A parent's college-shopping

Michelle Slatalla is just fun to read, partly because she's a fellow parent, I guess, plus she's very down-to-earth and a great writer. In her Online Shopper column this week (in the New York Times), she's shopping for colleges for her daughter - early. "It started with one of those sinking feelings of parental panic. Mine occurred at a cocktail party, where the conversations made it clear that while I had been worrying about whether to thaw leftover chili or spaghetti sauce, savvier parents had been homing in on the strategies of SAT prep classes, math tutors and books that claimed to know the secrets of the 50 best small liberal arts colleges in America. As a parent of two teenagers, I don't need more panic. So what if my daughter won't graduate until 2007? I went home and started shopping online for a college." Michelle provides the URLs of some great sites for college (and university) Web research - with guides to everything from SAT-prep services to college counseling companies to financial aid.