Choosing a School
The first step in choosing a college is to know yourself. We are not talking about “finding yourself” in a hot air balloon over Vermont, like some of our parents might have tried to do. Instead, you need to know what you want out of the college experience, and what you can offer a college. As you will see, the college application process is about growth and learning to make an educated decision. In order to make that decision, you need to know what you want. However, you need not stress too much about this. I do not want you to think that you will have to decide in the next couple of months what you want to do for the rest of your life. According to the U.S. Department of Labor the average college graduate changes jobs once every 3 years, and changes his or her career 2 to 3 times over the course of his or her lifetime. Further, I have heard that the average college student changes his or her major at least once while he or she is in college. You do need to first know what you are interested in and what you like, and, more importantly, what you do not like. Try to think of the classes you have enjoyed the most, and those in which you have performed the best. Are there certain subjects that come easily to you? If you have never done well in your science classes, and do not enjoy them, you should probably rule out becoming a doctor. If you hate math, you can probably rule out becoming an accountant or an actuary. If you do not have a clear favorite subject or area of study, try the following activities to help you determine some:
Exercise:
Write down the classes that you have enjoyed the most.
Write down the classes where you have received the best grades.
Write down your favorite types of books.
Write down your favorite kinds of movies/television shows.
Write down the college majors of any friends or relatives that are currently in college.
Now look at your list. Are there any subjects/areas of study that are listed more than once? Is there anything on the list that piques your interest? If you really like Law and Order, perhaps think about becoming a lawyer, or if you really enjoy CSI, consider looking into Forensic Sciences. It is often difficult to choose a major because, unless you are very fortunate, you probably have not had exposure to a variety of classes. How do you know if you want to be a chemical engineering major, or an economics major, or an international relations major, or an american studies major, or a plastics technology major, or even a turf management major, when you have little to no idea what the classes are like? Remember, you do not need to know what you are definitely going to study, you just need to know that you have a sufficient interest to begin studies in that area. The University of Delaware has a great website that will help you learn more about different majors, and potential careers that are related to that major. The address is http://www.udel.edu/CSC/mrk.html.
You may also be able to work backwards in order to find a major. Are there certain careers that interest you? If so, research jobs which interest you, and see what the educational requirements are for those careers. Unfortunately, most students’ knowledge of careers is limited to their parents’ careers, some of their neighbors’ careers, teachers, doctors, nurses, firemen and policemen. To expand your knowledge of potential careers, attend a career fair. Or, if your school offers it, try job shadowing. In job shadowing programs you follow a professional for a day to see what they really do in their career. If your school does not offer either of these options, you might consider starting a career day at your school. You could contact Rotary Clubs, Kiwanis Clubs, and the local chamber of commerce, and work with them to bring in men and women from a variety of careers to talk about their career to interested students. Not only will this help you learn about potential careers, it shows initiative, and looks great on your college application. You may also want to research potential careers online. One excellent site is the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook. It is a rather large book, which you can probably find in your local library, but you can also search it online. The web address is: http://www.bls.gov/oco. Once you look up a career, you can then look at the educational requirements to give you an idea of the major you might need to pursue in college in order to get to the end point you desire.
It is also possible to take some tests to give you indications of careers that you may be interested in. Just remember that no test can really tell you what the perfect career is for you: instead they will give you starting points for you to do more research. One test you might consider using as a starting point is the Do What You Are Self-Discovery Assessment Program (This test uses a modified form of the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator test, and determines your personality type. Then, based upon your personality type it suggests careers that would fit your type.). Another test is the Strong Interest Inventory, a widely used career guidance test that takes an inventory of your personal interests and suggests careers based upon those results. The Self-Directed Search is also a widely used interest inventory. You can take this test online at http://www.self-directed-search.com/, and the cost is $8.95 for a comprehensive report. Most high school guidance offices have a paper version that you can take, and then score yourself. Finally, another career test that you can take is the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude batter. However, be prepared for the deluge of recruiting calls if you score well.
