College Bound Advantage

06/21/2018

Announcing our new book, Field Guide to Ohio's Best Colleges, is now available through Amazon and other online book sellers. Learn about our "Sturdy 30," Ohio's best 4-year residential colleges. Order your copy today!

06/04/2018

We're celebrating! Our new book, Field Guide to Ohio's Best Colleges, is now available through Amazon and other online book sellers. Learn about our "Sturdy 30," Ohio's best 4-year residential colleges. Order your copy today!

05/29/2018

Check our video explaining how College Bound Advantage can help you and your family streamline and simplify your college search.

04/17/2018

Check out our new video explaining how College Bound Advantage can help you and your family streamline and simplify your college search.

03/20/2018

Let’s set up camp and take a look at Ohio’s Conservatories of Music. Consider that there are only 53 public and private conservatories in the United States and Ohio has five of them, including a few that are among the best in the land.

A college “Conservatory of Music” is dedicated to training students who have a passion for music and plan for music to be central to their professional life. In choosing a conservatory, students look for a college with a strong reputation in training musicians in their chosen instrument or area of interest for a professional career. Conservatory students have opportunities to perform, conduct, or have their music played by others. This may be solo or as part of an ensemble, band, or orchestra. Some conservatories exclusively focus on music while others may expand to include musical drama and/or dance. Most conservatories focus on Western classical music and a broad range of related instruments, but some include jazz, world music, or pop music.

Alternatively, “university music departments” have historically placed more emphasis on the academic study of music instead of performance and their graduates are less likely to pursue professional careers in music. However, this varies from institution to institution with performance being emphasized more than in the past.

About the Author: After touring 60 of the best colleges in Ohio, Dr. Jay, a prior faculty member and dean, founded College Bound Advantage (CBA); a Columbus Ohio college consulting firm. CBA specializes in helping families optimize college selection around 15 “fit factors.” College Bound Advantage serves all of Ohio including Cleveland, Akron, and Cincinnati metro areas.

In order to purchase a more extensive proprietary “Campus Field Report” on any Ohio college discussed, click here: https://collegeboundadvantage.com/campus-field-report-access/
https://collegeboundadvantage.com/conservatories-music-ohios-colleges/

Ohio college counseling, Ohio College consulting, Ohio's liberal arts colleges, Ohio's public universities, College counseling, Academic counseling, Academic advisor, College Bound Advantage consultants offer prospective students a partner in making their Ohio college choice by identifying the right...

03/15/2018

Ohio is the home of five respected “passionately Christian” colleges. So, first a broad overview, and then we’ll hike a bit further down the trail and take a closer look at the four Ohio Christian colleges we visited this summer.

First, it’s important to understand that the vast majority of Ohio’s private institutions were founded in affiliation with a Christian denomination. Today, most of those institutions reflect their denominational heritage in their missions, values, curricular and co-curricular program offerings, rituals, institutional structure, and so on. However, over the years, most have become increasingly inclusive, diverse, academically focused, and their identity has become less reliant on their Christian denominational affiliation. So, that brings us to what I will call, “Ohio’s Big 5 Christian Colleges.” These colleges are intentionally Christian and work hard to integrate their faith perspective in all that they do.
So, who are they and what is the denominational affiliation of each? They include…

1. Cedarville University – Baptist
2. Franciscan University of Steubenville – Roman Catholic
3. Mount Vernon Nazarene University – Nazarene
4. Malone University – Quaker
5. Bluffton University – Mennonite

Now, from a practical “family looking for a college” perspective, what are a few of the factors that differentiate these schools from each other?

1. The nature of the “chapel requirement” – The Big 5 believe in the Christian community and, to varying degrees, bring their communities together for worship.
2. Required courses/minors – Required courses in Bible, Theology, Philosophy, and other curricular requirements vary by institution.
3. What is taught inside courses – This varies from reflecting upon what it means to be a nurse and a Christian to the study of Creationism in a biology course.
4. Opportunities for Activism – Some institutions support, to varying degrees, student activism around human rights issues.
5. Opportunities for Service – Colleges support and provide a wide-variety of service opportunities both in the US and outside to their students.
6. Required Statement of Faith – Colleges may require some combination of faculty, staff, and/or students to sign and adhere to a statement of faith aligned with the school’s values/teachings.
7. Conservative behavioral code of conduct – This varies from residence hall rules to codes of honesty.
8. Formation of small, supportive, Christian student groups for discussion and reflection.
So, let’s take a closer look at some of these vibrant Christian communities.

