There are so many wonderful colleges in the world, and my son is the type of person who probably would have been happy at any of them (except a military academy or religious school!). Here are some of the key moments that helped him arrive at his top choice.
We started visiting colleges, using college guides (Fiske, Princeton Review, Ultimate Guide, Insider’s Guide), websites, lists like US News and Forbes, and sites like College Confidential, to find colleges that looked like possibilities. As we visited, his preferences became clear.
Near Home: He is an only child, and he has not spent time away from home. He knew right away he was not interested in anything farther away than a long day’s drive— about six hours (from Maine to the District of Columbia, from the east coast to Pennsylvania).
Intellectual Atmosphere: This became clear on the day we visited Johns Hopkins after American University. He liked American a lot when we visited, and there are certainly many very bright students there. But the next day, a girl at the info session at Johns Hopkins went on and on about her passion for some relatively obscure branch of history and all she was learning at JHU. My son loved this. Other students we met seemed similarly intellectually engaged. When we left JHU, my son remarked that he had noticed that the students at American all had talked about their wonderful internship opportunities, and all the cool activities and traditions on campus, and how great DC was... but (admittedly perhaps by luck of whom we met) no one had talked about loving a class or a subject or an idea. He said he wanted to go to a college where people were excited about learning for learning’s sake.
Size: This became clear on the days we visited first Cornell, then Colgate and Hamilton the next day. He walked off the Cornell campus feeling overwhelmed and saying, “Too big” and “No.” The next day, he was thrilled by Colgate and especially by Hamilton. It was clear that the small liberal arts colleges were his preference. This became more pronounced several months later when we visited Princeton and Skidmore during the same trip. When we left Princeton, he said (I am paraphrasing here): “It’s nice, and I guess I would go here if I got in, because I always would be able to say I went to Princeton... but I actually liked Skidmore better.”
Available Extracurriculars: My son has played tennis five days a week since elementary school. He did not think he is good enough to even try to be recruited at a NESCAC level college, but he could not imagine life without tennis, and he likes to compete in matches and team tournaments, not just play one friend. So colleges that had a club tennis team, in case he does not make varsity as a walk-on, got some extra attention. But he said he would choose a college that met more of his other criteria above a college that had club tennis. He also liked quirky traditions, like Beatlemore Skidmania at Skidmore and Trivia Night and Mountain Day at Williams.
Close Knit Community: He liked it when students were enthusiastic about their colleges. He also liked colleges that offer ways to get to know your classmates well when you first arrive on campus, from the house system at Franklin and Marshall to the entry system at Williams. He liked the outdoor freshman orientation trips at many colleges.
Campus and Setting: He liked big open green quads. Middlebury looked perhaps the most like he thought a college should look— many huge green quads with nice buildings and view of mountains all around. He said he had no interest in visiting an ultra-urban school without much of a campus, like NYU or George Washington or Boston U. If there was no quad in which to toss around a frisbee, the college was out! And in the final analysis, he stated that he preferred rural colleges to urban or suburban ones. He found rural areas more charming, and more different from the suburban town where he grew up.
Coed Dorms and Bathrooms and No Fraternities: He loved Hamilton despite its fraternities, and he kept saying that it was different because their fraternities were non-residential. He would happily have gone to Hamilton, because it had so many other features he loved. But in general, he found fraternities a minus. For example, at the “match” level, he preferred Connecticut College, Skidmore, and Brandeis above Franklin and Marshall and Lafayette. He liked the inclusive environments more. And, as a heterosexual male as well as a feminist, he did not like gender segregation. He preferred coed or gender neutral bathrooms, although that would not be a deal breaker. He hated it, however, when we were on a tour and the tour guide spoke about a single-sex dorm being really popular among the guys. My son said, “I prefer places where everything is not separated by gender.” Then he joked, “I like places like Wesleyan, where no one even knows what anyone’s gender is!”
So we gradually narrowed the field and honed in on the types of colleges he preferred.
@TheGreyKing, our DD’s had a very similar search experience with many of the same values as selection criteria -it feels like there is a LAC DNA preset for those that chose that learning environment and social experience. Our DD’s both chose Hamilton and are loving life on the Hill! - beautiful campus, very smart, diverse and caring student population, incredibly supportive professors and alumni.
Good luck to your son as it sounds like he’s found his home as well!
Good description of the general process people should go through to narrow the field to a reasonable number to apply to.
With so many schools you have to think about what you [think you] want and see which schools fit best.
Very much the type of process my D1& D2 went through in selecting their application pools.
The challenge is, you must make these decisions with only imperfect information about the actual experience at the schools, and how you yourself may change over the course of this important period. You’ll know a lot more after actually experiencing college, but that doesn’t help right now.
D1 became bored at her relatively isolated LAC, which she thought was such a great size when she chose it, and ran into course limitations due to size towards the end. And though she thought she fit someplace within the spectrum of the prevailing campus culture, it turned out she didn’t, so much.
D2 decided against the major that was a big focus of her application process, and she found that the social environment at her LAC wasn’t to her liking. Which she could not have fully realized before she experienced it.
So it doesn’t always work out as you think. But what can you do? You have to make the best decision you can at the time you have to make it, with all available information that’s available then. But it should be recognized that the available information, both about the school and about yourself, is imperfect.
I had an almost parallel experience in the process with my D! Even down to the Ivy visit (Brown) where she said “I guess if I was admitted I would want to go and it would be ok…” She loved the cameraderie of Hamilton and Bates over the cliquishness of Amherst. Never visited Williams when kids were in session, but liked it over the summer.
The only difference was point 7: D hoped for sororities - not a deal breaker but a preference. As someone who was drawn to the womens’ colleges but not for the full commitment it seemed like a great way to bond with other females. This was especially true at Hamilton where they seem more inclusive than status oriented.
@4junior Can you expand a bit on why you perceived Amherst to be cliquish? Will be visiting it soon, and on paper it seems like it would be a diverse and inclusive place.
@wisteria100 I totally understand how it would come off that way on paper. And we visited twice and I will confess what we perceive as cliquish was much more visible the second visit - so some if it is the luck of the draw of the visit.
First visit during spring break of jr year we say lots of happy people milling outside. Second school we saw and it all looked great.
Second visit - which was a search for an ED1 school and therefore scrutinized differently- D noticed that people of similar types were seen together: african american women, east asians, ‘lax bros’, etc. Speaking with our tour guide and some others after our tour we asked “whats the one thing you would change about Amherst” or "whats your least favorite thing about attending Amherst’ (there are TONS of great things mind you). All loved the academics but the least favorite thing was the Social Life, by far. Seems Amherst has clamped down so hard on socialization that parties with alcohol are hard to come by and tend to be small gatherings in a upperclass dorm room: thereby attending mostly by people who are already friends and making it hard for kids to meet people outside their ‘group’. They do have social events, like a smores party, but realisitically thats not the majority of what college want as socializing. Women said they often went to U Mass Amherst parties to meet guys.
I guess part of it is a sliding scale, compared to some schools it might not seem cliquish, compared to others it is. D gravitated to schools that are uber inclusive so it was serious factor she considered. Also it feels like there is a lot of division between socio economic groups in social events. High proportion of financial aid students (one said his favorite activity was attending UMass with a date cause it was all you could eat for a meal swipe) vs wealthy students at the cute but quite pricey for a college student restaurants that ring campus. Did not seem like they mixed much outside of classes and clubs.
Thanks for posting this. My son is a senior–rejected in ED so now applying to a bunch of schools and I appreciate reading about your son’s decision making process.