Today's spotlight takes us to the Pacific Northwest where we find the University of Puget Sound. Located in Tacoma, Washington, the University of Puget Sound offers students the cultural benefits of a city with close proximity to the Cascade and Olympic Mountain ranges.

Academically, Puget Sound has many strengths, and the school frequently ranks among the top 100 liberal arts colleges in the country. The university has selective admissions, and its strong liberal arts and sciences have earned it a chapter of the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society.

The University of Puget Sound is a private college with a hefty total price tag, but the school does well with financial aid. Over 80% of students receive grant aid from the university.

Every week I spotlight a great college that might be off the radar of college applicants. If you'd like to recommend a school for a future spotlight, please do so here in the College Admissions forum. And if you're familiar with the University of Puget Sound, please share your impressions below.

To learn more about the University of Puget Sound, be sure to check out my Puget Sound admissions profile and visit the school's official website.

Related Reading:

• Top Liberal Arts Colleges
• Colleges Featured in the 2009 Spotlights
• Why Phi Beta Kappa Matters

The economy has driven more and more students to community colleges. Many adults are returning to school to further their educations and create more employment opportunities. Also, many traditional-aged college students are looking to save money by completing two years at a community college before transferring to a four-year institution.

At the same time, however, nearly all state budgets are in crisis, and cuts are being made to publicly-funded community colleges and state universities. The results aren't pretty -- just when community colleges are most in demand, some are having to cut back on course offerings and financial aid. Students can also expect to see larger classes and more adjunct faculty members.

For a more thorough discussion of the issue, check out Valerie Strauss' article in the Washington Post.

Related Reading:

• 5 Reasons to Consider a Community College
• The Hidden Costs of Community College

I recently read advice in a newspaper column stating that it doesn't matter which AP courses a student takes. This advice isn't entirely true. On the one hand, any AP course is better than none -- a student's academic record is the most important piece of the college application, and college's want to see that students have taken the most challenging courses available. Those are usually Advanced Placement courses.

At the same time, some subjects are more challenging than others, and some subjects are more likely to receive college placement than others. As an obvious example, the Calculus BC exam is going to provide greater college placement than the Calculus AB exam. For a student going into science or engineering, the Calculus BC exam will be far more impressive than AB.

Also, nearly every college has a language requirement, so the language AP exams are often a good choice. A subject like microeconomics, however, may or may not result in college credit.

If you know where you'd like to go to college, browse the college website to see which AP classes are most likely to give you course credit and placement. Doing so can have huge benefits when you're fulfilling your undergraduate degree requirements.

Related AP Articles:

• AP Courses -- Why They Matter
• What AP Exam Score Do You Need?
• The AP Calculus BC Exam
• The AP Spanish Language Exam
• The AP U.S. History Exam

With the current economic climate, I've been focusing many of my spotlights on colleges and universities that are recognized as great values. In the new edition of Fiske's Guide to Colleges 2010, Binghamton University appears near the top of Fiske's "Best Buy Schools of 2010." For 2008-09, the total cost of Binghamton University was $17,646 for in-state students and $23,906 for out-of-state. That number for out-of-staters is particularly noteworthy, for many states really hike the price for students who aren't state residents (the University of California system, for example, raises tuition $20,000 for out-of-state students, essentially making a public university cost as much as top private colleges).

Fiske's designation of a "best buy" isn't about just price--it considers what you get for your money. Binghamton University is one of the strongest schools in the SUNY network, and it ranks highly among all public research universities in the country. The 6-year graduation rate is significantly above typical state universities, the school has a strong international focus, and it hosts a chapter of the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society for its strengths in the liberal arts and sciences.

A word of caution: New York State has huge budgetary problems, so prospective students should keep a careful watch on Binghamton University's costs--SUNY funding is under attack by state legislators, and changes in tuition are likely.

Every week I spotlight a great college that might be off the radar of college applicants. If you'd like to recommend a school for a future spotlight, please do so here in the College Admissions forum. And if you're familiar with Binghamton University, please share your impressions below.

To learn more about Binghamton University, be sure to check out my Binghamton admissions profile and visit the school's official website.

Related Reading:

• Colleges Featured in the 2009 Spotlights
• Why Phi Beta Kappa Matters
• Comparison of SAT Scores for SUNY Campuses

Reader chowiespiegel asked a difficult question about diversity in the College Admissions Forum today:

I hate the word diversity (in general, because it smacks of superficial Political Correctness), but in the context of College Admissions, what does it REALLY mean? Does a Tier2 school REALLY want ANOTHER white kid from an upper-middle class family with perfect grades and 2000-ish SAT's?

Visit any college website and you'll immediately see the school's efforts to brand itself as diverse--the landing page will often show a group of racially diverse students having a fun time learning. When it comes to college admissions, however, diversity is about more than race. It is also geographic, economic and cultural. Furthermore, colleges want students with diverse talents and interests.

In general, most respectable colleges believe that the best learning environment is one in which students come from a wide range of backgrounds and have a wide range of interests.

Visit the forum to share your thoughts on this often controversial issue.

Today's spotlight takes us to Asheville, North Carolina, where we find an interesting place that is truly distinct from other liberal arts colleges. Warren Wilson College's curriculum has a "triad" of requirements: liberal arts and sciences courses, participation in a campus work program and community service. The campus includes a 300-acre farm, 650 acres of forest and 25 miles of hiking trails. The college isn't for everyone, and students might just get a little dirt under their fingernails. The school's slogan sums up the place well: "We're not for everyone...but then, maybe you're not everyone."

