not on the tour, I take it as a red flag and make a beeline for it as soon as the tour is over.  If there are particular facilities that you want to learn about and that interest you (e.g., the dance studio, art classrooms, labs, swimming pool), either ask whether you will have time on the tour to visit, or get directions on where to find these places after your tour.
6. After the tour, continue to wander the campus. Take your time.  Sample campus food.  Visit the student center.  Pick up a student newspaper.  Read bulletin boards.  Wander the academic buildings, especially those in which you have a keen academic interest.  And if you pass a professor’s office and the door is open, poke your head in, introduce yourself, and ask a couple of questions about the students on campus.  You’ll be amazed at how forthright professors can be!

In the next installment, we’ll talk about how to interpret the official “information session” that either precedes or follows the official campus tour.

Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant

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A previous post gave you some general considerations as you plan your campus visit.  What follows is a short list of practical tips to help you in your planning.

1. Check the website to know what times tour and information sessions begin.  These are usually scheduled back-to-back, but it makes little difference which one you do first.  If requested, sign up for information session and tour in advance.
2. Make an appointment for an interview with an admissions officer.  All but a few colleges will encourage personal interviews, so take advantage of the opportunity.  Check out this list of questions to ask an admissions counselor.
3. Consider making an appointment to visit with a professor in a department in which you have a particular strength or interest.  Often the admissions office will help facilitate these appointments for you.  But it can be much better if you contact the professor yourself and request a brief appointment—this shows initiative and interest (two things that admissions counselors like to see).
4. Athletes should also plan to meet with the coach or coaches.  You should contact the coach directly for an appointment.  Check out our list of questions to ask college athletic coaches.
5. Performing arts students should also plan for an interview or audition.  The admissions office may facilitate these meetings, or you may have to call the departments directly.
6. If your visit takes place on a weekday, try to sit in on a class.  The admissions office may be able to help you make these arrangements, so ask well in advance.
7. Plan to take advantage of overnight stay options for students.  These are great ways for the applicant to meet a variety of students and to get a ground-level view of the campus from a student’s perspective.  You are considering spending four years on this campus, so you may as well spend a night before you apply so that you can imagine what the experience may be like.
8. Print out and take with you several copies of your résumé, put them in a folder, and carry them with you during your visit.
9. Plan to dress neatly.  No need for the cocktail dress or the suit and tie.  But don’t look slovenly, either:  decent slacks, decent shirt or blouse, decent shoes.  Your appearance is important, especially if you have arranged interviews or meetings with coaches or professors.

Our next installment will provide some guidance on how to get the most out of the official admissions tour and the general information session.

Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant

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Here is the list by college in alphabetical order.  Feel free to contribute your own in the comments, and I’ll incorporate them in the full list.

Be sure to give details of who the person is (in case the person is not immediately recognizable to all).

ALBION COLLEGE, Albion, MI

• Rick Smith, ‘68, Former editor-in-chief of Newsweek
• Stanley Kresge–founder of Kmart
• Cedric Dempsey–former Executive Director of the NCAA

ALLEGHENY COLLEGE, Meadville, PA

• Clarence Darrow – noted American lawyer in the Scopes Monkey Trials.
• William McKinley – 25th President of the United States

AUGSBURG COLLEGE, Minneapolis, MN

• Dr. Peter Agre, 2003 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry
• Rev. Mark Hanson: Currently the Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
• Martin Sabo. Former U.S. Representative from Minnesota. Served in the House from 1979-2007

AUGUSTANA COLLEGE (IL)

• Brenda Barnes, CEO of Sara Lee

BARD COLLEGE

• Chevy Chase, actor

BARNARD COLLEGE, New York, NY

• Martha Stewart, designer, author, publisher, home guru

BATES COLLEGE, Lewiston, ME

• Dom DeLuise, Class of 1955, American Golden Globe-nominated actor, comedian, film director, and chef
• Bryant Gumbel, Class of 1970, American television journalist
• Michelle Chong, Class of 2000, actress in Singapore television and film
• Daniel Stedman, Class of 2001, Cannes Film Festival winning filmmaker
• Frances Carroll, Class of 1939, and John Googin, Class of 1944, Manhattan Project scientists
• Edith K. MacRae, Class of 1940, Biochemist at M.I.T., first female on the biology faculty

BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY, Lewisburg, PA

• Kenneth Langone, the CEO of Home Depot

BUTLER UNIVERSITY, Indianapolis, IN

• Arthur C. Cope American chemist and originator of the Cope elimination and Cope rearrangement
• George Daugherty (Conductor of major American and International symphony orchestras; Emmy Winner and 5 time Emmy nominee.)
• Jay B. Love (CEO of eTapestry)

CARLETON COLLEGE, Northfield, MN

• Peter Tork, musician, member rock band “The Monkees”
• Thorstein Veblen, class of 1880, American economist and author of The Theory of the Leisure Class.
• Barrie M. Osborne, class of 1966, producer of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
• Jack Barnes, class of 1961, the leader of the Socialist Workers Party (USA).
• Garrick Utley, class of 1961, journalist.

CARROLL COLLEGE

• Steven Burd, CEO of Safeway

CARTHAGE COLLEGE, Kenosha, WI

• Alden W. Clausen, former President of the World Bank

CLAREMONT McKENNA COLLEGE, Claremont, CA

• Henry Kravis ‘67 and  George R. Roberts ‘66- Founding partners, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR)

COLGATE COLLEGE, Hamilton, NY

• Howard Fineman the Chief Political Correspondent of Newsweek
• Andy Rooney, humorist on TV’s “60 Minutes”
• Bob Woodruff, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist

COLORADO COLLEGE, Colorado Springs, CO

• Ken Salazar, United States Secretary of the Interior, Former United States Senator from Colorado
• James Heckman, class of ‘65, winner of 2000 Nobel Prize for Economics
• Jane Lubchenco ’69, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Neal Baer ’78, physician and executive producer and writer of “ER” and “Law & Order”
• Marcia McNutt ’74, director of the U.S. Geological Survey
• Abdul Aziz Abdul Ghani ‘62, former prime minister of Yemen

DAVIDSON COLLEGE, Davidson, NC

• Stephen MacMillan, CEO of Stryker
• Dean Rusk, United States Secretary of State (1961-1969)
• Charles Wright, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, chancellor of The Academy of American Poets, winner of the Library of Congress’ lifetime achievement Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry award
• John Chidsey, CEO, Burger King, Inc. (2006-current)

DENISON UNIVERSITY, Granville, OH

• Michael Eisner, former CEO of Disney
• Steve Carell, film and television actor

UNIVERSITY OF DENVER, Denver, CO

• David Adkins, the comedian known as “Sinbad”
• Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor, The New York Times
• Condoleeza Rice, former United States Secretary of State and National Security Adviser
• Peter Morton, founder, Hard Rock Cafe chain
• Heidi Ganahl, founder, Camp Bow Wow chain
• Ibrahim A. Assaf, finance minister, Saudi Arabia
• Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman, Emirates Airlines

DePAUW UNIVERSITY, Greencastle, IN

• Lee Hamilton – co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, vice chair of the 9/11 Commission, and retired United States Representative
• Vernon Jordan Jr. – noted broker and executive, former president of the National Urban League, advisor to Bill Clinton
• Percy Julian – research chemist of international renown and a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs
• Barbara Kingsolver – contemporary fiction writer, founder of Bellwether Prize for “literature of social change”
• Dan Quayle – 44th Vice President of the United States under George H. W. Bush
• Ferid Murad ‘58, Nobel Prize recipient
• James Stewart ‘73, Pulitzer Prize winning author
• Angie Hicks ‘95, CEO, Founder of Angie’s List

EARLHAM COLLEGE, Richmond, IN

• Laura Sessions Stepp – Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for

EMORY AND HENRY COLLEGE, Emory, VA

• Richard Joshua Reynolds, founder of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco

EUREKA COLLEGE, Eureka, IL

• Ronald Reagan, President of the United States

GONZAGA UNIVERSITY, Spokane, WA

• Bing Crosby, Actor and Singer
• Tom Foley, former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

