How to College

How To Choose Right College for You

30
May

Choosing the right college may play as big a role in your future as your degree itself. The years you spend at college are often the most life-defining considering your personal and professional developments rely heavily on how much you take away from college. It is imperative to know yourself fully as a person and as a student before you commit to spending four important years in one place, to figure out how well you fit in.

Choosing the right college is equal parts science and art. Science, because it is important to make sure a college has the major and courses you want to pursue. Art, because it is essential that the college you pick be a reflection of yourself and conform to who you are as a person. Collectively this makes for an ideal directive to pick the “best fit” college for you.

In order to do this effectively, here’s the science and art of it broken down:

  •   Choose the country you apply to carefully: The country you decide to apply to colleges in, plays a tremendous role in affecting your future career. Evaluating a country in terms of the colleges it houses and the quality of education they offer, the scope and work opportunities it provides for the course you select, the language spoken, it’s student-immigrant policies, the healthcare services offered, the weather and general friendliness of people can go a long way in determining success of a student in a specific place and setting.
  • Don’t rely completely on college rankings: Rankings are useful in grasping how colleges stack up against each other, but they are based on a certain fixed set of priorities. For each student, these priorities may differ. The most highly ranked schools may not be the right fit for every student, and hence do no guarantee success. Colleges should be an ideal fit for you academically, financially as well as culturally to make the most of your time at college.
  • Visit the college campus: A campus visit serves as a great way to firsthand experience the culture and daily life of students on campus. It can prove fruitful to meet with current students, college representatives and faculty members, to understand the courses taught on campus as well as explore the other facilities like dorms, gyms, libraries etc. through campus tours and visits to fully understand how well it would suit you personally. Doing this for a variety of campuses would help further tease out attributes of colleges that appeal to them.
  • Talk to current students: College brochures and websites while informative will tout only merits of said college, not its shortcomings. Getting unbiased opinion of the college from current students serves as a better measure of knowing full well what the college has to offer and more importantly, what it does not. Another way to get unprejudiced, uncensored insight on the college is through college newspapers which will give you a lot you need to know about the college; the good, the bad and the ugly.
  • Consider the location of the college: People tend to underestimate the effect the role the location of the college plays in success: the weather, city-life, transport facilities, easy access to restaurants and cafes, population of the city can all work to indicating what college may be a good fit. Attending a college that is not only academically but also culturally a good fit can help the student thrive and perform better, stress less and have a better experience on the whole.
  • Study the college and class sizes: The size of a college as well as that of classes should be an essential factor to consider while making your decision. Larger schools may have larger campuses with a more diverse student selection and facilities, whereas smaller colleges may give you more individualized attention and a higher level of interaction. College is a good time to explore, and it is up to each student personally to know if they are more conducive to learning in smaller or larger class sizes.
  • Explore career development opportunities: In addition to glancing through courses a particular college may offer, it is important to investigate how the school supports students in preparing students for their professional careers. In order to do this, contacting the career development office at colleges can help. Explore professional workshops the college maybe conducting, networking events with alumni that may be offered, unique career launching programs that may in place to help students make the most of available resources on campus.
  • Manage your expectations: List down your own personal expectations and academic goals in terms of what you mean to achieve from your experience at college, and see how your college of choice stacks up against your list. In preparing this list, set your priorities down on paper; see what factors are absolutely indispensable and what factors you can compromise on.

Besides the points listed above, there are several other important factors that may be taken into consideration, like: the accreditation of the college, the cost of attendance, the retention, graduation rate and acceptance rates of a college, campus diversity and safety and so on. The list for each student will vary vastly depending on individual choices and priorities.

Choosing a college from the list of acceptances I received was challenging. Ultimately, I chose Johns Hopkins because it aligned perfectly with my academic goals. Based on my own experience, at How To College, I strive to provide personalized guidance to students in choosing a college that fits perfectly with their personal and academic goals.