Guide to Colleges from the Inside | Alumni | Advice | Info
Article Rhiannon Bankes
Longtime Atlanta resident, Monica McGurk, has combined her talents in management consulting, operations and marketing to produce the new, must-have reference guide for anyone researching colleges and universities. The Alumni Factor is 512 full color pages, ranking the nation’s top 177 colleges and universities. Independent of any news organizations, educational institutions and publishing houses, this guide breaks the cycle of brand and reputation building that colleges constantly circulate in order to have “buzz.” The premise is so simple, yet it has not been done before. Most college guides give information about statistics on students entering their colleges (SAT scores or average GPA,) but The Alumni Factor is the only one that focuses on what sort of a student that institution produces. As the cover boasts, “Get the Only College Ranking Based on Graduate Success.”
Based on surveys from 42,000 alumni, the guide measures and reports on elements deemed most important by students, parents, and alumni. The book has information similar to other college reference guides, such as: campus setting, expenses, discounts, instate tuition, type of institution, number of students, as well as student /faculty ratio. What makes The Alumni Factor different is the multitude of new measurements in graduate outcome such as annual income, net worth, alumni employment, and income distribution. While success is measured in many ways, this book does not focus merely on the financial success of graduates, but the intellectual and spiritual success as well. It also gives insight to such interesting rates as: freshman retention, alumni giving, overall happiness, career preparation, and political spectrum.
CEO and Executive Editor of The Alumni Factor, Monica McGurk, and her team are really proud that both parents and children are finding it useful. One great quote from a parent is “I had to literally pry the book out of my son’s hands, he is that engrossed in it.” Another one, from a different parent who had been struggling to get her child to engage proactively in the college application process, was that “we sat down and went on the website and within a matter of hours had surfaced six schools that had not been on our radar screen, that were great fits, to which he was excited to apply. It really lit a fire under him-a complete 180 degree change!”
The Alumni Factor’s vision is “to become the most authoritative and trusted source of data and insights into the actual performance of colleges and universities.” This book is a crucial reference source for anyone researching colleges and universities. See a sample at AlumniFactor.com or check out their Facebook and Twitter pages for more information.
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