GRINNELL COLLEGE, Grinnell, IA

• Gary Cooper, screen actor
• Robert Noyce (founder of Intel, inventor of the microchip)
• Herbie Hancock, jazz musician
• Joseph Welch (“Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”)
• Tom Cech ‘70, 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• Ed Hirsch, ‘72, Poet and President of the Guggenheim Foundation
• Nordahl Brue ‘67, cofounder of Bruegger’s Bagels
• Emily Bergl ‘97, actress

HAMILTON COLLEGE, Clinton, NY

• B.F. Skinner, Psychologist
• A. G. Lafley, class of 1969; CEO of Procter & Gamble; ; named one of America’s Best Leaders by US News
• Dan Nye, class of 1988; Former CEO of LinkedIn
• Melinda Wagner, class of 1979 – winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in Music Composition

HAVERFORD COLLEGE, Haverford, PA

• Howard Lutnick ‘83, Chairman and CEO of the Cantor Fitzgerald Company
• Juan Williams ‘76 Philosophy, National Public Radio senior correspondent
• Dave Barry ‘69 English, Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist
• Daniel Dae Kim, television actor (“Lost”), with a major in political science

HIRAM COLLEGE, Hiram, OH

• Dean Scarborough, CEO of Avery Dennison (the labels people!)

HOLLINS UNIVERSITY, Roanoke, VA

• Margaret Wise Brown, author of Goodnight Moon (one of my personal favorites!)

ITHACA COLLEGE, Ithaca, NY

• Robert Iger, CEO of Disney (who succeeded Michel Eisner of Denison)
• Jessica Savitch (B.S. 1968), first female network news anchor
• Chris Regan (1989), Emmy Award-winning writer for The Daily Show from 1999-2006.
• Barbara Gaines (B.A. 1979), Emmy Award-winning executive producer, Late Show with David Letterman

KENYON COLLEGE, Gambier, OH

• Rutherford B. Hayes, President of the United States
• Olaf Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden
• Carl Djerassi, Creator of the birth control pill, winner of the National Medal of Science
• Laura Hillenbrand, writer, author of Seabiscuit: An American Legend
• James Wright, Poet, Winner of Pulitzer Prize
• Paul Newman, Actor, winner of Emmy Award and Academy Award
• E.L. Doctorow— Award winning novelist
• Allison Janney–Emmy winning actress (“The West Wing”)

LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY, Appleton, WI

• Thomas Steitz (‘62), 2009 Nobel Prize for Chemistry
• Campbell Scott (‘82), film and television actor
• Tom Oreck (‘73), president and CEO of the Oreck Corporation
• Terry Moran (‘82), Anchor of ABC News “Nightline”

MACALESTER COLLEGE, St. Paul, MN

• Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations

MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE, Middlebury, VT

• Lado Gurgenidze, Prime Minister of Georgia
• Dan Schulman, CEO of Virgin Mobile USA
• Vivian Schiller, CEO of National Public Radio
• Reuben Mark, former CEO of Colgate-Palmolive
• Jim Davis, Chairman of New Balance,and listed in the top 400 of Forbes’ wealthiest Americans
• Eve Ensler, playwright, The Vagina Monologues
• Sam Daly, television actor (“The Office”)
• Members of the band “Dispatch”:   Chad Urmston, Brad Corrigan, and Pete Heimbold

MILLSAPS COLLEGE, Jackson, MS

• Johnny Carson, former TV host of The Tonight Show on NBC
• Lisa D’Amour, Obie Award winning playwright

MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE, South Hadley, MA

• Emily Dickinson 1848
• Frances Perkins 1902, the first woman to be appointed to a presidential cabinet (by FDR)
• Dr. Virginia Apgar 1929, developer of the Apgar score, an internationally recognized test for evaluating the health of newborns
• Virginia Hamilton Adair 1933, Poet
• Ella Grasso 1940, first woman governor elected in her own right; recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom
• Gloria Johnson-Powell 1958, first African American woman to attain tenure at Harvard Medical School
• Elaine Chao 1975, former US Secretary of Labor
• Wendy Wasserstein 1971, playwright, winner of the Tony Award, the Dramatists Guild Award, and the Pulitzer Prize.
• Priscilla Painton 1980, editor-in-chief, Simon & Schuster; former executive editor, Time magazine

MUSKINGUM COLLEGE, New Concord, OH

• John Glenn, Astronaut, Senator, Candidate for President of the United States

NEW SCHOOL, New York, NY

• Jack Kerouac, author

OBERLIN COLLEGE

• Jeff Greenfield, founder of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream

OKLAHOMA CITY UNIVERSITY, Oklahoma City, OK

• Kristin Chenowith, Tony and Emmy award winning actor

POMONA COLLEGE, Claremont, CA

• Robert Shaw, noted choral conductor
• Kris Kristofferson, singer, songwriter, and actor (and Rhodes Scholar!)

