How to crack the code on college lists
Last week, a parent of a freshman told me that she wanted her son to start creating her college list right now.
Okay, I’ve got to be honest: it’s a little early to finalize the college list in 9th grade.
BUT if you’ve got a junior in your household, you’re probably thinking, “Yikes! We need to come up with a list of schools. But where do we begin?”
You probably already know that a quick Google search will bring up a slew of amazing resources, so I won’t reiterate the usual advice.
Instead, I want to talk with you about something that very few students know how to do:
Bringing a whole new innovative approach to the college research.
Now, wait a second, I can hear some students saying. Researching college is pretty straightforward, right? You just hop on the website and click around a bit.
Nope.
This is what most students get wrong!
They do their cursory research, relying on US News and World Report to tell them what schools they should apply to instead of taking the time (and it’s a lot of time!) to learn as much as they can about each institution. Even their safeties. After all, what student (or parent!) wants to commit to four years at any school, no matter how prestigious, if they’re not sure it’s the right fit?
AND, how can the colleges really know if you’re a good fit for them if students don’t speak to the very specific qualities that each of them offer?
The truth is that researching colleges well requires a lot more creativity if you want to show the admissions committee that you are a great fit.
Okay, so after you’ve created an initial list with the College Board’s Big Future Tool, take your research to the next level.
Here are the five research steps I recommend to all of my students:
1. Identify the most important qualities you want your colleges to offer
This is where you decide not just which location and kind of school/program you want (engineering, liberal arts, art, etc) but also what kind of *feeling* you want the school to have. Does it have a leadership program? Does it offer a coop? What kinds of steps is it taking to address racial injustice? How is sustainability integrated throughout the campus? What is the school best known for, outside of its academics?
2. Next, do an initial glance at the website
Once you know what’s most important to you, start combing through each school’s site (very quickly!). You’re skimming to make sure that it has the most important qualities you want to see. Don’t spend more than an hour on your initial search. If you like it, you’ll come back for more in-depth research. If not, keep moving! (After all, there are thousands of colleges out there, so don’t let yourself get bogged down at this point!)
3. Once you like what you see, start taking detailed notes
Okay, now you’re ready to go deeper. But it can be hard to keep track of everything you’re learning. Sometimes you’re 40 clicks deep into the research, and you will definitely not be able to go back and recreate that search. So everything that you find interesting, copy and paste the link into a separate doc, along with brief notes about what stands out to you. You’ll save yourself a huge amount of time by saving every link to every page that matters to you.
4. Go beyond the website
This is the one that most students fail to do. And it’s the most important part of the research! Especially during this COVID season, most students think it’s enough to hang out on the website for a little bit. But you want to think differently. You want to get really curious about the not-so-obvious. For example, look at what the president and the dean of students and the rest of the leadership team is doing. Google the president; find her articles, track down his podcasts and interviews, find out what her most important projects are. Get a feel for the issues that are most important at this institution. And make lots of notes about what gets you fired up!
5. Only choose schools you love, even your safety schools
Your final college list should be around 10-12 schools. Much more than that, and you probably haven’t figured out the right list for yourself. Which means you need to keep digging into Naviance, talking with your guidance counselor, and doing more — yes, more! — research. A third of the school on your list should be reach schools (the schools that you know will be super tough to get into), a third should be target (the schools you’re pretty confident you’ve got the grades and test scores and extracurriculars to qualify for admission), and third should be your safety schools (the schools you know for sure you could be accepted to).
But make sure that you LOVE your safeties. If you can’t find schools you love in the “easy” acceptance range, it could be that you’re looking at the big state schools and you’re not feeling a personal connection. What about a smaller, lesser known school that’s known for its incredible teaching? Or a school that offers an unusual internship program for undergraduates? That’s where you might want to look at resources like Colleges That Change Lives or work with an experienced college consultant who can offer some suggestions you might never have heard of and could be a great fit for you.
Become an expert on each college on your list
The students I’ve worked with who’ve had the greatest success in their admissions process are the students who have fallen in love with a school because it was the perfect fit for them. NOT because of the name of the school or because of its ranking.
For example, one of my students took her research so deep that her interviewer wasn’t even aware of one of the school’s new outreach programs that had so impressed her. And it paid off beautifully. She got into her dream school!
I’d love to see your student get the same results! That’s why I’m sharing this information with you today. If you have any questions about the whole process, Reach out to me here, and I’ll get in touch with you right away.