EVENT DETAILS: Attending college has long been a rite of passage for millions of teens and a bedrock of the American dream. But that well-worn path has lately taken a wrong turn, denying admission even to super-achievers and putting intolerable stress on family finances.

Bestselling author Jeff Selingo shifts the spotlight from how colleges pick students to how students can better pick colleges in his new book coming out this September: Dream School: Finding the College That’s Right For You.

Join us to hear Jeff share his insights on why elite college degrees turn out to matter less than you think, why many parents and students are choosing value over prestige, and how to make sure the degree really pays off. Jeff will discuss what good teaching really looks like in college, and how to find places that prioritize it. Using extensive data, Jeff has assembled a list of 75 colleges where the acceptance rates are accessible and where students thrive to help focus your search for quality accessible and affordable choices.

“Amid the clamor of college admissions angst, Jeff Selingo is a voice of calm and clarity. Dream School is the book we've been waiting for to help families broaden their lens and focus their perspective on what matters most.” —Ned Johnson, bestselling coauthor of The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives

Don't miss the opportunity to hear from Jeff how to build a list of colleges that will lower the application process stress and inspire students’ futures.

Our Speaker: Jeff Selingo has written about colleges and universities for more than 25 years and is a New York Times bestselling author of four books. His latest book, Dream School: Finding The College That’s Right For You (September 2025), draws on more than two years of research and a survey of 3,000 parents to give families permission to think more broadly about what signals a “good” college and then the tools to discover their dream school. He is also the author of Who Gets In & Why: A Year Inside College Admissions, named one of the New York TImes’s 100 Notable Books of the year in 2020.

A regular contributor to The Atlantic, New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, Jeff is a special advisor to the president and professor of practice at Arizona State University. He writes a bi-weekly newsletter on all things higher ed called Next and co-hosts the podcast, Future U. He lives near Washington, D.C., with his family.