Your family is another valuable resource. Ask them what they can see you studying, and what your strengths are. While some of what they say may be off base, they have known you your whole life and have unique insight into your strengths and weaknesses. Learning about your strengths and weaknesses is a lifelong process, but determining what you want to study is one of the 5 important factors that you will use in ultimately choosing a college. Here are the 5 factors you should use when evaluating a school:
Academic Program. What majors or fields of study does the school offer? Are there any research opportunities available? How well does the school prepare the student for a career?
Academic Profile. Is the student academically qualified for the school? Can the student comfortably handle the workload at the school?
Geography. Where in the country is the school located? Is it in an urban, rural, or suburban area? Is it too close, or too far from the student’s home?
Size. What kind of environment is best suited for the Student? Does the student need a lot of guidance and individual attention, or can he or she survive in a large school? Often times larger schools have more diverse course offerings and more plentiful research opportunities for students. However, at these schools the student can tend to be just a number, and he or she will not get the same close interaction with professors and the rest of his or her class.
Quality of Life. How are the living conditions on the campus? What is the academic and social environment on campus?
These are the factors you are going to use to choose a college, but what are you choosing from? There are over 2,600 four-year colleges in the United States, and if you include two-year colleges (Junior Colleges, Community Colleges, etc), the list jumps to over 4,800 schools. This presents a large number of options for you to consider. How are you going to narrow these colleges down to a list of 6 to 10 schools where you would like to apply? There are a variety of methods to help you arrive at an initial list, and to narrow down that list. Without fail, the best way to evaluate a college is through a visit to the campus. However, it would be impossible for you to visit all 2,600 four year colleges, let alone the additional 2,200 two year schools, so we will start with some of the other methods of evaluating a school.
Large Guide Books: These are books such as the Peterson’s Guide to 4 Year Colleges, The College Board’s College Handbook, The Complete Book of Colleges from Princeton Review, Barron’s Guide to the Colleges, just to name a few. These are extremely large books with basic information on a thousand or more colleges: they are great as a starting point. They are great “list building books”, as one educational consultant says. The good thing about these books is that they contain a good deal of statistical information about a large number of colleges in one place. One of the major drawbacks is this information is reported by the schools themselves. It is also not always updated, and not always accurate. One admissions officer relayed to me an argument she had with the father of a student who insisted that the school must have a certain program because it was printed in one of the guidebooks. No matter how hard she tried to impress upon him that she worked at the university, and was certain they did not have that program, he refused to believe her. Often times there is other inaccurate information in these reports. If you look through the information, you will also notice that the cost information is usually not current, which may lead you to think that a school is a better deal than it actually is. Finally, most of these books include prose write-ups on the colleges in the back of the books. These write-ups usually are submitted by the schools themselves, and in most instances they pay to have them included in the book. So do not look at these as an unbiased source of information.
How You Should Use Large Guide Books…
Once you have determined where in the country you want to study, and some majors of interest to you, you can use the large guidebooks to come up with an initial list of schools. Usually they are broken down by state. Look for colleges in the areas where you would like to study that offer the programs you are interested in. Right now, do not pay too much attention to school size; we will use that to further narrow down the list later on. We are trying to come up with a large number of options. One book you may want to use is Rugg’s Recommendations On the Colleges. This book recommends colleges based on the strength of a certain program. If you have a particular major in mind, use this book to come up with a list of schools that are strong in that major. Then crosscheck these schools with a larger guidebook, say Peterson’s Guide to 4 Year Colleges. Use the larger Guide Book to determine where the school is located, the number of undergraduates (be careful, some of the guidebooks will list the total number of students attending a college, but the number you should be interested in is the number of undergraduate students, and other programs that may be of interest to you, in case you decide to change your major. A sample of a list and the information you will want to note is at the back of this chapter. There are also some blank forms to help you in formulating your own list.
“Insider’s Guides”
These are books such as the Yale Daily News Insider’s Guide to the Colleges, The Fiske Guide to the Colleges, Princeton Review’s The Best 351 Colleges, and other similar books. These books offer an objective prose review of the colleges. In my visits to schools, I have found the Yale Daily News Insider’s Guide and the Fiske Guide to be fairly accurate. After reading these books, and then visiting the schools, the impression of the school that the book had given me and my opinion from the visit usually coincide. The drawback of these types of books is that they only review 300 to 400 schools. So, that means the majority of colleges are not reviewed in this manner.