About the Author: After touring 60 of the best colleges in Ohio, Dr. Jay, a prior faculty member and dean, founded College Bound Advantage (CBA); a Columbus Ohio college consulting firm. CBA specializes in helping families optimize college selection around 15 “fit factors.” College Bound Advantage serves all of Ohio including Cleveland, Akron, and Cincinnati metro areas.

In order to purchase a more extensive proprietary “Campus Field Report” on any Ohio college discussed, click here: https://collegeboundadvantage.com/campus-field-report-access/

https://collegeboundadvantage.com/ohios-big-5-christian-colleges/

Ohio college counseling, Ohio College consulting, Ohio's liberal arts colleges, Ohio's public universities, College counseling, Academic counseling, Academic advisor, College Bound Advantage consultants offer prospective students a partner in making their Ohio college choice by identifying the right...

03/12/2018

Consider that there are only 53 public and private conservatories in the United States and Ohio has five of them, including a few that are among the best in the land.

A college “Conservatory of Music” is dedicated to training students who have a passion for music and plan for music to be central to their professional life. In choosing a conservatory, students look for a college with a strong reputation in training musicians in their chosen instrument or area of interest for a professional career. Conservatory students have opportunities to perform, conduct, or have their music played by others. This may be solo or as part of an ensemble, band, or orchestra. Some conservatories exclusively focus on music while others may expand to include musical drama and/or dance. Most conservatories focus on Western classical music and a broad range of related instruments, but some include jazz, world music, or pop music.

Alternatively, “university music departments” have historically placed more emphasis on the academic study of music instead of performance and their graduates are less likely to pursue professional careers in music. However, this varies from institution to institution with performance being emphasized more than in the past.

So enough talk, let’ take a look at these Ohio jewels.
About the Author: After touring 60 of the best colleges in Ohio, Dr. Jay, a prior faculty member and dean, founded College Bound Advantage (CBA); a Columbus Ohio college consulting firm. CBA specializes in helping families optimize college selection around 15 “fit factors.” College Bound Advantage serves all of Ohio including Cleveland, Akron, and Cincinnati metro areas.

In order to purchase a more extensive proprietary “Campus Field Report” on any Ohio college discussed, click here: https://collegeboundadvantage.com/campus-field-report-access/

https://collegeboundadvantage.com/conservatories-music-ohios-colleges/

Ohio college counseling, Ohio College consulting, Ohio's liberal arts colleges, Ohio's public universities, College counseling, Academic counseling, Academic advisor, College Bound Advantage consultants offer prospective students a partner in making their Ohio college choice by identifying the right...

03/08/2018

Ohio is home to three specialty Art and Design Colleges, all of which are accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. They include Columbus College of Art and Design, Cleveland Institute of Art, and the Art Academy of Cincinnati. These schools date back to the 1800s and are located in the center of the urban art districts of our state. Major offerings include such areas of study as photography, videography, illustration, animation, interior design, industrial (product) design, graphic design, fashion design, painting, ceramics, and others. These are unique think tanks for creatives. They are not for the faint of heart, but instead are rigorous training grounds for students who take their art seriously and want to organize their lives around it.

So, why study art and design at a specialty art college versus an art department within a more comprehensive university? Simply put, for students at these colleges, their entire world is integrated by shared artistic concepts and connected to a network of other artists practicing in an variety of art forms. Additionally, these colleges are networked to the art and design world in a way that ensures an ongoing steam of speakers, teachers, professionals, and creative organizations through their doors.

This summer, CBA spent a day at the largest two of these three schools. Let’s hike a bit further down the trail and take a look at each one.

https://collegeboundadvantage.com/ohios-art-design-colleges/

About the Author: After touring 60 of the best colleges in Ohio, Dr. Jay, a prior faculty member and dean, founded College Bound Advantage (CBA); a Columbus Ohio college consulting firm. CBA specializes in helping families optimize college selection around 15 “fit factors.” College Bound Advantage serves all of Ohio including Cleveland, Akron, and Cincinnati metro areas.

In order to purchase a more extensive proprietary “Campus Field Report” on any Ohio college discussed, click here: https://collegeboundadvantage.com/campus-field-report-access/

03/06/2018

We hope you enjoyed Part One of our College Building anthology. Let’s take a look at Part Two!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=41&v=0kLZZxLqu4Y

We hope you will enjoy viewing Part II of a compilation of photos we took last summer and fall as we toured Ohio's beautiful college campuses. About the Au...

