How to Choose a College

This time of year, lots of high school seniors will be starting to feel the pressure. Everyone is asking the question, “Where are you applying to college?”

Some students will be able to spout a few “dream schools”, likely Ivy League schools and State flagships. Most will shrug, or give the nearest public school followed by, “I guess”.

Sadly, for most students it is not an easy task to figure out where they should be applying. As teenagers, they can be easily influenced by their parents and peers. Many of these voices will be telling them to chase prestige. Not many will talk about “fit”, what it is, or how on Earth to find it.

So, here is my experience with choosing a college, from making my first list of schools, to making the big decision in April (prior to national decision day, May 1st).

Where to apply

First, I’ll state the obvious: you should only apply to schools that you actually want to attend. You may say, “Well duh,” now; but, come November I found myself searching for “colleges with no application fee” ready to throw my application at everyone and just hope something turned out alright.

This leads to lesson two: put quality before quantity when it comes to applying to college. You want to be able to focus your efforts on making your application as good as possible, to give you a better chance at getting into schools you really love.

So, how do you find the quality schools you would want to apply to?

1. Forget about college and focus on you. You can’t know if you would fit in on a particular college campus if you don’t know who you are. It’s best to write this down, or articulate it explicitly in some way so that you have a confident sense. What do you value? What do you want to accomplish in your life? What do you do for fun? What are you good at? If you have an idea of what you want to major in, or which clubs and sports you want to be in, go ahead and get specific.
2. Take that picture of who you are, close your eyes, and picture yourself at college. What does it look like? How big are your classes? Do you see big football fields and Greek row or a nice seat in the library? Are you traveling abroad or volunteering in an African country? Write these down, and look for the little details when you later visit college campuses.
3. Prioritize. Take the lists of qualities, in yourself and colleges, and recognize which are the most important to you.
4. Search, far and wide. There are two main approaches I recommend: entering your “priorities” into a database, or googling for “best schools for [priority]”. The former could be a good start, because it tends to churn out more options. The latter could help you find the real gems, as obscure lists tend to capture the schools that are a bit off the trodden path. In fact, this is how I stumbled upon the school I eventually enrolled in, Minerva, in an article about schools who let students travel abroad extensively. It’s also how I found the “Colleges that Change Lives”, from which I applied to multiple schools.
5. Hopefully, you’ve got a long list of potential schools from all that searching. Now, it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty and visit all the individual websites of those colleges. Start by verifying your priorities, and looking into how good those programs you wanted actually are. Then, I liked to scroll through the list of majors and try to get a feel for the academic climate. Some schools had lists with lots of variations of “engineer” and specific careers like “clinical psychology” that made the school feel more career oriented. Others were populated with “linguistics” and “political philosophy”, seeming more heavily focused in the liberal arts. Make sure any tangible leaning is in line with the list from “who you are”.
6. At this point, you should have narrowed the list, and starred some that particularly excited you. So, now you should try to visit some campuses. They don’t have to be the exact ones on your list, if that’s not feasible due to timing or distance, but you should try to see a variey. Make sure you actually prefer a small or large school, and see if those rural locations make you feel isolated or if the urban ones overwhelm.
7. Review that narrowed down list, post-college visits. Hopefully you’re making cuts, not additions like I wanted to after seeing Oregon State’s beautiful campus.
8. It’s finally time to think about feasability. Take your list of schools that feel right, and see which ones also feel right for your wallet. Look into the financial aid available based on your family’s income, and the merit scholarships you may qualify for based on GPA and test scores. Talk to your parents about what they’re willing to contribute, and eliminate any options with a big gap between the cost and money you’re likely to receive.
9. If your list is still fairly large, think short-term feasability and look at the application fees for each college. See if you qualify for any fee-waivers, and consult your parents/your own bank account to see if you’ve got the funds to send all your applications. When I had a nearly “complete” list of about 15 colleges (which is definitely too high of a number), I had an application fee total near $600. So, I reexamined my list to look for any “duplicates”, or schools that were too similar for me to need to apply to all of them. Then, I asked myself which I liked more and/or which I was more likely to actually be able to attend (based on acceptance rates and cost), then eliminated accordingly. This saved me hundreds in application fees, and lessened the overall application burden by eliminating supplemental essays to write and SAT scores to send.

