The college search is so different now!

<p>Not that this comes as any surprise to CC'ers, but as I read these posts I can't help thinking how clueless I was in my own search for a college.. The GC suggested maybe one or two places, my parents mentionned a couple that they were familiar with, we did a quick 2 day tour and I applied....period.....no talk of "fit" or even if I'd be happy there!..The kids now have alot of pressure, I know, but I also think they have alot of resources and interest that we didn't have......(and to think my father didn't even take an SAT to get into Princeton!.....teased him about that forever.)</p>

<p>Lord, I was clueless. Completely. And when I'm stressed over how things are now, that actually helps -- as clueless as I was, things turned out okay in the end. I was the first member of my family to go to college, and at my HS I would be surprised if more than 20% ended up getting a college a degree. I know for a fact that 2 people in the top 10 didn't attend college. Guidance counselors were a disaster, missing deadlines for transcripts, etc. Thankfully, a few of the teachers steered me in the right direction and I ended up applying to 5 schools with only one visit -- turned down Cornell for Big State U (and believe me, it wasn't a highly regarded Big State U) because I was very uncomfortable with how much Cornell cost. But I never even waited for the financial aid package before I turned them down -- I just assumed that Ivy League schools didn't give much aid. </p>

<p>And I still had a good undergraduate experience, and while I probably would do everything different if I had it to do over again, it's hard for me to get too worked up.</p>

<p>I never visited the four colleges I applied to, even though two of them were within 50 miles my home. It never occurred to my parents to take me or me to ask them - I was clueless too. And I had no clue as to what types of professional jobs or occupations were out there for different majors, as my parents were owners of a small retail business, not professionals. It is very different for my kids - we have researched and visited colleges, and my husband and I are a lot more knowledgeable about career options and how things work in the professional world, at least in our fields. However, my son (college junior) is exploring careers in finance at this time and this is something no one in our family knows ANYTHING about. So he is pretty much just as on his own in figuring it out as I was in figuring out careers in my field (biological sciences). He seems to be doing ok, though. The internet makes it a lot easier to find out information on any topic that you are interested in.</p>

<p>I think in my generation, or at least in my case, my parents thought the GC was handling everything, and the GC thought that there was some direction at home helping with selecting choices. I visited one college on my own because I could reach it by bicycle. I never saw the others. I believe this to be common for boomers and may be why we or at least I spent so much time creating lists of colleges and taking my child on visits, so she could make a more informed choice.</p>

<p>Choices in, and research about, colleges is almost a brain overload. Actually, not just about colleges, but about everything: There's coke, diet coke, coke with lime cherry coke, C2 coke, decaffeinated coke, decaffeinated diet coke, decaffeinated cherry coke, diet and regular vanilla coke, and on and on and on for the other brands as well, with choices of glass bottles, plastic bottles, cans, liters, 16-oz, 12-oz, 20-oz, two-liters, etc. When I was a kid reaching into the "drink box" I had the choice of Coke in glass bottles (or the other brands - also in glass bottles). Was I really deprived because of my lack of information and choice? Hmmm...</p>

<p>One thing I found out after researching colleges for my son was that I did overload after a while and felt like I had taken in enormous amounts of information but just couldn't process it all and come up with just-the-right "solution" to the college "problem." In many ways, all of the info adds to the stress.</p>

<p>When I applied, I needed to earn my way through school, found Ga. Tech's co-op program, and applied there (and no where else). Worked for me.</p>

<p>There is an interesting book about "choice overload" called The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz...highly suggested</p>

<p>My H and I just shake our heads about how the college proccess has changed. My H never visited the school he went to! Never, he showed up Fall term and that was that! I was lucky, I got to visit two schools, both state schools close to home. We never prepped for the SAT's, just took them once, decided where to go and applied. It's a very different world for my S.</p>

<p>My father wanted desperately for me to go to Radcliffe (two older sisters went there), so I went to visit and interview. When the interviewer said she thought I'd "be happier at MIT" I borrowed her phone and made an appt at MIT on the spot. I walked out on the Harvard interview and interviewed at MIT, applied and go in... I also applied to Yale because a boyfriend was in ED. Waitlisted. My mother wouldn't let me apply to Reed because "the suicide rate's too high." (If she'd been paying attention, she would have realized it was much worse at MIT.)</p>

<p>Dmd:</p>

<p>It sounds to me that the Harvard interviewer had your best interests at heart. These days, with all the focus on selectivity and yield, I wonder how many interviewers would make that suggestion, much less let an applicant use their phone to make an appointment at a "rival" institution!</p>

<p>Oh, marite, she was quite shocked when I used her phone, it wasn't a matter of letting me. The interview had been going quite badly in any case, I'd asked her why she liked Radcliffe enough that she was interviewing for it, when both my sisters had told me it was a terrible place and not to go there. Her answer was "I don't know, I just loved it." I couldn't believe anyone would say "I don't know" in that context! Then she moved on to my scores and said I'd probably be happier at MIT since I was a science and math type (I guess even then science and math type women weren't welcome at Harvard). That was when I ended the interview by borrowing her phone and making an appt at MIT.</p>

<p>(I guess even then science and math type women weren't welcome at Harvard). LOL!</p>

<p>I see I was being very charitable!</p>

<p>Wait. You mean I had a CHOICE?</p>

<p>I didn't visit any college prior to applying. I asked an uncle of mine (a college professor) for advice about which school to apply to. Ask a GC? What did they know about college? I had little idea also about tests. Walked into the SAT without ever having read about it (or taken PSAT). An era of innocence.</p>

