Counselors FAQ

• How can I get a CTCL Event to come to my area?

• What kind of academic profile are CTCL schools looking for?

• What kind of student is a good fit for a CTCL school?

• Why are some of these schools in the first edition of the book and not the second?

• How were these schools chosen?

• Do schools pay to be included in this book? How is this book any different than any other guidebook?

How can I get a CTCL Event to come to my area?

The CTCL colleges love taking their message on the road, and the opportunity to meet directly with students, their families, and counselors is the highlight of each program. Because the CTCL events are funded completely by the colleges and universities involved (and not by the author, publisher, or other third-party source), they carefully select dates and locations that show promise for good attendance.

If you would like a CTCL event to be held in your area, please contact Executive Director Marty O'Connell. Groups of counselors working together have been particularly successful in putting together proposals to bring a CTCL event to their area. In addition, we can provide details about the Speakers Bureau, which offers the possibility of small panels of individuals to come to your school or meeting and speak on behalf of the entire CTCL group.

With 40 individual schools and a range of admission policies and procedures within the group, it’s impossible to create one list of criteria necessary for admission to all 40 CTCL schools. However, it is safe to say that each CTCL school looks for students who will be a good match—intellectually and personally—with their campus.

In reviewing an application, the admission committees at each CTCL school seek evidence that a student is ready and able to succeed in their academic programs as shown not only by challenging course work, particularly in the most recent two years of high school, but also through letters of recommendation and the student’s own written statements. Most, but not all, of the CTCL schools do require students to submit SAT or ACT test scores; however, those numbers alone never determine a student’s admissibility.

Rather, CTCL schools look at the whole student, giving significant consideration to a student’s ability to balance their academic life with other activities such as a part-time job or a special interest; examples of leadership in school or community activities; and other personal talents or qualities the student offers. If you are counseling a student and are unsure of their potential match with a CTCL school, we suggest you contact that college or university directly to learn more about their admission process and expectations.

The 40 CTCL schools share a number of qualities that create noteworthy teaching and learning environments—from considerable student-faculty interaction, to significant opportunities for co-curricular activities, to active residential campuses where the majority of students live on campus. Students who are excited about learning and want to be engaged in their own education will enjoy the opportunities CTCL colleges offer to personalize their own course of study, from creating an interdisciplinary major to determining which internship or research project to complete.

Students who want to be exposed to a variety of perspectives, in both class discussion and casual conversation, thrive on CTCL campuses where students and faculty represent a myriad of backgrounds and experiences. And, perhaps most importantly, students who want to work in a collaborative, not competitive, environment, where faculty serve as teachers, advisors, mentors, and even friends, will be well suited at a CTCL school.

Of course, it is important to remember that the 40 CTCL schools each have their own uniquely distinctive personality determined by their history, mission, location, and even size. Therefore, it’s unlikely that a student would be a great match for all of the CTCL schools, and it is important to further investigate—and visit when possible—any schools a student is seriously considering.

When Colleges That Change Lives was published in 1996, Loren Pope sought to profile a small group of lesser-known schools that met his high standards and lengthy criteria for the distinction of being named as a college that changes lives—where faculty were dedicated teachers, the learning environment was engaging, and graduates achieved significant and measurable outcomes.

When revising the book in 2000, a few of the schools had become more popular as evidenced by the number of applications received for admissions and, therefore, were not perceived to be “lesser known” any longer. Mr. Pope replaced those schools with colleges that he thought better fit the title and focus of the message in his book.

Loren Pope’s work as a journalist and more specifically as the education editor for The New York Times introduced him to much of the data and research available about higher education in the United States. However, it was later, when founding the College Placement Bureau and working with college-bound students, that Mr. Pope set out to become a hard-nosed consumer who learned firsthand about the colleges and universities across the nation.

Over 30 years of work and research—including numerous “stealth” campus visits; in-depth interviews with students, alumni, faculty, and administrators on college campuses; and significant work with students applying for admission and transitioning to college—led to the creation of Mr. Pope’s list and the book known as Colleges That Change Lives.

Colleges That Change Lives was written based on Loren Pope’s significant experience in journalism and in the field of college counseling. For three decades, Mr. Pope worked directly with students as they applied for college admission; he also maintained contact with those students throughout their college careers and later after their graduation. It was based on the sum of these experiences that the final 40 schools were selected for this book.

In Colleges That Change Lives, Mr. Pope seeks to provide college-bound students and their families with an alternative philosophy about college choice by educating them about the specific qualities and characteristics that are necessary for a meaningful, life-changing educational experience. Unlike many other guidebooks that rely on surveys completed by the colleges themselves or are a simple accumulation of public data on colleges and universities, Colleges That Change Lives offers the reader a more in-depth view of these 40 liberal arts colleges and universities, which have met Mr. Pope’s criteria for selection.

The schools selected for this distinction were, in many cases, neither aware of Mr. Pope’s stealth campus visits nor of his intention to write the book. The colleges and universities featured in Mr. Pope’s books do not pay to be included in his book. Conversely, Mr. Pope and Penguin Books do not fund the CTCL events or this Web site.