Teacher: So have you started creating a list of colleges you will be applying to?
Student: Yeah, I think I have ten right now. Still working on it though
Teacher: Any favorites so far?
Student: Well my first choice is
Teacher: Oh really? Why is that your first choice?
Student: Well you know, its
Teacher:
This got me thinking.
Is that student making an informed choice? is it pretty normal for most kids to just say "Well you know, its or something similar when asked why a certain college is their first choice?
What are some of the best/worst examples of first choice schools you have heard?Why?
I doubt the majority of students who chose ivies and eventually enrolled did much research on these schools. It is the lesser known LACs that really need a lot of digging.
I disagree ^ - at least from my small sampling of students that I interviewed over the years, generally those that were accepted were the ones who were able to show and articulate why they were a strong fit for the university.
“Amazing kid who knows nothing about [school], despite having the resources to learn something” is the most aggravating type of interview report to write.
I think someone (AA) asked recently what school is like UChicago, considering #1 reason on her list is its building style. This individual happens to be another one who is interested in premed. I checked https://www.aamc.org/download/321446/data/factstablea2-1.pdf and it looks like University of Illinois at Chicago has 23 AA applicants while UChicago is not on the list. People who like Harry Potter style building might experience Harry Potter style excitement (positive or negative) in that kind of building. I am surprised nobody brings that up. I told my kid to avoid those schools which put the number of Nobel Prize winners on the front page of its advertisements to attract undergraduate students. How many Nobel Prize winners care about undergraduate students?
It is quite common on these forums that when factors like cost are not (known to be) an overriding factor, many students’ college lists and preferences are based on prestige / selectivity / exclusivity. This is often true for parental preferences as well.
Not to digress too far but I’ve just reread the Chicago topic and the poster on that thread mentioned a number of other things than just building style, including research opportunities, and there was no ranking attached to the original list. (And as someone who attended an old university - really old, not US old - I can attest that factors such as physical beauty, housing and tradition can all add a wonderful element to the college experience, assuming of course that the academics and other “fit” factors work.)
My D started on the environment she wanted (big and urban) and moved from there into finding appropriate colleges. I don’t know what the “best” way to start is but some semblance of fit is probably good. It so happened that what D19 had thought would be #1 stayed there after research, college visits etc, but a number of others on the list changed dramatically (moved up, moved in, fell out).
@momofsenior1 - a friend of hers did indeed start out by wanting to go to X college because her boyfriend goes there - thankfully that has been changed.
@surelyhuman : As you can see, I did not even comment on the thread I mentioned earlier. I think someone who is so uninformed as to use a school’s building style as the primary deciding factor is a good example for this thread. No mention of core/open curriculum or major/course selection or student life or graduation requirement, etc… For informed people, those are the primary deciding factors. Doing research?? If you can survive the first two years, you won’t have problem finding research at most schools.
One woman I know swears her Standard Strong white, middle class, not first gen, basically unhooked daughter (straight As in honors classes with four APs and 1400 SAT, along with being the lead in the school play and a handful of volunteer hours) is a shoo-in for the Ivies. Any Ivy, it doesn’t even matter, just as long as it’s an Ivy. The daughter wants to go into musical theater. Never mind that the Ivies might not be the best places for undergrad musical theater…I suggested they check out Carnegie Mellon and a few other programs. Nope. Ivies or bust, because her daughter is obviously brilliant and she’s traveled to England (and that trip will be the main focus of her Common App essay). I’ve stopped trying.
“Never mind that the Ivies might not be the best places for undergrad musical theater”
I don’t know much about musical theater. However, to me one of the top “misinformed first choices” involves students who want to go to Harvard to study computer science or engineering.
Another one that comes to mind is students with a GPA below 3.5, and sometimes below 3, who want to go to MIT or less often Caltech. These schools are tough for students with an unweighted 4.0 from high school. Fortunately the admissions staff will prevent this error from occurring.
The last one that comes to mind is students who want to attend any Ivy League university, and don’t seem to care which one. Sometimes they include MIT or Stanford or a couple of others at this level in the list. My belief is that if you look at the eight Ivy League schools, plus MIT, Stanford, and Caltech, I do not think that these 11 schools can all be a good fit for anyone. They differ too much.
For the student (or parents) whose definition of “fit” is prestige, selectivity, or exclusivity, all of them could be good “fit” from that viewpoint. (The colleges’ admissions readers may not necessarily see the student as a good “fit” for them, though.)
The conventional wisdom seems to be that academic issues are the most important variable in college selection. Even if that is true, we should probably mention how uneven & unpredictable academic issues can be.
It’s easy to determine whether or not a college has your major, but how about other academic issues? People talk about this college being rigorous, that college having good teachers, and many colleges having a political bias. While there might be trends, they are not monolithic attributes about which you can be certain for any particular college–they vary from class to class, instructor to instructor.
Say what you want about using sports, architecture, or weather as criteria, at least you are pretty certain about what you are going to get.
@nrtlax33 Nobel Prize winners may or may not care about undergrads, but their concentration in a specific school might give you an idea about the intellectual rigor of a place. Certainly it is a minor factor to consider when choosing an undergrad school, but people looking for an intellectually rigorous learning environment might care for that more than you think. I personally do not think it hurts to attend a college whose professors or graduates have done wonderful things including winning prestigious prizes.
- I can attest that factors such as physical beauty, housing and tradition can all add a wonderful element to the college experience, assuming of course that the academics and other “fit” factors work.)