Once Accepted, How To Decide

Parents Forum
1

My D applied to 10 schools. Our strategy was to only apply to schools that met all of her criteria: big school, solid Wildlife Conservation or AniSci program, dance companies/dance courses, vegan dining options. She’s been admitted to 7, deferred from Early Action to Regular Decision by 1 and will hear from them and the remaining two by April 1st. She’s not wedded to any one school (at my suggestion to date), but has visited 3 and liked 1 over the other 2. We plan to visit a couple more, but some are a hike away in opposite directions, so not sure we’ll get to see all. As she began to receive such good news, I was a proud dad. Now, as they keep coming in, I’m quickly becoming the anxious dad. Despite hours and hours on-line, I fear I won’t be able to help her to make a final decision. These big predominately public schools (except for one Ivy) are hard to distinguish from oneanother!!! Financial aid offers are only in for like 1 school, with 3 having sent notices of some merit scholarship $ already, but nothing earthshattering.

I honestly didn’t think it would be this hard. Can any experienced guidance folk or similar advisors on here help me to help her to make the best decision? I mean I’m down to like brass tacks in my research: crime stats, vegan menu options, etc.
HELP! :slight_smile:

2

I feel your pain! It’s an anxiety-producing experience for me, too, though to be fair, it sounds like these are good “difficulties” for both our families to have. They have many great choices! For us, the decision-making is coming down to these things:

(1) best “fit” according to where we did visit (a clear winner has emerged for my D17)
(2) best merit aid/financial aid package (again, we have a couple of clear leaders there)

We are very lucky in that my D’s top choice also happened to offer one of the best merit packages of all the ones she applied to, which truly makes her decision easier. And yet, she still hasn’t just committed already, mainly because she wants to do an overnight visit just to be totally positive it’s the right choice. She’s had a family story in her mind about a “confirming” overnight visit to her aunt’s top choice that turned out to be a nightmare, so she wants to be sure that doesn’t happen to her. My D’s already visited and loved this top choice so it’s highly unlikely, but she wants to hedge her bets. That’s fine, but my own anxiety would be eased if we could just make the dang deposit and commit already! My D is more chill about it than I am, it turns out. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I think that if all of these schools have met your child’s basic requirements, you should wait until all of their financial offers are in hand to really be able to compare. That might give clarity. We found that once we got the offers in hand, we could do the mental exercise of saying “Is College B really worth paying $20K more over 4 years than College A?” etc.

If your D is able to visit, that would be ideal – that way you could fully compare apples to apples. However, I totally get how that might not be possible, either from a money or time perspective. (Your D should check to see if her schools are offering to fly her in for overnight visits, by the way.) We found that for the 2 schools that my D did NOT visit that accepted her, she’s just not that interested in them. If she had visited, she might LOVE them – who knows --but at this point, she doesn’t have a desire to visit precisely because she has said 95% sure that she wants her top choice. It sounds like that might be different for your D, though.

Assuming all the basics are equal (ie. academic & extracurricular options she’s interested in, a couple of other considerations that you might want to think of are:

(1) Travel home during breaks: how easy & costly travel to and from each school would be for her (ie. would she have to get some sort of shuttle to the nearest airport, are there limited other travel options there, etc)

(2) Study away and/or internship programs?

Good luck with the financial aid pieces and with her decision, and congrats to your D that she has so many great options!

3

I think visiting as an accepted student is critical. Looking at a school from ‘I could be one of those student if I want’ puts a distinctly spin vs visiting in the pre-acceptance stage.

4

Best to wait until FA and scholarship offers are given before making the final decision.

If she is relatively non-picky and will do well at any of her choices, then the decision may not be super crucial beyond possibly the financial aspect. Perhaps revisit the important criteria like the academic programs, dance opportunities, and vegan dining (both on and off campus, since many students at big publics live in the dorms frosh year but live off campus later years) just to make sure.

5

Thanks @mnparentof3 and congrats for your family as well! Having the financial aid offers match up with your top choices is wonderfully helpful! LOL. You make some good points on other considerations that we’ll also take into consideration.

6

Great point about off campus food options @ucbalumnus! She cooks most of her own meals now, so a Whole Foods or great organic market option may need to be key as well. I can’t believe I just said that out loud about choosing a college…sigh, what we do for our kids. Thank you.