PROVIDENCE COLLEGE

• Raymond Flynn, former Mayor of Boston
• Rich Gotham, President, Boston Celtics
• Jack Tretton, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment
• Arthur F. Ryan, former CEO of Prudential

REED COLLEGE

• Kate Christensen , 1986 – novelist, winner of 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
• Peter Norton , 1965 – creator of the Norton Utilities
• Larry Sanger , 1991 – co-founder of Wikipedia

RIPON COLLEGE, Ripon, WI

• Harrison Ford, actor (“Raiders of the Lost Ark”)
• Richard Threlkeld, television news correspondent with CBS for 25 years

ROANOKE COLLEGE

• John McAfee, founder of McAfee
• Jay Piccola, President of Puma North America

ST. JOHN’S UNIVERSITY, Collegeville, MN

• Eugene McCarthy, former U.S. Senator, author, and Presidential candidate
• Denis McDonough (‘92), Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications to President Barack Obama.
• George Sinner (‘50), Governor of North Dakota 1985-1992
• Stephen Sommers, movie director

ST. OLAF COLLEGE, Northfield, MN

• Ward Klein, CEO of Energizer Holdings (think of the bunny…)

SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE

• Rahm Emmanuel, former member of the US House of Representatives, Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama

SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSTY, Georgetown, TX

• John Tower – U.S. Senator from Texas (1961–1988)

STETSON UNIVERSITY

• Larry Johnston, CEO of Albertson’s

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE

• Michael Dukakis, Presidential Candidate and former Governor of Massachusetts
• James Michener, historical novelist

TRINITY COLLEGE, Washington, DC

• Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (first woman to hold the office)
• Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, former Governor of Kansas

TUFTS UNIVERSITY, Medford, MA

• Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

UNION COLLEGE

• Richard Templeton, CEO of Texas Instruments

VASSAR COLLEGE, Poughkeepsie, NY

• Meryl Streep, film actress
• Lisa Kudrow, television actress (“Friends”)

WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY

• Pat Robertson, Christian televangelist
• Mike Henry, writer for the television series “Family Guy”
• Fielder Cook, Director and Producer of the classic television series, “The Waltons”
• Meriwether Lewis, explorer and private secretary to Thomas Jefferson

WELLESLEY COLLEGE, Wellesley, MA

• Hillary Rodham Clinton, US Secretary of State and former Senator from New York

WHEATON COLLEGE, Norton, MA

• Christine Todd Whitman – Former Governor of New Jersey and former head of the E.P.A., appointed by George W. Bush in 2001.
• Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck – King of Bhutan
• Prince Shad Al-Sherif Pasha of The Hijaz & Turkey
• Catherine Keener (Oscar-nominated actress (“Being John Malkovich”  “Capote”)

WHEELING JESUIT UNIVERSITY, Wheeling, WV

• Michael Mulligan, former CEO of Mapquest
• Lionel Cartwright, Country Musician

WHITMAN COLLEGE, Walla Walla, WA

• Keiko Agena, actress (“Gilmore Girls”)
• Adam West, actor (“Batman,” “Family Guy”)
• Ralph Cordiner, CEO and Chairman of General Electric
• William O. Douglas, United States Supreme Court Justice

WHITTIER COLLEGE, Whittier, CA

• Richard Nixon, President of the United States

WILLIAMS COLLEGE, Williamstown, MA

• Stephen Sondheim, composer
• Arthur Levitt, longest serving Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission
• George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees
• James Garfield, President of the United States
• A.R. Gurney, playwright
• Clarence Otis, CEO of Darden Restaurants (Red Lobster and Olive Garden)
• Thomas Krens, former director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York City
• Elia Kazan, film director
• Lee Hom Wang, one of the most popular Chinese pop music stars worldwide

WOFFORD COLLEGE, Spartanburg, SC

• Michael J. Copps, Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission
• Paul S. Atkins, Commissioner of Securities and Exchange Commission
• Jerry Richardson, owner of the Carolina Panthers

COLLEGE OF WOOSTER, Wooster, OH

• Karl Taylor Compton, past president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Stephen Donaldson, New York Times best selling author
• Stanley Gault,  Former CEO Rubbermaid
• George Fitch, Co-founder of the Jamaican Bobsled Team

Please, add your own in the comments!

