You and your student have read all the printed materials on the website, you’ve visited campus, and they’ve applied and been accepted. You believe this may be the college they choose. But there is that lingering question: what’s it really like at this college? To answer that, we have to go back and discuss not just how to choose a college, but how to choose the right college.
The Basics
This will not be an exhaustive document on choosing a college, just a brief description of the process. Up front though, remember that there are almost 4,000 colleges and universities of all types in the United States. Given this number, your student can find the college for them. But they may ask how to choose the right college for them? Let start from the beginning. I developed a post on how to choose a college in 2019 which I think is still relevant. The first thing to keep in mind is that few—if any—students need to apply to twenty-five schools. First, I doubt your student would really be willing to attend all of those twenty-five schools. Second, applying to that many colleges can cloud the issue of which one to attend. Keep the beginning list at twenty (ten is actually better, I think!) then use a variety of methods including common sense to trim the list.
I always suggest starting with academics—the major or field your student wants to pursue—in addition to college size, and distance from home. Not very sexy stuff, but they are important considerations. For example, if your student wants to attend a public college in their home state, that’s already a restriction. Few students want to go to school eight hours from home. Most go to school within four. And if your student wants to be a nurse, make sure their potential colleges all have nursing programs. Once your student has identified these search priorities, they can move on to matching with specific colleges.
Resources
You can find a gazillion lists online of methods to identify and investigate schools, but since you’re interested in how to choose the right college, we ought to step back. Does your student know what they want to study? Do they know where they want to be, or the size of college they’d prefer? US News and World Report offers a college personality quiz, but it is more an assessment of readiness for college and or your student. Having said that, it may be helpful if you suspect your student isn’t motivated to start college right now.
The Search
Your student can then use a variety of search engines to find a school that fits their basic criteria (major, size and distance from home and other factors). All they have to do is place “college search” into Google or another search engine, and they’ll see plenty of options. The college search sites are all similar, so encourage your student to play with them for awhile. You should, too, to see how different your lists may be compared to your student’s. Finding the differences and similarities is a great way to bond over the college search process.
Another interesting site is Niche.com, which offers its own quick way to help students with how to choose the right college. One challenge with these surveys is students can often find many more colleges than they want to consider, which just overwhelms them. The Niche.com quiz doesn’t contain many items, but they offer to send a list of college your student matches once they set up an account.
Fit
Grown and Flown, another site focused on the parents of college students, has a list of seventeen tips to help students choose the right college, and their approach is great. As I’ve mentioned in my post about college fit, there are so many elements beyond the big three considerations they should think about. These include social life, diversity, Greek life, and whether the college is located in a city, the country, or a suburban area. That’s why a campus visit is so important.
Current students at the college are an underutilized resource during the college search process. Plexuss has an article which lists questions to ask current students, whether your student knows them or not. These can be asked during college visits or through other means, but I wouldn’t ask the admissions tour guide staff. They may still be honest with you, but they’re also the college’s ambassadors. Ask other students on campus for their opinions instead. Getschooled offers a similar list of questions, and while I think their questions aren’t as comprehensives as those of Plexuss, they have a nice video on their site featuring current college students. The students speak about their experiences and ways to make a good college choice. They also highlight some of the factors they suggest other students should consider when looking at colleges. These students were spot-on with their perspectives and suggestions.
There are plenty of resources to help your student choose the right college. So, what are you—and they—waiting for?