How you should use “Insider’s Guides”…
Once you have compiled an initial list using guidebooks, the internet, and other sources, you will want to eliminate some schools before you start to make your visits. “Insider’s Guides” are a perfect way to start eliminating schools from your list. Read the reviews of schools on your list, and see how you feel about the school after hearing an objective review. Remember, sometimes the reports are dated, the campus and programs may have changed, but usually they are relatively accurate. You may want to read a few of these guidebooks. I recommend The Yale Daily News Insider’s Guide to the Colleges for a student’s perspective. This book is compiled by students at Yale who call their friends at different colleges and write a report on the campus life at that school. Warning: if the student who reviews a particular school is busy - or just plain lazy - he or she will call a friend at that school, read the review from the year before, and say, “Is that still true?”, and then not bother to update anything in the report. For a report that focuses less on student life, I would look at the Fiske’s Guide to the Colleges. This report is compiled by sending a team of editors to the school to meet with admissions officers, tour the campus, talk with students, and get a general feel for the campus. I personally like reading both of these reports before visiting a school. Your goal should be to narrow your list down to 20 to 25 schools and to visit as many as possible. I would recommend trying to get to around ten different campuses, if possible. We will talk in more detail about the college visit in a later chapter.
College View Books
These are the nice glossy brochures that you have been receiving in abundance ever since you took the PSAT. They are an extremely accurate source of information about the programs available on a college campus, and any new improvements to the physical plant of a college. However, you must realize that they are “throwaway” pieces, or marketing materials for the colleges. They are only going to show you sunny, crisp fall days with the foliage at its most brilliant for a New England college. They will not show you the college under a foot of snow, or students trudging through mud and rain to get to class. They are also always going to depict a multi-cultural student body, all eating together, or laughing together. In other words, they may not completely and accurately represent life on a college campus. Watch for these buzz words: “diversity,” “individual attention,” “small class sizes.” It will take a visit to the college so you can determine with your own eyes the accuracy of the college marketing materials.
How you should use College View Books…
College view books are an excellent source of the programs at a college, and also any new facilities and programs, or planned new facilities and programs. Also use the view books as the source for determining the cost of education at a school, and the number of undergraduate students.
The Internet
Next to visiting a college, the internet is the best source of information. There are several different types of websites, and each has its own benefits and drawbacks. Beware of the sites that proclaim, “Click here to find out about a government program that will reimburse you for the entire cost of college education.” What is the program? It is a PLUS Loan, that is right a loan that you will need to repay. These sites are usually trying to sell you something that you do not need. Other sites, such as www.gocollege.com, www.collegiate.net, www.petersons.com, www.review.com/college, www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/eduhome.htm, and www.collegeboard.com, give you search tools and make their money by either selling advertising, selling you books, or selling a subscription to their website. Finally, the most valuable store of information is the colleges own website. Make certain that you look beyond the admissions section, or prospective student section of the website. Remember, just like the view books, these sections are marketing pieces. Look deeper into the website at the course book, the department websites, websites of student groups that interest you, and even read the student paper.
How you should use the Internet…
You can first use some of the search sites to help you compose your initial list. My favorite is the U.S. News college search, which offers a search of 1,400 4 year colleges. You can search on criteria that you determine. Enter in the states where you are interested in studying, the majors that you are considering, the size of the school, the setting (urban, rural, suburban), and the search engine will come back with a list of schools for you to review. The U.S News site gives detailed information on the size of the school, admissions statistics (average GPA, 25-75 split for SAT and ACT, and admissions contact information), etc. You can then use this information to help you determine your admissibility. This should help you come up with a great starting point. Then, research the schools more in depth. The U.S. News site does charge a yearly subscription in order to access the extended information. The cost is $12.95. If you do not want to pay the subscription, you can start with one of the other college search web sites, such as www.gocollege.com, www.collegeboard.com, www.petersons.com, or www.review.com/college. The College Board website and Princeton Review “Counselor-o-Matic” offer the same information as the U.S. News website for free. They are reviewed at the end of this chapter. If these do not come up with a large enough pool of possibilities, use the COOL (College Opportunities On Line, http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/Search.asp) search, brought to you by the National Center for Educational Statistics. This site has over 2,600 schools in its database, as opposed to the 1,400 in the U.S. News Database. The only problem is that you cannot search by a specific major; instead you have to search by groups of majors. So, you must then go to the individual school’s website to determine if it offers the major you are looking for, and for more specific information about the school.