02/28/2018

In case you didn’t know, Ohio is home to five of the finest “Liberal Arts” colleges in the country. Collectively, they form the “Five Colleges of Ohio,” a consortium of Ohio liberal arts colleges which includes Kenyon College, Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University, The College of Wooster, and Denison University.

In their purest form, Liberal Arts institutions only offer degrees in the Arts and Sciences, with a particular affinity for the humanities (subjects such as philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history, and language that focus on how people process and document the human experience) and the sciences. What they don’t do is offer academic majors in the professions. So, in a pure liberal arts institution you won’t typically see degree programs in business, engineering, social work, education (with licensure), nursing, and the like. These institutions tend to be small, selective, undergraduate-focused, liberal, teaching institutions with big endowments (savings accounts), and a broad reach (recruit well beyond Ohio’s borders). They value an interdisciplinary approach to education so tend to organize their curriculum to encourage breadth over depth and connections over silos. They work hard to develop a student’s critical thinking and verbal and written communication skills. In most cases, over 50% of graduates move on to graduate school within a few years of completing their undergraduate work.

These are fine institutions, but not a good fit for everyone for a number of reasons. I’ll have a lot more to say on that further down the trail! Thanks for hiking with us.

About the Author: After touring 60 of the best colleges in Ohio, Dr. Jay, a prior faculty member and dean, founded College Bound Advantage (CBA); a Columbus Ohio college consulting firm. CBA specializes in helping families optimize college selection around 15 “fit factors.” College Bound Advantage serves all of Ohio including Cleveland, Akron, and Cincinnati metro areas.
In order to purchase a more extensive proprietary “Campus Field Report” on any Ohio college discussed, click here: https://collegeboundadvantage.com/campus-field-report-access/

https://collegeboundadvantage.com/ohios-big-5-liberal-arts-institutions/

Ohio college counseling, Ohio College consulting, Ohio's liberal arts colleges, Ohio's public universities, College counseling, Academic counseling, Academic advisor, College Bound Advantage consultants offer prospective students a partner in making their Ohio college choice by identifying the right...

02/26/2018

At College Bound Advantage, it’s time to celebrate the start of spring, and along with it, hiking season! After completing nearly 60 visits to Ohio’s college campuses, we selected some of the most beautiful photographs to share in a photo anthology and partnered it to the song, Silver Lakes by Wes Hutchinson. Enjoy the richness that is higher education in our state of Ohio! Hats off to Carlos Velez for his work! Click Here:

We hope you will enjoy viewing Part I of a compilation of photos we took last summer and fall as we toured Ohio's beautiful college campuses. About the Autho...

02/25/2018

Ohio is blessed with an abundance of reasonably priced public universities. All-in-all there are 14 of them, not to mention another 24 branch/regional campuses, and 23 community and technical colleges. These institutions provide a wide variety of pathways for students to achieve their higher education goals.

In recent years, Ohio has taken steps to simplify student transfer between public colleges. Academic calendars have been aligned. Additionally, articulation agreements and the “Ohio Transfer to Degree Guarantee” have made it easy for students to transfer credits from one public institution to another. Finally, many more students are earning college credits while still in high school through AP courses or College Credit Plus. These programs may significantly reduce the costs of college and time-to-degree for participating students.

In comparison to most of their private college competitors, public universities offer more curricular and co-curricular options and a lower price as a tradeoff for the smaller classes, teaching-focused faculty, and the more intimate, developmental (versus competitive) educational experience offered on private college campuses. Different strokes for different folks!

So far, we have focused on private colleges in Ohio. Let’s wander down the trail and take a look at a few of Ohio’s finest public institutions!

About the Author: After touring 60 of the best colleges in Ohio, Dr. Jay, a prior faculty member and dean, founded College Bound Advantage (CBA); a Columbus Ohio college consulting firm. CBA specializes in helping families optimize college selection around 15 “fit factors.” College Bound Advantage serves all of Ohio including Cleveland, Akron, and Cincinnati metro areas.

In order to purchase a more extensive proprietary “Campus Field Report” on any Ohio college discussed, click here: https://collegeboundadvantage.com/campus-field-report-access/

https://collegeboundadvantage.com/ohios-best-public-universities/

Ohio college counseling, Ohio College consulting, Ohio's liberal arts colleges, Ohio's public universities, College counseling, Academic counseling, Academic advisor, College Bound Advantage consultants offer prospective students a partner in making their Ohio college choice by identifying the right...