I talked with two different families this past week that did not know what a liberal arts college was so I thought it was a good time to revisit some basics.

Liberal arts colleges are small, generally about 3,000 or fewer undergraduate students.  They typically have no graduate students so the teaching is focused on the undergraduates.

Liberal arts colleges have a focus on providing students an education that is not limited to one area. This is referred to as a liberal arts education. Typically, students in a liberal arts college will take courses in the first two years of college in many fields.

These might include humanities subjects like history, philosophy and art. They may also take classes in the social sciences like economics, political science and psychology.  And yes, they will include science and math classes.

The goal during these first two years is to help students learn to think in ways they may not have considered before and to learn to communicate both orally and in writing. For those of you who believe students should learn a trade in college, this may not sound very important.

But, if you can not communicate adequately in any job, you will not succeed.  If you can not think outside your own little world, when challenged with the changing society we live in, you may crash and burn.

After the first two years, students decide what they are most interested in and choose a major. During the last two years in college, the students focuses their education on classes in their major although they will typically still take a few classes outside their major.

All liberal arts colleges will have the basic majors like history, economics, math and, a surprise to many, chemistry, biology and physics.  Yes, the sciences are not only available at liberal arts colleges, they are often among the strongest science programs offered at any type of college.

The other distinguishing factor of the liberal arts colleges is that they only teach undergraduate students.  Most also don’t have business majors or engineering majors. The few that do treat these majors like any other major which you enter after getting the broad based education the first two years.

Most universities that teach undergraduates at a general college do so by providing a liberal arts education. Any one hear of Harvard College?  Yup, the basis of the education at Harvard is a liberal arts education.

When you are considering which colleges to apply to, if you are looking for a smaller college that will provide a great education, consider a liberal arts college.

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I hate to tell you this but the stated admission rates for the typical student to highly selective colleges is actually less than stated. How is that possible?

When you subtract legacy students, athletic recruits, and underrepresented populations, the actual admission rate for ordinary students is much lower than commonly stated.  The actual rate isn’t known because colleges don’t want to disclose this kind of information but students applying to highly selective colleges need to be aware of this.

Does this mean you shouldn’t apply?  Of course not. But when applying to a highly selective college make sure that you also have some less selective colleges you are applying to.

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Some colleges have recently been putting together programs that allow students to graduate from college in 3 years rather than 4 years.

The first time I read about these types of programs I burst out laughing. Why?

According to the US Department of Education just over 50% of students who enter a 4 year college graduate in 6 years. That’s right. Half of students don’t graduate after 6 years. And colleges are concerned about allowing students to graduate in 3 years?

I have to wonder why colleges think that students will be able to graduate in 3 years when they can’t get half of their students to graduate in 6 years. Will some students get through in 3 years? Sure. But I am much more concerned about the 50% of students who don’t graduate after 6 years. Why don’t these colleges focus on getting those students graduated?

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If you live in California you already know that you have a strong system in the University of California. And you know that each year it is getting harder to get into one of the nine UC colleges.

But, if you live in one of the other 49 states, it is getting easier to get admitted to the University of California. According to a new report from the LA Times, 18.1% of students accepted this year were from outside California. Just two years ago only 11.6% of accepted students were from outside the state.

At Berkeley 31% of acceptance offers went to out state students while almost 30% of acceptances at UCLA were out state.

The reason for this substantial increase in the number of out state acceptances is the need for increased revenue at the universities. Out state tuition at the UC system is about the same as the tuition at the top private colleges.

While this is bad news if you live in California, for students who are willing to pay $50,000 a year to attend one of the UC campuses, this is good news. Whether it is a good idea to pay that kind of money when the UC system is cutting back on teachers and increasing already large class sizes is a matter of opinion.

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I’m Jewish. I’m Hindu. I’m not going to a “Christian” college. I am not interested in having someone else tell me what I should think about spirituality.

Any of these statements sound like something you might say? You are not alone. Many students won’t even consider a college that has a church affiliation. But as Bob Dylan said, “The Times They Are a-Changin.”

The Huffington Post recently had a review of Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania. If you are not familiar with Muhlenberg it is a small liberal arts college of 2,200 students affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. And 34% of its students are Jewish.

Wants a kosher menu at the student union? Got it. Want a Hillel House? Got it. Want a partnership with Jewish Theological Seminary in New York? Got it.

There are also no required religion classes and no required church attendance.

Inside Higher Ed has also recently examined the changes occurring at some colleges that have historic ties to different Christian Colleges.  Elmhurst College in suburban Chicago started as a seminary for the United Church of Christ, one of the most liberal Christian churches.

Over the years the college moved away from its background and became very secular.  In the past few years,however, Elmhurst has been refocusing its mission to present a Christian dialogue very different from the conservative Christian voice typically heard. The focus is now on intellectual excellence, community, social responsibility, service and ministry.

Wagner College in New York City, affiliated with the Lutheran Church, has opened the doors to its chapel to the Muslim, Jewish and Hindu students on campus. The focus of the campus is on a climate of acceptance and openness to exploring spirituality.

When considering which colleges you might want to apply to, don’t initially eliminate a college just because it might have a religious affiliation. Rather, look beneath the surface to see how that college views its mission.