Once you have composed your starting list, look at the school websites to verify the information about majors at the school, and learn about other potential majors. Browse through the department website to learn more about the requirements of the major and potential for internships or experience. Also, read the student newspaper to see what the issues are on campus and what activities are taking place on the weekends. Nothing replaces the college visit, but the school websites should help you narrow down your list to the schools that you actually would like to visit.
How Do I Compose a List of Schools…
Evaluate the 5 Factors. Most importantly look at your Geographical Interest and your Academic Major interest; we will use these two criteria to start our search. We will start by plugging the criteria into a search site, such as usnews, gocollege, Princeton review, Petersons, or the College Board. We will use these two factors to generate an initial list. We will then want to narrow this list down by using an additional two factors: your academic profile, and the desired size of schools. I think it is always a good idea to include some schools that will stretch your options, such as a school that may be larger or smaller than you initially wanted, or a school that might be in a different geographic region if it matches on all the other factors. You will want to use your academic profile to determine if you have a chance of admission at the school. Remember, you want to be able to comfortably handle the workload at the college so that you can fully participate in and enjoy college life. If you are trapped in the library all the time, you will miss out on the whole college experience. On the other hand, you do not want to go to a college that is too easy and does not challenge or stimulate you intellectually.
You will want to use your academic profile to break the list into 3 categories:
Reach; Possible; Highly Likely. There are a few ways to try and determine your admissions chances. First, compare your SAT score to the 25-75 split of the school. You can get this number from the US news website, the College Board website, the Princeton Review website, by calling the school, or from some of the “insider’s guides”. If your SAT score is below the lower number of the range, this school will probably be a reach. You will also want to check your GPA against the 25-75 split for GPA, if available, and against the average GPA. Another method is to determine if your high school tracks the results of former students at your school and look at their admissions success rate at the schools you are interested in. If your school does not have that information available, you may want to compare yourself against the data from Amity High School, which is available online. The web address is: http://apps.amityregion5.org/colleges/CollegeApp. Remember, this is only statistical information, and other factors such as extra-curricular activities, essay, interview, and recommendations, enter into the total admission decision.
To add some additional schools to your list, you may want to look at Rugg’s Recommendations On The Colleges, and add some more schools that are strong in your major. Remember, there is a good chance that you will change your major, so if possible choose schools that are strong in a couple of your areas of interest. Once you see the schools listed in Rugg’s, cross reference them with a larger college search engine or the school website itself to determine the important statistics for the school to fill in on your list (Size, SAT 25-75 Split, Admissions Phone Number, Web Site). Your goal should be to arrive at an initial list of 25 schools. Over the course of your search you will add new schools to the list, and of course, eliminate a number of schools. From the initial list, through your research, you will want to narrow it down to 10 to 12 schools that you will visit, and from there try to get it down to 6 to 8 schools to which you will apply. The goal should be to apply to 1 or 2 highly likely schools (schools where you are almost 100% certain that you will be accepted), 2 possible schools (schools where you have a better than 50% chance of being accepted) and a few reach schools. If you are going to be applying to the most competitive schools (Ivy League, Swarthmore, Haverford, Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan, etc), you should consider applying to more than 2 reach schools. These schools are so competitive now, that I would consider them a reach for almost every student. Once we have our initial list of schools based on the first 4 factors, you will need to do additional research to narrow that list down to 10 to 12 schools. How should you go about conducting that research?