How to Apply

1. Look into early application cycles, and prioritize the order in which you complete applications. There are both early decision and early action application plans which have deadlines in November and notification typically in December. But, early decision requires you to commit to attending if accepted. This also prohibits you from taking advantage of any other early action deadlines. I applied to several schools early, and had half my acceptances in my pocket before Winter vacation, which took a lot of pressure off. This also helped me spread out the process, as I didn’t have all my deadlines occurring at once (which is a must if you’re bad at time management and apply to 12 schools like I did). Lay out a calendar of deadlines, and create your own deadlines to keep you on track leading up to final submission (like when to finish drafting your essays).
2. Ask teachers for recommendations well in advance (I asked most of my recommenders in September), and make sure you’re set to take the SAT and/or ACT in time to meet your college’s deadlines.
3. Don’t forget to fill out supplemental scholarship applications, and do your FAFSA, and the CSS/PROFILE if your college requires it.
4. Always be on the lookout for emails from colleges. Some will try to set up alumni interviews, and most times you will be contacted by the interviewer themselves — so keep your eyes peeled!
5. MAKE SURE YOU FOLLOW ALL INSTRUCTIONS ON THE COLLEGE’S WEBSITE. If you have questions, always try to find the answer for yourself before wasting an admission counselor’s time. But, don’t be afraid to make contact — in fact, you may want to reach out if the school considers “demonstrated interest” in it’s decision. You can usually find out if it does from the collegeboard search service, if the school won’t admit to it.

How to Make the Big Decision

Once April 1st passes, you should have all your admission decisions and now just one month to commit to one. The pressure is high, and it can be terrifying to think that this single choice could change the course of your life.

By now, you’ve probably had part of the decision made for you, which makes things a bit easier. Sadly, you probably won’t get accepted to all the schools you applied to. Personally, I received seven acceptances, no rejections, and five waitlist offers. Waitlists, I decided, were not likely to provide me with any better offers than what I had already received; so, I declined my spot on all five.

It’s also possible that some schools didn’t offer the maximum in merit scholarships or financial aid that you’ve hoped for. You can appeal need-based awards, but unless your finances have changed this is unlikely to result in much change. I eliminated the five acceptances which came with price tags upwards of $20,000 per year.

So, I was left with two options.

Once you’ve gotten down to being between a rock and a hard place, it’s time to scroll all the way back up to step one and ask yourself, “Who am I?”

It’s possible the answer has changed. Or, maybe it’s become more confident. Reconsider what you value and what is most important to you especially.

I had decided that I wanted more than anything to be challenged in college, both through classes and by the people around me. I wanted to take some risks, not just play it safe. And, I wanted to travel the world. But, I wanted to be part of a meaningful community — a community that I was proud of. This was particularly important to me, as I had cherished the friendships I made in high school by entering into the International Baccalaureate program where I was surrounded by people who shared my love for learning and sense of humor.

Looking at those priorities, it was obvious that Minerva was the place for me. This school had only been established for two years — talk about taking a risk — and it promised the opportunity to live in seven different cities around the world over four years. But, the game changer was really the students. Even on Facebook, they talked about things that were more meaningful and more intelligent than the “Netflix and fav music?” that I saw in other accepted student groups. In person, they were all different, and diverse in the truest sense of the word.

There was no singular way to describe the people Minerva brought together. They were never going to become boring or static, and that’s exactly what I wanted.

Yes, financial feasibility is important. But, you should be willing to pay a bit more to go somewhere that will be better at helping you become who you want to be.

To read more about my decision, check out this post on my blog, Selfhood Pending.