Lessons Learned on the Search for the Right College
Hello, fellow iGlobers and readers. I’m willing to bet that most of you will, at some point, embark on the 21st Century’s greatest quest: searching for the “perfect” college. I myself recently finished that quest, and thus, I thought at least some of you might be interested in hearing some of the things I learned on my personal journey. With that assumption, I present some of the more important highlights in my college search.
The first thing I learned was that it’s important to start early. I happened to learn this the hard way, which is why I am telling you now, do not follow in my timetable. I began looking at colleges in the last half of my junior year of high school. Let me be frank: that wasn’t the best idea. Because college is a big decision, one really needs time to think. My brother, on the other hand, learned from me, and began his search in his sophomore year. I hate to say it, but my brother wins on that one, and now he has a few schools to look at without much pressure at all.
Once you’ve started early, at some point, you’ll probably take the PSAT, SAT, or ACT tests. For me personally, I only took the PSAT and ACT, but as much as people try to tell you to take all three, and repeat the ACT or SAT as needed until you have a perfect score, don’t listen to them. What you should do instead is prepare well the first time, go into the test, and knock it out of the park, but don’t expect perfection. I did decently at the PSAT; not great, but I wasn’t ashamed. With that as my practice, as well as some additional preparation and practice tests, I went into the ACT and did great, landing a score that would place me into most good schools.
While you’re taking these tests, they’ll ask for your email address. Give it to them, but be warned. Colleges began emailing me and sending me mail in droves, and every morning, I’d wake up to some school in Colorado saying they were a perfect fit for me. You don’t have to take this seriously, and indeed, I didn’t, and probably shouldn’t have. In the end, none of these schools actually fit my needs, although for a while, I did consider two of them. In the end, I did my own research with family and a private college counselor who was well-worth paying for.
While you’re inundated with spam emails, usually entitled something like “Alex, learn the way you’ve always dreamed of at {enter college name here},” you will also want to look at schools that are right for you. Some people say that you should use the “college search engines,” where you rank certain criteria by how important they are to you, and then it turns up a list of “perfect” schools. I presume this is also how dating websites work, and just like dating websites, you end up with a lot of interesting college choices that scare you in more ways than intrigue you. For example, my list of “perfect” schools included an all-black school (I’m not black), several tiny arts schools, and a lot of Christian schools, none of which particularly interested me. Now, if you are into that sort of thing, by all means, use the search engines, but understand that you know yourself better than any search engine ever could.
So, if not a search engine, where do you look? That was my problem. I knew what I wanted to do in college (although that decision wasn’t easy either), but I didn’t know what schools could meet my needs. That’s where my private college counselor came in. He compiled a list of schools that he thought might be nice for me, and then I took a look at them. Most of them weren’t appealing for one reason or another, but that allowed him to make another list of better options, one of which I even applied to. So, if you know an expert, use their expertise, and never be afraid to say “to be honest, that school looks a bit too liberal for me.”
What’s funny is that most of the schools I applied to were discovered in other ways. My mother discovered one, doing her own research. I took dual-enrolled classes at my local state college and decided I’d apply, just to have a “safe” option that I knew would accept me. A mentor of mine pushed me to apply to a top-tier music school in my area. The last school that I applied to, and actually ended up choosing, was a top-tier communications college that I read a feature on in the newspaper (yes, I still read the newspaper). Funny how that happens, right?
Once you’ve applied to your schools, just relax. You’ve done all you can, and as much as some university in Arizona keeps emailing you “Alex, it’s not too late to apply,” I want you to stand strong and realize you’re going to be okay. You may get rejected from one or two schools, but presumably you only applied to ones where you had a chance, so the rest should take you. Once you’ve got your schools together (I was accepted to all five I applied to), you have to eliminate some until you’re left with one. For me, this involved campus visits, fact-checking, cost-counting, and soul-searching in large quantities. And if you’re torn between two schools like I was, then that means you made two great choices, and either way, you can’t go wrong.
Here’s my last piece of advice now. Two of my schools shared a motto, that being “Esse quam videri,” Latin for “To be, rather than to seem.” Not only is that a cool motto, but it should be your motto too. When applying to colleges, don’t just look good on paper, be a good student. Your test scores should reflect your abilities, your extracurricular activities should reflect your personality, and your admittance essays should reflect your knowledge and skills. No faking your way into college! Be the best student you can be, make the smartest choices you can, and trust me, this college search will go just fine, and come the next fall, you’ll be moving into a place that’s right for you.