If the mission is to push a particular faith, you might not be comfortable on that campus if you are not of that faith. But if the focus is on understanding each person’s spirituality, you might want to take a deeper look.

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If you are a junior in high school you may be thinking about possible colleges to apply to. You may have researched colleges by visiting various schools and using college guidebooks. While visiting a college can be invaluable, one of the best ways to learn what a college is really like is to follow the student newspaper.

Most student newspapers are now online and you can subscribe to their feed. By following the student newspaper you will get an unvarnished look at what life is really like on a campus.

Admissions offices only want you to see the good things about a college but you need to know the whole story. Is there a problem with crime on a campus? You can bet that the student newspaper will talk about it.  Is there dissatisfaction with the administration? You will hear about it first from the newspaper.

Students newspapers will also let you know what students find fun around campus. Reading the student newspaper is like sitting down with current students to find out what they think about their college. And you don’t even have to leave home to do so.

So, go out to the websites for colleges in which you have an interest and start following the newspapers. You might be surprised what you learn about that college.

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I just received word that the Princeton Review has published their Guide to 311 Green Colleges. In taking a quick look through the colleges on the list there were several colleges not listed that I know have very strong “green” backgrounds. So as with all college guides, take this with a grain of salt.

What I really liked, however, and I applaud Princeton Review for doing, is that the guide is online and free.  Take a look and see if your favorite college in on the list.

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Are you tired of Spanish, French and German being the only language you can study in school? Do you want to learn one of the hundreds of other languages used around the world?

If you want to study a language not commonly taught you should check out the website for Less Commonly Taught Languages at the University of Minnesota. There you can look for languages by the name of the language, the state or province where a language is taught or what colleges teach what languages.

Have you always had a burning desire to learn Akan/Twi?  That language is taught by 18 colleges.

If you have a passion for foreign languages, this website can help you narrow your search for the right college.

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Do you know how to think like a college? If not, you had better start learning how.

What do I mean by “think like a college”?  In making admissions decisions colleges know what they want to see in new students. While you may never know everything a college wants, you can understand much of their thinking.

Colleges all want good students. What that means from college to college will differ.  For some colleges, you will need to have almost all A’s to be competitive. For others C’s may be good enough. Do you need to take an AP or will a regular class work as well. Think like a college.  If the college regularly sees students with 5 or 6 AP classes, you will be at a disadvantage with only one AP.

Most colleges also like to see students with strong test scores.  Your job is to find colleges where you will be considered a good student. If the average SAT at a school is 1,800 but you have a 1,500 what will the college think? They will think you have a weak SAT score for that school but may look at your application to see if there is something else that makes you a student they want on their campus.

What do colleges want besides students with good grades and test scores? Colleges want students who will contribute to the campus. They want athletes, musicians, actors,scientists and many other types of students.

A world class musician may be able to have lower test scores than another student. The future star of the football team may have lower grades than the typical student admitted to the college.

With the most selective colleges, almost everyone applying has strong grades and strong test scores. So what do they think about in putting together a class?  Who are the interesting students. What makes a student interesting? Anything that makes that student different from every other student.

A great soccer goalie will be a desirable student for many colleges. But if a college just recruited a great goalie last year, this year’s goalie may not be of interest.

When you think like a college some of those odd admissions decisions start to make sense. Maybe that student with good grades and test scores was rejected because he didn’t add anything interesting to the college. Maybe that great flute player wasn’t accepted because the college already has an abundance of flute players.

Admissions decisions can sometimes seem random particularly when looking at the most selective colleges. Every year I just shake my head at some of the decisions I see. But, the admissions decisions make sense to that college.

So, go out there and find colleges that will think you are a great person for them to admit.

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Why do you want to go to college? To learn something? To find a job? Wouldn’t it be great if you actually learned something? Something that would help you find, and keep, a job.

A recent book, “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses” followed college students at 24 colleges around the country. Their finding? A third of the students studied showed no improvement in critical thinking skills after 4 years of college. Moreover, 35% of the students studied less than 5 hours a week and 50% didn’t have a single class that required 20 pages of writing in their previous term.

Sadly, I am not surprised by these facts. I still remember a college senior I talked with at a Thanksgiving get together several years ago.  This young women was working on her senior project and I discussed with her what she had to do to complete the project.  The research she had to do and the paper she had to write sounded very much like what my daughter did in junior high.  Just present the facts; no analysis of the findings required.

In researching colleges one of the issues you should examine is how much work will you have to do at each college you are considering. Talk to current students to see how much homework they do. How much do they have to write each semester?  Ask professors what they expect of their current students.

The answers to these questions will all give you some idea of how much work you will have to do at a particular college. And make no mistake about it. If you want to learn, you will have to work. Generally, the more you work, the more you will learn. The more you write, the better a writer you will become. Every employer likes employees who know how to work and who know how to write and communicate.

Can you drift through 4 years of college, having fun but really not learning anything? Absolutely. But those 4 years of fun won’t help you find a job or to keep a job you might get. Put in the work now, and reap the benefit for many years to come.

Are you ready to start working?

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