When thinking about, talking about, researching and visiting colleges, sometimes it is easy to “settle” and go with the schools that you read about, hear about from relatives or others or read about in the media (sometimes going with one ranking list). The ultimate goal in the college planning process is to apply to colleges that you know will be a great fit for you. I recently talked to a parent that said, “when visiting a college with my child, I actually got angry because I just settled for the school I thought I was “supposed” to go to but if I knew some of these other schools were out there, I probably would have attended a different school”.
Now, the college planning and application process is much different than it was 20 years ago. There are more options, colleges are more expensive and because of the internet and social media, people are much more aware of hundreds of more schools that they were 20-25 years ago. Below are four reasons not to “settle” when researching colleges:
- College is very expensive– Your goal throughout the college planning process should be to find the best fit college for the least amount of money. This means you should expand your search to include schools that are a few or more states away. These are colleges that may throw more merit scholarship money your way because they want more students from the area you live in. Even if it is a private or public out-of-state university which typically costs more money, a lot of times these schools tend to be cheaper because you are able to qualify or apply for merit based scholarship money. This is not to say that some local colleges or universities can be less money as well. This is why you need to consider the local state university as well and don’t assume it’s not as good of an education and “settle” for the more expensive school.
- Rankings Don’t Tell the Whole Story– A lot of students and parents like to look at rankings to form their opinion about a college. The US News and World Report feeds off of this frenzy with their rankings every year. They know people look at their rankings as “truth” and they determine what colleges are the “best” colleges based on these rankings. First of all, rankings are “gamed” and colleges know what they need to do in order to stay at the top of the rankings. So it is a money driven and strategized process that US News and World Report doesn’t control, the colleges do. Secondly, there are so many different companies ranking these days (Money magazine, Forbes, LinkedIn, Princeton Review, etc.) that each is trying to build some different criteria into their rankings that they think is better and gives a more accurate indication of how “good” a school is. While rankings can be helpful in understanding what and how it does, it should never be the reason we think a school is better than another. We need to know what the most important factors are and do our own research to see if the colleges we are considering are a good fit. We also need to be willing to be open colleges we haven’t heard of.
- There are so many colleges out there– I have been a college counselor for 18 years now and every year I hear of and learn about colleges I never heard of before. One way to enjoy the college planning and research process is to continue to learn more of what is out there and trying to see if there is a similar school to the one(s) you are considering for less money. Use college search tools in websites like Naviance, College Board, College Data, College Scorecard, etc. to open your understanding of colleges that you never knew of before. Play around and have fun with these college search tools and see what you find out.
- Always Keep the Door Open– One piece of advice I always give is that no student should ever “shut the door” on their college planning and application process until they make that final decision on where to attend. When I meet with seniors sometimes I hear them not be open to advice about other schools because it overwhelms them to think there are more options out there. They would rather be close minded and not consider other options because the process stresses them out. I understand the process can be stressful, but you are going to be more stressed when you are at a school that you are not succeeding at or you are staring at college loan bills you have to pay back after college because you didn’t consider what other school you could attend.