<p>I feel like I'm the odd one out when my friends discuss their "dream colleges." To be quite honest, I don't have a dream college. I know each college has its own vibe and uniqueness about it, but I've had to live in over 10 different cities between first grade and my senior year of high school and obviously I preferred some places over others, but I learned to adapt so I've been pretty content with my childhood and I feel like college would be no different.</p>
<p>Basically, I feel like if I got into a college that I thought would provide a better education and gave me decent aid, I don't think I would turn it down because of the "vibe," as long as it wasn't, say, a school with affiliations to the Westboro Baptist Church or the KKK.</p>
<p>Any thoughts on this? Am I being too apathetic about how I'll spend the next four years of my life?</p>
<p>Yes and no. Up until now, you haven’t had any control over where you go, so you’ve made do, which can be a great attitude. But for the first time in your life, you CAN control where you’re going to go. Maybe you really don’t care, but I would think that you’d embrace that first chance to really say that THIS is where I belong. Otherwise, it seems you’re throwing darts and you’re happy with what results, as long as it’s not Bob Jones U., which is kind of a strange way to approach life. I hope you don’t pick a career or a life partner the same way.</p>
<p>You aren’t too apathetic about it. Some people aren’t as adaptable as you are, and think the only way they can succeed is if they get into an Ivy league school or a top LAC or whatever, and some of us applied to a bunch of different schools and are trying to find which one will give the best value and help us meet our future goals. There is no real right or wrong feeling on it, though being really passionate about a school would make it more likely for you to get accepted (Since your essays and whatnot would be better than someone writing them just to do them)</p>
<p>Being adaptable is a good thing – you will likely have a large selection of colleges that will be a good, or at least acceptable, fit for you. This makes it easier for you to find affordable safeties than for pickier people to do so.</p>
<p>I think that you are smart and realistic. If money is an issue, finding the most likable of the affordables is the way to go. Too many students and families find the favorite institution first and then try to make it affordable - which produces way to many threads each April on the need to suddenly find a half-way likable place that just might squeeze into the family budget.</p>
<p>I expect that wherever you end up you will find your own ways to be happy, and you will thrive.</p>
<p>While its good not to fixate on a dream school and to be adaptable, part of the college application process is getting to know yourself better. For the first time, you are being asked to articulate what makes you tick - what environments bring out the best in you, what learning style produces your best results, what areas of interest appeal most to you, and, of course, what is your appetite for debt/risk/challenge. There aren’t right answers, but the wrong answer is ‘I’m fine with everything’ because it’s probably not true. Take the time to visit some schools (a big state school, a LAC, an urban school, etc…), sit in on different types of classes, look through some course catalogs. I’d be surprised if you don’t come away with preferences, some of them pretty strong.</p>
<p>A large percentage of college students do not have the luxury of choosing a college giving significant weight to anything other than cost and academic programs (consider all of the students commuting to community college or local state universities because they are limited either by money or where they can get admitted).</p>
<p>The students who do have the luxury to be picky are the ones with family monetary support and good enough credentials to be admissible to a larger selection of colleges. Yes, such students are overrepresented on these forums, but one should be careful to avoid considering them as typical.</p>