<p>Once you've narrowed your choices using cold rationional logic, allow your emotions to make the final choice. It's like picking a boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse...it shouldn't be based on ALL pure logic...there has to be some passion and even "love" there.</p>
<p>Get a t-shirt from the places you can't decide among, and wear each for a day. One will feel like it's just right for you.</p>
<p>Pretend you're 25 and in a job interview. The interviewer has just asked where you went to college. Say out loud "I went to ____<strong><em>" and "I went to _</em></strong>____." One will seem more right for you.</p>
<p>Probably the worst reason to pick a college is because you have a friend who will be going there too, and you're afraid of being lonely. You will make plenty of new friends once you're there.</p>
<p>^A friend of mine made her college decision by filling out both colleges' statements of intent to register, putting checks in both envelopes, walking them down to the mailbox, putting them both in, and seeing which one she wanted to pull out of the mailbox! :) </p>
<p>My advice is to talk to students from the schools you're considering, and don't base your decision on hearsay or stereotypes you've heard from people who don't know anything about the school.</p>
<p>^"A friend of mine made her college decision by filling out both colleges' statements of intent to register, putting checks in both envelopes, walking them down to the mailbox, putting them both in, and seeing which one she wanted to pull out of the mailbox!"</p>
<p>Sounds great....How did she pull it out? I'm not joking...How did she do it? My daughter would love this......</p>
<p>rodney-- i'm assuming it was a mailbox in front of her house, not a USPS drop box! :)</p>
<p>"The following are all correlated with higher SAT scores:
..........."
that's an interesting list and i'm sure there's plenty of merit to it. but i'm not sure how subjective opinions like "better <strong><em>", "more interesting _</em></strong>" and "greater ____" can be correlated with anything since they aren't factually based themselves.</p>
<p>lindz0722-
My list in post #39 is based on fact and students, faculty, parents who attended more selective schools can attest to the "more interesting", "greater", "better" items on the list.</p>
<p>But I want to pick up on the idea of "fit".</p>
<p>adofficer said the following:
"My #1 piece of advise is: Choose the school you feel best suits your learning style and the school that will allow you to experience the most growth academically and socially."</p>
<p>I totally agree...to a point. Please remember that financial fit should be considered as part of overall fit. As other posters suggest, it makes no sense to go into major debt for an undergraduate education. Virtually all 4-year colleges, private and public alike, offer their students countless opportunities to grow "academically and socially".</p>
<p>
[quote]
My list in post #39 is based on fact and students, faculty, parents who attended more selective schools can attest to the "more interesting", "greater", "better" items on the list.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well that's silly. How would someone who attended one school be able to objectively say that it has "better class discussion" than a school they've never attended?</p>
<p>If you're going to do that survey the right way, ask transfer students. But even that's not totally scientific because there is no way to quantify a statement like "more sophisticated culture." According to whom?</p>
<p>I started college in the '60's. I never visited before I went (neither did most of my peers), didn't even think about "fit," assumed I would like it and I did. I know it is very different now, but I think most 18 year olds are quite adaptable. Just make a decision based upon factors important to you, and then don't look back. Have a positive attitude and if things don't work out the way you hoped they would, then deal with it at that time. Enjoy the rest of your senior year and "be in the moment." There will always be a multitude of choices before you. Don't let the many options paralyze you. Just pick! and live your life with anticipation and joy.</p>
<p>thanks, collegehelp, for the rationale of your statement</p>
<p>"Go to the most selective school you can"</p>
<p>Another element of this deceptively simple statement is the 'you can' part.</p>
<p>It seems that a frequent factor that is coming up in this thread is the weight and importance of affordability in choosing which college to enroll.</p>
<p>COLLEGEHELP, what, then, would be more important of a factor</p>
<p>Any college is what you make of it. Plenty of students go to Ivy League schools and end up dropping out or managing bagel shops upon graduation (case in point, my cousin) while plenty of students go to Tier 1 or 2 schools and come out rock stars with their choice of grad schools. The best advice is to make the most of the college you attend from day one. Study hard, get involved but have fun tool</p>
<p>I'm choosing between Providence College and Hobart and William Smith Colleges. HWS is more affordable, but far away. Providence College, I think, will be more beneficial when it comes time to apply to med school and it is close to my house. I don't know! I would sail at PC, do equestrian at HWS...choices.</p>
<p>Sounds great....How did she pull it out? I'm not joking...How did she do it? My daughter would love this......