Mark Montgomery
College Counselor and Fan of Liberal Arts Colleges

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This is the first in a series of tips to help you plan your campus visits.  We begin with some general considerations.

When to Visit
As a prospective student, the best time to visit a college is when classes are in session.  This is when you will find both students and professors populating and animating a campus.  That said, it may be difficult for you and your family to take the time (and shoulder the expense) of traveling around the country during the school year.  Summertime or school vacations may be the only time available to you.  In that case, absolutely use the time you have available.  No matter when you visit, make sure you plan ahead to get the most out of it.

Why You Should Visit
There are two reasons to visit a campus.  The first is relatively obvious:  you need to obtain a physical sense of the campus where you plan to spend four years of your life.  You want to go beyond the websites and brochures and guide books to get a personal impression of the campus and the people who inhabit it.   However there is a second and equally important reason to visit a campus.  These visits demonstrate your interest in that campus—and “demonstrated interest” is often part of the decision colleges make about whom to accept and whom to reject.  Admissions officers like to accept students who are genuinely interested in their community.  Some colleges won’t even accept students who live within easy driving distance of campus if they haven’t made the effort to pay a visit.  Therefore, you need to ensure that the admissions office knows you will be coming for a visit. Even if you cannot arrive during normal office hours, or if you arrive on Sunday, or if you can only visit on Thanksgiving, be sure to email the admissions office in advance to let them know.  You want these folks to know that you cared enough to pay them a visit.  Check out this list of tips on how to connect and communicate with college admissions people

Visit in the Afternoon and Evening
Often colleges plan visits for the morning. Some offer tours at 9 am.  This may be convenient for travelers, but a morning tour will give you a skewed sense of any college campus in America. Why? Because college students do not fully wake up until noon!  Classes may be in session in the morning, but you generally will  not feel the buzz and bustle of any campus until about 4 pm.  One of my favorite times to really get a sense of a campus is around the dinner hour.  Athletes are returning from practice, music and arts rehearsals are getting underway, student centers are vibrating with activity, and academic lectures and events are about to begin.

Fewer Visits, More Time for Each
One of the common problems with the “grand college tour” that many families organize is that campuses all begin to look the same after a couple of days.  Even for a “professional college tour taker” like me, I find that my eyes start to glaze over after the eighth college in three days.  My general advice is to target the three or four campuses that are most likely—given your research—to fit you well.  Don’t waste time visiting a campus just because it’s nearby or along a route.  If you have invested time in researching the best colleges for you, then you should be able to eliminate a bunch from your itinerary.  Usually I advise my clients not to visit more than three or four in a single trip.

Take Your Time
The simple answer: as much time as you possibly can.  Remember that you are not simply choosing a piece of real estate on which to hang your hat for four years.  You are not choosing a resort or a spa. You are choosing where to invest your educational dollars.  You are selecting a community of which you want to be an integral part for as much as five percent of your human life span. A two-hour dash across the campus will not very helpful in guiding your decisions.  Again, it’s better to visit fewer campuses, but to explore each more thoroughly and carefully than to zip from one campus to the next to see as many as possible.  So take your time, using these tips as your guide for how best to organize that time.

In the next installment, we’ll discuss some of the practicalities of planning a successful campus visit.

Mark Montgomery
Independent College Counselor

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More than 1,000 applicants took the challenge. This practice may revolutionize admissions. I wonder how many other colleges will offer this option next year?

Take a look at this article from the The Boston Globe.  You can also see this article from the New York Times.  And if you want to see some of the videos, just hit YouTube an go for Tufts Admissions. You’ll find bazillions.  See which ones impress you!

Mark Montgomery
Educational Planner