7

Overall, this is not a bad place to be! But I understand the stress – our family went through this as well.

I would, first and foremost, have her really dig into the websites to review the programs, the requirements for graduation, distribution requirements, availability of courses, etc. Are some more geared toward an academic, grad-school bound student while others are intended more for practitioners? Is one preferable? If she wants to experiment in other departments or change her major, how much flexibility is there to do that? Or is she certain of her path? As a result of this, are there any schools that she wants to drop from the list?

What is offered in dance in terms of courses and performance opportunities? How competitive is it to get into classes and companies? Can she meet some of the other dancers at a re-visit?

Is there anything else that she would like to see as part of her four years, like study abroad, or internships, and how easy will it be to do that with her major?

She should explore some of these, as well as dining and living options, on re-visits. I feel like a lone voice on these boards suggesting that you re-visit all the schools that seem to be real contenders rather than narrowing it first. Yes, it takes time and is hard given school, ECs, sports, etc., but my goodness! This is a BIG investment of $ and time, and 4 years of her life! She should be thoughtful about it. And it will also help her learn how to make big decisions and maybe a little about herself. It is very different to look at a school as a prospective student rather than as a prospective applicant. I was honestly a bit surprised about which schools moved up on the list during re-visits, and I think part of it was also that by spring of senior year, the perspective on this is a little different too.

One of the things that DS found was that sometimes, something that sounds really “cool” about a school and that propelled it to the top of the list was something that was not unique to the school, and that is something that one finds only by making a couple of visits. She should also really try to evaluate the vibe and culture. Does she feel like she “fits”? DS noticed that at some schools, all the kids would talk to each other before and after class whereas at others, they’d walk in and out silently. At some, people went out of their way to help him find a classroom or navigate the dining hall. Those little things may be quite telling. But I think that after several visits, he became a little less “deer in the headlights” and a little more observant and more tuned in to where he’d be happy.

The important thing that he did, though, was (much as your daughter is doing) was establish front-runners. After each visit, he’d ask “if I had to choose between X & Y, which would a choose.” And the winner would be compared to the next choice. At no point did he ever have more than 2 or 3 that had been visited in serious contention. When he ended up with the final two, the one with the better merit aid won out.

If your DD is stressing at the end, remind her it’s because she’s having trouble seeing the difference, and that likely means that it is negligible and that she’ll be happy at either.

8

Does she have a major in mind? If so, I would suggest comparing their 4 year academic plans and browsing course catalogs to get an idea of # of sections per class, times usually offered, what the caps are and if they seem to all be at capacity, etc.

9

If she cannot visit (which is the best way for her to decide) see if she can speak or email with some current students and professors in her area of interest. Many schools have students who volunteer in the admission office and are happy to speak or email with prospective students. She can also do the same with professors, by either reaching out to the admissions office first or just by going straight to that department.

Good luck!

10

I agree that attending the admitted student day program for your top choices can be extremely valuable.

We only had to decide between two liberal arts colleges, but we looked at a lot of factors including:

  • the nature of the academic program our son was interested in at each school, was it a well-established program, a "start-up," or....?
  • evidence for strong student-faculty connections, including opportunities for students to become involved in research (or internships, etc...)
  • strength of the faculty, are they active scholars in their fields?
  • outcomes for graduates, such as how many go on to get PhDs (or other graduate degrees), the Economist magazine study of earnings vs. expectations (fwiw), and an overview of the alumni profiles as summarized by the LinkedIn page for the college or university, showing career and employer types.
  • extra-curriculars and/or athletics -- in our case, our son was interested in a club sport and the issue was at what level did the club team compete? But you could apply this to other EC's that might be a particular passion as well, for example is the student newspaper a daily or a weekly?
    • strength of institutional leadership and finances? Is the school growing in prominence, or facing increasing challenges? If public, what is the strength of state support? If private, what is the strength of the endowment?

Obviously geography / location might be a big deciding factor – does the location of the school provide access to the type of environment and other opportunities that your student wants?

Related to this might be the layout and appearance of the campus, how far apart are things, what is the meal plan like, etc…

Related to the outcomes for graduates, one thing to pay attention to when you attend the admitted student days is what kind students the school presents to you as part of their program. Both the schools we looked at had soon-to-graduate seniors as part of their programs; at one school the students presented to us had already received multiple job offers but at the other, the chosen students were still looking for jobs…

Another aspect to consider is the overall tenor and atmosphere of the admitted students day program – for example, is the institution constantly pressing you to make your commitment and put down your deposit (or leaving you the space to make your own decision); for another example, is the focus of the program on student life issues, or the academic program, or student development and outcomes?