[/quote]
I think (although I could be embellishing her story) that it was a big blue mailbox, and she waited until the mailperson got there and asked for one letter back.</p>
<p>But maybe it was just her street mailbox. :)</p>
<p>idic5-
Selectivity and affordability are both important. I would say a college is worth about $1000-$2000 more per year for every 10 point difference in SAT scores. How's that for an answer? I wouldn't be surprised if an econometrician could do some kind of cost-benefit analysis and come up with some actual value.</p>
<p>collegehelp, what do you think 10 SAT points is equivalent to in ACT points? My d did not do the SAT. (I'm following this method out for a bit, and see where it takes us; hey, we got a mail box walk, t-shirt wearing, a simulated job interview...</p>
<p>along these lines, here is another one I was thinking of: I call it the decal criterion: imagine having the clear decal of the college name in the back of your car; how does it feel, how does it look driving down the street? )</p>
<p>I'm no college student yet, but about to. But I can tell you this much: for people like me having tough times trying to decide which school to attend, I'd suggest them to frequently check out college review sites. Just type in google's search bar: "College Reviews" and click the many links provided for you, and sit tight and search around all day if you want. Also, whenever you visit the college's website, you shouldn't fall for their false advertisements (for example: we guarantee you a job placement related to your field within 6 months or we'll cover your first 2 years at whichever graduate school you'll be attending!!!), and some of the pictures of their awesome campus are sometimes edited/photoshopped to make them look better than what they really are or those pictures simply show the very best of your college and the rest could turn out to be utter crap.</p>
<p>BTW that mailbox bit was hilarious and sounds effective, though silly. I might try that later hahahahah!</p>
<p>I think somebody mentioned this before, but just to reiterate: if at all possible, you should try to visit the schools you're deciding between. I narrowed my choices down to two UCs and took the time to visit both, even though one was about a 6 hour drive away. It was well worth it, because I instantly fell in love with the faraway campus. Though I <em>did</em> end up choosing the more selective UC (and I'd be lying if I said that its prestige didn't factor at all into my decision-making), I can honestly say that it was the "feeling" I got from the campus that was the greatest factor in choosing my current school. It's hard to describe, but I could just picture myself at that campus... I instantly felt at home. I'm now in the last quarter of my freshmen year, and I still love it.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Some high school students think they have exactly what they want in a college figured out, only to arrive on campus and watch it all change. I decided to eliminate ALL liberal arts colleges from my college search as a high school student, which is a shame, because the schools I would apply to, were I to apply to colleges again right now, I would apply to mostly liberal arts schools and a few universities here and there. That's a long-winded way of saying that even though you think you might want X, you might actually like Y more, and you won't know until you try.</p></li>
<li><p>Don't choose a college just because it has one particular major you may be interested in. The college I am at did not offer the majors I thought I was interested in; I think the only school in the nation that offered both obscure majors I was interested in was Barnard. However, my college had a self-designed major option, and I knew I could default on that. But guess what? I ended up studying something extremely bread-and-butter.</p></li>
<li><p>Don't take anything you read too seriously when it's about a certain school. Every piece of literature, if its aim is to make a point, will ignore lots of evidence that refutes that claim. I can't say that CC or Princeton Review or Fiske has the scientific validity of a peer-reviewed journal, if you know what I mean. Somebody says go to x school, because everybody who goes loves it? They're willfully ignoring the detractors.</p></li>
<li><p>A corollary-- don't take other people's advice, unless you think you have excellent good reason to. Don't ask your neighbor or your friend which school is right for you, and while I think it's fair to open your college dilemmas to the CC audience, don't take anything here too seriously, either. Why would you take somebody else's advice, anyway? Other people make bad decisions for themselves all the time. They kill themselves by smoking; they marry people they're not in love with; they end up in careers that they don't like. It doesn't make sense to follow what somebody else thinks is right and to instead follow what you think is right.</p></li>
<li><p>Colleges are more alike than they are different, and what happens to you in college will be mostly a result of what you put into it. I would be happy to go to State U Down the Street from Me, because I know they have really great profs and I would meet a bunch of awesome students.</p></li>
<li><p>I'll paraphrase something I once heard, about the value of a Harvard education being worth as much as a bunch of late fees from the library. Realize that no school will impinge on your capability to learn, grow, think, and do, and that experiences outside of academics or resume-building activities will provide you with life insights. Some of the most thoughtful and intellectual people I know never stepped foot in a college.</p></li>
</ol>