This week, I wrote a guest blog post for Valerie Strauss at the Washington Post Answer Sheet. You can read it here.

It was a Sunday, a day like any other Sunday.  I went to look at the NCES Digest of Education Statistics to see if any more tables from the 2013 version had been released.  To my delight, I found some interesting stuff; but most of the NCES Tables are designed to be printed as reports, […]

This post is longer than most; if you know the history and the background and just want the results, skip to the ~4~ mark. ~Some History~ In February, 2011, DePaul announced that it would become the largest private, not-for-profit university in the nation to adopt a test optional policy. There was ample precedent for this: […]

Once in a while, something comes along that can make you think deeply about everything you have held to be true.  This is not one of those times, but it does support a lot of things I’ve believed to be true, even though I was in the minority in thinking so. So, there is a […]

I admit it: At times I like provocative headlines to shake things up a bit. But I think this one is worth thinking about. Recently, on my other blog, Higher Ed Data Stories, I published a re-formatted Tableau visualization from the Chronicle of Higher Education. You can look at it here. The takeaway is that […]

I plan to keep writing using words, but I’ve also become interested in telling stories with data; and I think the stories I’m most qualified to tell are about higher education. So, I’ve launced a new blog called Higher Education Data Stories.  I hope you’ll check it out, and I hope you find it interesting. […]

Lots of my colleagues are back from Toronto, where they attended the NACAC Conference.  Lots of discussion this year, as in previous years, has focused on “stealth applicants.”  I’ve never liked this term from the very first time I heard it. In fact, I find it offensive. For those of you who don’t know, stealth […]

Or maybe I should say a second apology.  And there will probably be more to come. I had previously written an apology about how well-meaning admissions officers of my era contributed to the collective angst of a generation by using and repeating the phrase “choosing a college is one of the most important choices you’ll ever make.” […]

I like to write, and I especially like to tweet and blog, because I can dash off some thoughts without too much concern about getting it just perfect.  Most of what I put here is essentially a first draft, sometimes with a quick review for grammar, spelling, parallel construction, dangling  antecedents and other obvious mistakes. […]