High School Counselors Help Choose the Right College

After toiling over college applications, high school seniors were able to sigh a breath of relief for a few months knowing that being accepted was out of their hands and all they could do was wait.

Now, however, with spring just around the corner, the letters are starting to roll in and seniors are left with a whole new task: deciding which school to attend.

For those who have been accepted to more than one university, choosing the right one can be mor enerve-wrecking than opening the letter itself.

What if you make the wrong choice and want to leave? What if your parents are pushing you one way and you are leaning toward another? What if you end up too far away or too close to home?

Jennifer FitzPatrick and Trevor Rusert, college guidance counselors at , have a few tips to help students and parents work together to ensure that they’re taking the right steps so that seniors end up at the right school.

1. Assess What is Truly Important to You
Factors such as distance from home, cost, athletics and intended major could play a role in which school you choose to attend.

“The hard part is to tune out the opinions of the growing number of people who want to tell you where to go,” FitzPatrick said. “Figure out what is truly important to YOU.”

2. Determine Which Schools Offer the Most for You
“From your list of criteria, determine which schools offer the most for you, not which bumper sticker will look best on your car,” FitzPatrick said. “Where will you thrive? Be challenged? Be supported? Be nurtured? Be best prepared for your future? Where will you grow as a person?”

This can include looking up majors, course lists and descriptions, campus clubs and organizations, and lifestyle, including climate, dorm living, and off-campus living. You want to see if the school has involvement with people and organizations that you believe in and can learn from.

However, Rusert said, “there is no such thing as the one right college for a student, as there are actually dozens of colleges that are probably a great fit for each student.”

So don’t stress if it comes down to a close call—there could easily be more than one right answer.

3. Visit or Re-Visit the Colleges to Which You’ve Been Accepted
“If you haven’t visited the college, this is a must,” FitzPatrick said.

If you already have, go back and take part in what college admissions offices call "yield programs."

“Many colleges and universities will offer an opportunity for students to spend the night, visit classes, and meet with professors during the month of April,” Fitzpatrick said.

Colleges and universities use these yield programs to try to convert admitted high school seniors into college freshmen at their schools.

“Know in advance that you are being courted and try to venture off of the schedule you are provided. Spend time in the student center or a cafe, read the student newspaper, sit and observe. Imagine yourself on that campus for four years,” FitzPatrick said. 

Rusert advises sitting in on a class or taking a tour of a specific academic department that you’re interested in.

Also, “explore the surrounding neighborhoods and ask students what there is to do in the area,” Rusert said. “A college student typically spends two to three hours a day in class, and the other 21 hours as a member of the community.”

4. Consider Important Statistics that Often Go Unnoticed
Rusert noted that statistics such as the freshmen retention rate, campus crime statistics and the job placement rate are just as important. The freshmen retention rate is the percentage of freshmen who return for their sophomore year.

“Seeing a very large percentage of freshman returning for sophomore year tells me that the students are relatively happy and they have not been sold a false set of goods,” Rusert said.

He advises that a good rate is in the high 80s or low 90s. It is required by law that every college and university keep a record of its crime statistics and make them available to the public upon request. It is important to know what you’re getting into, especially since you will be doing a lot of walking around on and off campus.

Lastly, job placement rates or acceptance rates to graduate school are important to consider.

"If you visit the Career Center they can probably tell you the percentage for specific majors, as well as any strategies they undertake to help their graduates find employment," Rusert said.

While each of these tips has proven to be helpful to their students, FitzPatrick advises first and foremost to follow your instincts in order to make the right choice.

“Listen to your heart,” FitzPatrick said. “It never lies.”

And if you end up settling on a school that turns out to be the wrong fit for you, life definitely is not over, Rusert said. 

"It is also important to note that although this may be the biggest decision in your life to date, it is not a life or death proposition,” Rusert said.