Beyond the basic ones, what are some of the factors to consider in making a decision?
Reputation/rank of the school and prestige of the degree
Social scene
Academic excellence
Cost
Distance from home
School spirit/athletics
Internship opportunities
Connections with good graduate or professional schools
Others?
The factors are different for different people.
Two things not on your list that were factors for my S were: 1) is if a school is in a urban/suburban/rural neighborhood and 2) prevalence of Greek Life on campus and 3) availability of his major. My D wanted to continue playing violin without being a music major so being able to be a part of music ensembles on campus was a factor (albeit a small one) for her.
I’ve heard other people caring about things such as : dorms, food, weather, intramural quidditch …really anything is fair game if it is something a particular student is interested pursuing in college.
Personally I’d look for a wide availability of electives across interesting fields (geosciences, astronomy et al). Geographical or other diversity within the student body would be another consideration. Athletic facilities open to all students may be more important than marquee athletics limited to relatively few students.
Class size is an important factor for some people (but not everyone). Be wary of schools that say things like 80% of our classes have fewer than 12 students. That can be a very misleading statement.
School size
Gender balance
The selection of club and intramural sports
Weather seems to be a frequently sited factor among kids on College Confidential. Kids from the north often want to go someplace that’s warm year-round, while kids from the sunbelt often relish the adventure of experiencing actual seasons.
@Otterma Can you say more about classsize? How can you find out what the real deal is?
My older D wanted a school where it would be easy to play sports just for fun. She was a three sport varsity athlete in HS but did not want to continue in college.
My younger D wanted diversity, including economic. She also wanted strong academics in a collaborative environment that would not stress her out too much.
It depends on the student/the parents.
Me personally, I throw school spirit and distance from family out of the window, because both are unimportant for me.
Other things to consider:
@citymama9 - as to why it’s misleading, here was my thinking:
A college claims that 80% of their classes have fewer than 12 students. Let’s say we have a smallish college of 6800 students, it offers 100 classes, and students only take one class a semester (again, keeping the math simple). That means there are 80 small classes of around 10 students… great! until you realize that only 800 students out of 6800 are in the small classes. The remaining 6000 students are split between 20 classes meaning an average class size for the vast majority of students will be 300.
How to find out the real deal? Great question (meaning I have no good answer). I ended up relying on reports from current students about how big their largest classes were and their range of class sizes. It was my go-to question for student guides on college tours. First hand student reports are usually very detailed: “My X class is over 400 but we have breakout sessions with TAs that are about 20 of us. My Y and Z classes have about 40 or 60 students, and I have a seminar where there are only 8 of us.”
My son was able to get a good sense on accepted student visits to colleges where he could sit in on a range of classes. He chose a mix of freshman and upper level courses so he could see for himself.
You could also read through course descriptions at various colleges @citymama9. Many include a figure for maximum enrollment.
Great points above. Couple of other considerations:
Good luck!
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Can you say more about classsize? How can you find out what the real deal is?
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Class size reporting can be very misleading. And often not a big deal either way.
Even the small privates will often have large class sizes for the basic 100 level lecture classes (history, poly sci, bio, chem etc). But, really, not a big deal for most students. For the student that wants a more intimate feel in a large class, then sit in the front! Lol
But even the very large bio and chem lecture classes will have small lab classes.
Even large schools often have small Frosh Comp or similar classes because profs can’t read/grade essays of large classes. I think at my kids’ flagship, Frosh Comp classes are limited to 25 students.
Large schools with honors courses will often have smaller honors courses. My kids’ flagship honors college has 15 student class sizes.
Another issue that influences reported average class size is 400 level courses. My kids had some 400 level courses with only 4 or 5 undergrads in them. The classes were able to exist because they also included a small number of grad students 500 level. But having those tiny 400 level courses helps those reported overall averages.
I think that the “prestige of the degree” is overrated as a criteria. There are plenty of very strong students from state schools, and people that you don’t want to work with or for from Harvard and MIT. The big name schools don’t have a monopoly on math, science, or anything else. I have degrees from MIT and Stanford, and have spent most of my career working for bosses from less famous schools. The best bosses were in some cases from schools that I had never heard of.
Cost is important. Many jobs these days require graduate degrees, and it would be much better if you can start graduate school without debt. First jobs often don’t pay all that well and it will be much easier to live on the initial salary if there is no debt. Also, students who have to live with their parents to pay off student loans are very limited in terms of where they can accept jobs after graduation.
The student has to be comfortable wherever he or she goes. They after all are going to need to go to classes, study, do homework, take the exams, live on campus, and make friends (not necessarily in this order). The parents won’t be doing these things for their student. Students should visit at least a few of their top choices before deciding.
Size of the school is an important consideration. There are tradeoffs between large versus small universities. Many students will be more comfortable in one or the other.
Stress level is important to consider. It is not necessarily easy to predict ahead of time, although some schools such as MIT are quite stressful.
In the USA, for anything other than hard science, I would be concerned about political correctness creating a bias in the education. For example, my oldest in order to stay in the honor’s college was required to take a course which she summarized as “why white people are bad”. Personally I would have been unable to lie long enough to complete the course. Unfortunately I don’t know how to predict ahead of time how large a factor this would be at any particular university.
To me, the most important factors, in order, are:
I could just about build an initial reach/match list from 3 pieces of information:
average test scores, the College Scorecard average cost for my family income bracket, and location.
At least at the high end, average scores alone correlate rather strongly with many other measurements used to rank college quality. The ~40 colleges with the highest average test scores tend to have excellent academics, generous need-based aid, and attractive campuses. If they didn’t have those qualities, they’d have a harder time attracting high-scoring students. If they do attract many high-scoring students, they tend to have many successful alumni, which means more donations and bigger endowments, which tends to buy more/bigger/better stuff.
The converse isn’t necessarily true. Some schools with relatively low test scores do also have good academics, reasonable net prices, and attractive locations. However, it can be harder to identify the best low match and safety schools than reach and high match schools (especially if you’re considering 100+ colleges across a big geographic area.) Idiosyncratic personal preferences (“near a beach”, “great basketball team”) can help narrow that search space.
One of the simplest filters is to start with public colleges in your own home state.
Thank you for the responses. It has helped expand my list. Decision time is drawing near!