<p>You guys had GC's? :mad:</p>

<p>I applied two places. Safety school? what's that? I had visited one of them because my brother was going there, had never seen the other and didn't know anyone who had gone there. Basically I wanted to go to a good school within a state or two of home with a wide range of majors, because I didn't know what I wanted to study. My first choice was my brother's school, which happened to be quite selective, and the GC suggested the other. I got into both and attended my brother's school. Loved it and lived happily ever after... Well, something like that!</p>

<p>Far different from all the research that has gone into my sons' choices of schools. My first son wasn't too bad. He applied four places, including my alma mater, which was his first choice and which we had visited the year before. He got in there and got a good package, so that was that.</p>

<p>My second son--totally different story. He applied many places and wants to visit his top choices after the letters come out. We spent many, many hours researching and applying... Ah, for the good old days!</p>

<p>Just kidding!! The process of choosing a college has become an occupation that you will do for 2 years....the postdoc part is rethinking all that you have done and then you get the second job to pay for all of the expenses incurred during your 2 year job!! Hang on this thread and you will soon get the whole big picture. You will become a master at this....I can already tell.</p>

<p>


</p>

<p>You have described my situation exactly. When I was a little kid, I read a magazine article about Caltech that made it sound cool. I was always interested in science, so that might have been a good fit. But I found out as I went on in high school that my junior high math preparation was bad, and I eventually got psyched out about applying anywhere but State U., where I was an automatic admit by SAT scores. (Expense was also a HUGE issue to me, as my parents put me on my own financially from the get-go, and I mistakenly believed list price was similar to out-of-pocket cost at the famous schools. Maybe it is if parents don't pick up the EFC.) My GC was very unprofessional: she turned every conversation to the subject of sex, even if I was in her office to ask about getting more challenging classes. My mom, fortunately for my youngest sister, eventually learned not to trust the school and to help her younger kids get into college herself. </p>

<p>I learned how to be focused on what schools are good, and how to get into them, by living in east Asia for six years [grin]. Between my s stays overseas I also had occasion on business trips to visit the campuses of most of the most famous colleges in the United States, some multiple times. Now I find this CC site addictive and enjoyable, and I tell all my local friends about the college lore I learn here. College Web sites are also wonderful, much more accessible, and a little more informative, than the print catalogs one could hardly find in my days.</p>

<p>When I decided to go to college (which was not a given since neither of my parents had graduated from high school and we lived in a small rural farming community in a town of 150 where going to college was something like catching a rare disease) my parents did not try to stop me, but they admitted that they knew nothing about it and told me it was up to me to figure out what to do. Our high school GCs only cared about making sure we took the right "track" of classes. I wasn't in the "college prep" track so I wasn't supposed to inquire about college.</p>

<p>I got hold of a copy of a publication entitled "Illinois Decision" which listed profiles of Illinois colleges, looked at the pictures and sent away for information on those that were at least 2 hours away, not in Chicago and had a pretty picture.</p>

<p>I visited one--it was far enough from home that I couldn't commute, they accepted me, what more did I need?</p>

<p>What is amazing is that when I talk to young people at work--bright kids, valedictorians and national merit semi-finalists--who come from similar small town/rural backgrounds, not much has changed. There is a whole world out there and they don't know about it!</p>

<p>I hate to say it, but my college search began in the late 60's when I was about 14 or 15 and my mom bought me a book that listed several hundred colleges and had star ratings to indicate how selective each was. Could've been Fiske, if Fiske was around back than... otherwise, it was a Fiske look-alike.</p>

<p>I looked through the book but had my mind made up. When I was 15 we took a trip to visit the UC campus I ended up attending, and also to visit Stanford, which I assume my parents hoped I would like. (I didn't). So I guess to that extent, we were exploring "fit". </p>

<p>I did only apply to 2 colleges - my first choice, and a 2nd one that I never visited, but was absolutely sure of getting into. </p>

<p>What has changed for me isn't really the process -- I've done the same with my kids as my mom did for me, starting with a book, eventually followed up with some visits. But the number of colleges has changed -- I don't think anyone would have applied to more than 2 or 3 in my day. I had a 3rd backup, the absolute bottom line "safety" of my hometown U, which is where the vast majority of kids in my community ended up. If someone had their sights set on an Ivy league education - they would choose 1 to apply to, with the rationale that if they were good enough to qualify, they would get in; and if they weren't good enough to get into, say, Yale, they probably wouldn't make it into Harvard or Dartmouth either. Of course admissions was probably far more predictable in those days.</p>

<p>The other big change is that no body cared about the status of the college. Yes, there were colleges that had more prestige - which is why my parents, who had attended Ivies & Seven Sister colleges, took me to visit Stanford. But no one put any pressure on me, or told me I was aiming too low, or suggested that my future employment or career options hinged on the college I chose. A college degree was a college degree. </p>

<p>What is most frustrating to me these days is the fact that I can be a parent of an extremely bright and active teen, getting straight A's in school and with a long list of EC's and accomplishments, and her admission at selective colleges is NOT assured. The whole process is just so much more competitive. And expensive. My parents were not better off financially than I am now -- but with a middle class income they could afford the cost of college, and it would have been unthinkable for me to apply for financial aid. Scolarships and loans were for students from very poor families, or students working their own way through college. </p>

<p>I found this site:
<a href="http://www.school-for-champions.com/education/chron_college_expenses.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.school-for-champions.com/education/chron_college_expenses.htm&lt;/a>
In 1970, the year I started college, tuition at Yale was $2550. In today's dollars, that would be around $12,000. Maybe that's part of the reason it is so competitive these days - who wants to pay $40K a year for anything other than a first-rate education?</p>