Look through the school website to try and get a “feel” for the school. Look at the pages of clubs and organizations that interest you. Look at student’s personal web pages, and ask yourself, “Do these seem like people that I could picture myself becoming friends with?” Email professors in the department that interests you to ask detailed questions about the department and the program in general. Look through the online course catalogue to see the classes that are required for your major, and also browse for other classes of interest to you. You will want to note how many classes are required for your major, how many classes are required for the “core curriculum”, and how many electives you are allowed to take. Also, you may want to find out how difficult it is to double major, or minor, if that is of interest to you. Finally, are there concentrations offered within your major? In addition to the internet, look through some of the “insider’s guides” and read their reviews on the colleges. Does this sound like a school that you would be happy attending? Contact friends you know who are attending the school. Ask their opinion about the school. Find out what they like, and what they do not like. Remember, just because they feel one way about the school, you might not necessarily feel the same way, but nonetheless, it is valuable information. Finally, the best way of learning about a college is through a school visit. Planning the visit, and what you should look at while you are on campus are discussed in a later chapter. The visit is so important, it warrants a section of its own.
Recommended Web Sites:
www.collegeboard.com
In addition to allowing you to register for the SAT and CSS PROFILE, this site offers a wealth of other college information. There is financial information and a scholarship search, as well as a very good college search engine. You must register in order to use the search engine, but there is no cost. It gives important statistical information like the SAT 25-75 split, though the information is not organized as well as the U.S. News website. A positive aspect of this website is that it gives you the chance to save your colleges in an online list. The like school feature is interesting: enter a school you liked and it will generate a list of colleges that are similar statistically. However, when I tried it, while the schools may have been superficially similar, many of the schools will have a completely different feel. All in all, this is a very good college search engine.
www.review.com/college
There are a number of valuable college resources available on the Princeton Review website. Particularly germane to the college search is the “Counselor-o-matic”. This is an excellent college search engine; indeed it is one of the best that I have found. In creating a list of colleges for you, they attempt to build an academic profile as well as assess your college needs. They then create a list that is broken into “Good Matches”, “Reaches” and “Safeties”. You can save your schools to a list - if you have set up an account, which is free. Clicking on a school provides you with an abundance of information. They give you their own “selectivity” rating for the school, as well as valuable admissions statistics like the SAT 25-75 split. In addition, they have a section that gives you students’ comments about the school, and the academics section lists the majors available at the school. Clicking on the major brings you to a description of the major, and others that are similar that you may also enjoy. www.nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/Search.asp
This search does not allow you to input as many criteria as most of the other searches, and the results do not give you as much information about the schools, but it does contain the largest data base of schools. This engine is especially useful if you are looking for 2 year schools, or trade schools. You must search by major groups, and not for specific majors. You then need to consult the school’s website to make certain that it offers the particular major of interest to you.
www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/cohome.htm This is my favorite of the search engines, although they do require you to purchase a yearly membership in order to get the best information. They do allow you to do searches without the membership, but they only provide limited information about the schools. The valuable information from the results includes the 25-75 split for SAT and ACT, average GPA, majors available (be certain to cross-reference these with the college website), and information on the student body and varsity sports available on campus.
www.ncaa.org
If athletics are an important part of the college process for you, you can start your search by finding out which colleges sponsor your sport. From the NCAA home page, choose Sports & Championships link on the left, and then the Schools sponsoring each sport link. It will allow you to search by Division, Region, Conference, or school name. I would probably start your search geographically. Remember, that a school may have a club sport or be in the process of getting a sport recognized by the NCAA. It is also possible for a school to be a part of the NAIA and not the NCAA.
www.gocollege.com
This site offers a college search engine, financial aid information including a free scholarship search, and sample ACT and SAT tests that you can take. The college search is based only on your major, area of the country, and SAT scores. The information it then gives you on the colleges is very limited (Average SAT, ACT, state of the college, and the cost of tuition, which is already outdated.).
www.collegiate.net
This is an index of other websites, and lists a number of college search websites, as well as addresses for the colleges themselves, college bookstores, department homepages, etc.
www.petersons.com
The Peterson’s search engine allows you to use several criteria to generate a list. Like the College Board website, it also allows you to create an online list of schools, and add and remove schools from your list. There is a nice prose description of the school, if you go to the details page. It does not provide the 25-75 split for SAT and I worry that like in the Peterson’s guide some of the information they are reporting may be dated. One bonus is that the Peterson’s web site offers you the opportunity to apply to a number of schools online directly from their site.
