Loren Pope was a Washington newspaperman who became concerned with the lack of consumer information on colleges that has led to disastrous choices in which only three in ten freshmen are on the same campuses, or even in college, on cap and gown day.
He started an education column for the Gannett Newspapers in 1952, which led to the education editorship of The New York Times. He opened College Placement Bureau in 1965 to provide counseling and the consumer information that would help students make fruitful choices.
Pope’s first book, The Right College: How to Get In, Stay In, Get Back In (Macmillan, 1970) and several magazine articles followed, including the nationally syndicated “Twenty Myths That Can Jinx Your College Choice,” first published in The Washington Post Magazine and later as “Facts to Know in Picking a College” by Readers’ Digest.
A second book, Looking Beyond the Ivy League, Finding the College That’s Right for You, (Penguin, 1995) was praised by Dr. David Breneman, now dean of the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, as “the best discussion of the liberal arts with which I am familiar.” It is a companion to Colleges That Change Lives (Penguin 1996, 2000, 2006), which profiles 40 colleges “that will do as much, and usually far more, than any status school to give you the rich, full life.” The updated 2006 edition features a “Ten Years Later” section after each profile to testify to the school’s continuing power to transform.
Loren Pope retired after over 35 years of counseling and has passed the torch on to Martha (Marty) O'Connell. Having served in college admissions for twenty-eight years, most recently as vice president for enrollment and financial aid and dean of admission at McDaniel College (Westminster, Md.), Ms. O’Connell has counseled thousands of students about college choice. Today she devotes herself to the Colleges That Change Lives mission: helping students and families better understand the college admissions process to find the best college fit possible. Ms. O'Connell is available for speaking engagements through the CTCL Speakers Bureau.
