With the school year in full swing, college-bound juniors are working on their college list. Narrowing down the college preferences can be difficult, especially when your student is indecisive or feels overwhelmed about the college process. These young students need guidance, even if they don’t think so or are hesitant to ask for help.
When my daughter started making her college list in her junior year she didn’t know where to begin. She had a few must haves on her list: sororities, a small college, and one with a focus on fashion merchandising. Beyond that, she knew she wanted to apply to a few colleges in Boston, especially the one on her dream list: Boston University. But in the beginning, it seemed like a monumental task.
Following are five steps we followed to begin and ultimately create her final college list:
Step 1: College visits
Quite possibly the most important aspect of choosing a college is the college visit. These visits give your student a feel for college life. On the visit, he can meet other students, ask questions, and explore on his own. Since choosing a college is not only a financial decision, but an emotional decision as well, it’s on these visits that you will often be able to cross some colleges off the list. My daughter told me several times that “she just wasn’t feeling it”. She also eliminated some because of the layout and look of the campus. This is quite common and while it might frustrate you as a parent, remember that it is your student who will be attending. If she doesn’t like the college, she won’t be happy there.
Step 2: Delve even deeper into the statistics and data
We then researched the statistics and data of the colleges still on her list. We looked at graduation rates, the percentage of financial aid awarded to accepted students, acceptance rates, and finally the amount of student loan debt incurred by graduates. We used this data to rank the colleges and determine which would be the best financial investment and which would be more likely to award merit aid scholarships.
Step 3: Determine a college’s cost of attendance
After looking at the statistics and the data, we determined each college’s cost of attendance. Since financial affordability was at the top of our list, we knew that many of the colleges would be out of our price range. The colleges with low merit aid percentages and high price tags were taken of the list. But for some, even though the sticker price was high, if the percentage of merit aid offered to incoming students was high, we kept them on the list.
Step 4: Examine the college’s amenities and majors
Once we determined whether or not a college would be within our ability to pay, we began looking at the college amenities and majors. Colleges that did not have sororities or some form of merchandizing or marketing were crossed off the list. Large universities were also removed. Colleges with all her required amenities and within my daughter’s preferred geographical location were top priority. Use these preferences to begin narrowing down your college list after all the previous criteria has been met.
Final step: Narrow the list down to ten colleges
On our final list we had three types of colleges: reach, match and safety. The three reach colleges included Boston University and other colleges that were a reach due to varying factors like SAT scores and overall GPA. The four match schools were colleges that my daughter was at the top of the applicant pool academically and would most likely be awarded merit aid. The three safety schools were colleges where she exceeded admission requirements and was almost guaranteed admission. Although these were safety schools, every college in this category was a college she would be happy to attend.
Because we did our homework and followed the six steps I outlined, my daughter was offered admission to every college on her list. Once we received the offers, we were able to compare financial aid awards, leverage them against one another, and choose the college that met her needs and aligned with our financial expectations.