www.naia.org
The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics provides an alternative to the NCAA. This website only offers a list of member institutions, you can not search by sport. The eligibility requirements are more lax for NAIA, and there are a few other differences that might make a student consider an NAIA school. To find the list of member institutions, click on the Listing of NAIA conferences and School Websites link on the right hand side of the web page. You will then need to check the school websites to determine if they offer the sport of interest to you.
http://www.hillel.org/hillel/Hillel_Schools_New.nsf/Schools?OpenForm
This website is the Hillel Guide to Jewish life on campus. You can search for schools alphabetically, by region, or by Jewish Percentage on campus.
http://www.udel.edu/CSC/mrk.html
This website is put together by the University of Delaware Career Services Office, and it is an excellent resource for helping you research potential majors. It lists potential jobs that are related to each major, other majors that might be of interest, gives you links to ways of determining potential salaries for jobs, and also gives links to the professional associations for jobs related to the major. Looking at these websites is a great way to find out what employers are looking for, and which schools the employers feel are strong for their field.
http://www.bls.gov:80/ocohome.htm
This is the Occupational Outlook Handbook, and it has outstanding information on different careers, the employment prospects, educational requirements, and salary potential.
Recommended Books:
Guide Books and Other Starting References…
These are books that review a large number of colleges (usually over 1000), and are a great starting point for creating your college list. Use these for help in creating your initial list, and gathering some of the statistical information. Be careful because some of the information may be outdated, so verify either with the school website or by contacting a member of the school’s admissions office.
The Complete Book of Colleges. The Princeton Review, Annually.
(College Board’s) College Handbook. Henry Holt and Company, Annually.
(College Board’s) Index of Majors and Graduate Degrees. Henry Holt and Company, Annually.
Peterson’s Guide to 4 Year Colleges. Petersons Thomson Learning, Annually.
Barron’s Profiles of American. Barron’s Educational Series, Annually.
Rugg’s Recommendations on the Colleges. Rugg’s Recommendations, Annually.
“Insiders Guides” These books offer better insight into the day-to-day life on the college campuses, and offer an unbiased view. Much of the information in the large guide books is reported by the school’s themselves, whereas most information in the Insiders Guides is either gleaned from students on the campus or by a team of editors that visit the campus.
Barron's Guide to the Most Competitive Colleges. Barron's Educational Series, 2003.
The Fiske Guide to Colleges. Fiske, Edward B. Sourcebooks, Inc., 2003.
The Best 351 Colleges. The Princeton Review, 2003. Click here to buy now from Barnes and Noble.
The Insider's Guide to the Colleges. the Yale Daily News Staff. St. Martin's Press, 2003.
Cool Colleges for the Hyper-Intelligent, Self-Directed, Late Blooming and Just Plain Different. Asher, Donald. Ten Speed Press, 2000.
Understanding The Admissions Process
These books can also be called, “books that if your parents read them would make them even more neurotic about college.” Many of these are excellent, and give you insight in to exactly how a college admissions officer decides who gets the fat envelope, and who gets the thin one. If you are in your junior or senior year, it is too late to do too many things to radically improve your chance of admission, but by reading these you will understand the types of things that colleges are looking for, and your parents may be able to give some tips to younger siblings, or neighbors who inevitably will ask them, “how did you get your son or daughter into college?”
Behind the Scenes: An Inside Look at the Selective College Admission Process. Wall, Edward B. Octameron Associates, Alexandria, VA, 2000.
A is for Admission: The Insider’s Guide to Getting into the Ivy League and Other Top Colleges. Hernandez, Michelle. Warner Books, New York, 1999.
College Admissions: A Crash Course for Panicked Parents. Rubenstone, Sally and Sidonia Dalby. Arco, New York, 1997.
The College Admissions Mystique. Mayher, Bill. Noonday Press, New York, 1998.
The Gate-Keepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College. Steinberg, Jacques. Penguid Press, 2003.