The college frequently appears on lists of "best value colleges" and "greenest campuses." Not surprisingly, Environmental Studies is the most popular major at Warren Wilson. Fiske just released their "Top Financial Finds of 2010," and Warren Wilson was in the top seven along with Cooper Union, Elon University, University of Iowa, University of Mary Washington, Olin College, and Binghamton University.

Every week I spotlight a great college that might be off the radar of college applicants. If you'd like to recommend a school for a future spotlight, please do so here in the College Admissions forum. And if you're familiar with the Warren Wilson College, please share your impressions below.

To learn more about Warren Wilson College, be sure to check out the Warren Wilson profile and visit the school's official website.

With the current economic downturn, the number of students going to community college has gone up significantly. The logic is simple -- a student can save tens of thousands of dollars by spending two years in community college and then transferring to a four-year college. Indeed, there are many good reasons to go to community college, and community colleges make higher education accessible to millions of people who would otherwise have difficulty furthering their educations.

However, you need to be deliberate and careful if you plan to transfer from community college to a four-year college. If all of your credits don't transfer or if you've chosen community college classes that don't fulfill major requirements at the four-year college, you may find that you need more than four years to complete your bachelor's degree. If this happens, your cost savings suddenly disappear.

To learn more, be sure to read the article on the possible hidden costs of community college. If you've had a frustrating experience transferring from a community college to a four-year school, please share your experiences with other readers.

On June 13th, thousands of prospective college students took the ACT. The role of standardized tests in college admissions has been much debated in recent years, but the bottom line is that the majority of 4-year colleges and universities still require either ACT or SAT scores. At the same time, the number of test-optional colleges continues to grow steadily.

So how much do ACT scores matter? Nearly all colleges will say that a student's high school record carries more weight than standardized test scores. At the same time, many applicants will end up in the rejection pile if their scores are significantly lower than averages for the school. Interesting extracurricular activities and a strong high school record can help make up for low test scores, but the strongest applicants will have strength in all three areas.

Most colleges present the ACT scores of enrolled students as two numbers: the 25th percentile and the 75th percentile. In other words, the numbers represent the middle 50% of scores for students who enroll at the college. The charts below provide comparisons of ACT scores for a range of colleges and universities:

• ACT scores for the Ivy League
• ACT scores for top universities
• ACT scores for top liberal arts colleges
• ACT scores for top public universities
• ACT scores for the University of California campuses

ACT scores for the June 13th exam will be available at the ACT website beginning on June 24th.

Today's spotlight takes us to California's San Joaquin Valley where we find the University of California at Merced. If you've never heard of the school, that's probably because it didn't exist a decade ago. The first classes were held in 2005 -- UC Merced was the first American research university built in the 21st century. The Regents of the University of California chose the San Joaquin Valley region for a new campus because of pressures on other UC campuses, and because the region was underrepresented in the University of California system.

So far, UC Merced's greatest strengths are in science and engineering, but the university is expanding and has schools of management and medicine in the works. For the moment, it has the lowest admissions bar of all the UC campuses, but that could quickly change in the coming years. For students with a sense of adventure, UC Merced provides an environment where they can help define the future of this emerging and promising university.

The campus sits by Lake Yosemite about seven miles from downtown Merced, and designers have worked to have a minimal impact on the environment. The student body at UC Merced is remarkably diverse.

Every week I spotlight a great college that might be off the radar of college applicants. If you'd like to recommend a school for a future spotlight, please do so here in the College Admissions forum. And if you're familiar with the University of California at Merced, please share your impressions below.

To learn more about the University of California at Merced, be sure to check out the UC Merced profile and visit the school's official website.

Related Links:

• Colleges Featured in the Weekly Spotlights
• The University of California System
• A Side-By-Side Comparison of the UC Campuses
• SAT Scores for the UC Campuses

The New York Times reported yesterday that Reed College, thanks to the economic downturn, had to alter its admissions policies in an effort to enroll wealthier students. The Times article states that before Reed College sent out acceptance letters, it had to drop 100 financially needy students from the accepted-student list in favor of students who could pay their way. Similarly, when the highly-ranked college turned to its waitlist, it chose students who could pay their way. Paying for Reed without financial aid is no small accomplishment -- Reed, like most of the country's elite colleges and universities, has a total price tag of around $50,000 a year.

Reed's actions aren't as unusual as one might think. Even at $50,000 a year, nearly all colleges have operating costs that are significantly higher than tuition revenues. Much of the money for financial aid at private colleges typically comes from the endowment. When the endowment suddenly loses 40% of its value, something has to give. Most colleges have already implemented hiring and pay freezes. The remaining options aren't attractive -- cut programs, fire untenured faculty, eliminate important student support services, sell property, cancel necessary upgrades and building projects, and/or, as Reed did, try to enroll wealthier students.

Very few colleges have truly needs-blind admissions. In fact, I've heard convincing arguments that colleges would be irresponsible if their admissions were needs-blind. Ask yourself: Is it better to admit students knowing that you can't give them enough aid to pay for college, or should you be able to meet the financial needs of the students you admit? Is a college acting responsibly if it graduates students whose families had to sell the house and take out unmanageable loans to pay the bills?

Please share your thoughts below.

Related Reading:

• Reed College Profile
• 10 Top Liberal Arts Colleges
• Can You Afford College?