Good Luck!

11

All great suggestions. Not sure availability, but visiting the school, more specific, professors in her college of major and academic advisors. AP credit? How much? Crime rate?
Quite honestly outside of financially you should let her make decisions. Ask her questions that creates her to think.
For myself I visited 12 schools applied to 6 and new which 2 was my 1 and 1A. One campus I visited I was committed once I stepped on campus. The day went great, until I met with a professor and toured their facilities and quickly realize they didn’t have what I was looking for.

12

Yes, if you have a specific academic interest, do try to meet with faculty in that program and maybe get a tour of their facilities.

13

I tried to not inject my preferences into my children’s decision making about which school to attend. I answered questions when asked but doing so was fraught with peril, because it seemed sometimes that whatever I said added to, rather than subtracted from, my children’s uncertainty. Nevertheless, I always was available to listen and commiserate. I and my children’s father (now my ex-h) made it possible for them to visit any schools they wanted to visit. The visits were very helpful in the decision-making process. My younger daughter took one LAC off the list because of the visit, despite the school’s FA offer, which was extremely generous, and its high ranking. The schools that she and her sister chose rose as a result of the visits to them.

14

There’s no hurry, except that some schools assign dorms on a first come first serve basis. Both my kids made their final decisions on May 30 after having visited (or revisited) the top contenders.

For older son it meant turning down the most prestigious university in favor of one that is more prestigious in his field (computer science). He liked the prestigious uni much more at accepted students weekend than he expected to, but the place he ended up had more nerds like him, and many more course offerings and profs in his field. He graduated several years ago and is in his dream job. No regrets.

Younger son looked at possible courses in his intended field and eventually narrowed it down to two. In the end he felt like one school was just a bit too serious for him and that the more practical and less theoretical approach to the field was more his style. In retrospect he should have found out a bit more about the department (which is really a committee not a department - and turned out to be very stingy with credits for time abroad - which in International Relations made sense to do.) He’s got mixed feelings about the college, but given everything he knows now, it may still have been the best fit for him. He had some NGO internships, one turned into a job, but he decided to go in a slightly different direction where the degree is still relevant.

Some people make spreadsheets and weight the various factors and add up the numbers. Others just go by their guts.

15

Any decent grocery store (not just a Whole Foods or some such) that is accessible to common off-campus housing locations would be an improvement over the absence of such for a student who wants to cook her own meals. In rural or suburban locations, they may not be in convenient range to many places without a car; the same can go for poorer urban locations.

16

Also, check whether her desired majors are open (anyone who passes the prerequisites can declare the major) or restricted or competitive admission (a high GPA or competitive admission is needed to declare the major). Also, check whether she was directly admitted to the major or as an undeclared student.

17

Visit. Visit. Visit. Worth the investment. Most kids know after they have been onto the campuses of the serious contenders.

18

Aside from academics, ask students (not admissions) about the difficulty of scheduling classes. It’s very frustrating to find out your student cannot get into a class that is a pre-requisite to another class. Also, housing. Is it guaranteed or a lottery system? I wanted housing my my student who was a 7 hour drive away. The thought of renting a truck to deliver a bed and furniture was daunting.

19

I would caution against putting too much weight on things like crime statistics. They are very inconsistently collected from one place to the next, and often merely tell you what you already know: College A is urban, College B rural. Just make certain that what the statistics are telling you isn’t that College A is meticulous in its recordkeeping, and it reports all crimes committed against students, staff, faculty, and visitors, while College B reports nothing that didn’t happen on college property, and is not so careful about that, either. Also, College A’s crime stats may be two or three times College B’s, but even College A’s stats may be low relative to the number of people on and around the campus. And “crime” stats won’t tell you anything about other risks that are often inversely correlated with them – like how isolated rural campuses may have little or no street crime but considerably more deaths and injuries related to driving and alcohol use.

20

If the college has an online class schedule that shows enrollment and capacity, you can probably look to see if the important classes are completely full with wait lists, or if there is extra capacity in them. Be sure to check both fall and spring semesters, since some classes may be more heavily enrolled in one compared to the other.