Deciding what you want to do for a career and what you want
to study in college is hard enough. Then once you decide what you want to do,
you have to decide where. This is the part that becomes really overwhelming as
you literally have an entire world of options. However, when you’re starting
your college search, there are some questions you can ask yourself to help greatly
narrow down your choices. It may even help to make a chart with some questions and
features you’re looking for listed out so you can have a visual of what you’re
looking for and where you do and don’t want to go.
First of all, start with the basics. Do you want to go to
college out of the country or even out of the state? Don’t feel like you need
to give a definitive yes or no to this question. It is entirely possible and
okay if the answer is “Maybe” just like it is okay to make that definitive “Yes”
or “No.” Even with these few questions, you can greatly narrow down what
college you want to go to.
The most important feature of the college you’re looking at
going to is what it offers for your program. Find out anything you can about
the program from the college website and even college visits. Look at
statistics from the college about the program and college in general. Research
what the degree will offer you – some colleges may have features for the degree
others don’t such as a dual degree program, depending upon what you’re
interested in.
College admissions representatives will be coming to your
high school quite a bit. Your high school may even have a college fair with
plenty of different colleges gathering at one time. Go to these events. Don’t
treat them as a way to get out of a class. Treat them as a way to find out more
about programs and colleges you’re interested in. Visit with any college that
is relevant to what you want to do. For example, don’t visit with a technology
college if you’re majoring in English or History. Again, don’t treat these as a
way to get out of class. You need to gather information to make a decision
about college.
Financial Aid is a large question that you need to consider
that will really help you with your college decisions. If you go to college out
of state or out of country, your tuition may be higher as you’re considered an
out of state student and not a resident. This amount can get quite high and may
be the factor that ends up swaying your decision one way or another. If you
choose to make a chart with the features you’re looking for in your college,
make sure you’re writing down tuition for each college on your list, especially
if it’s out of state. At this moment, Financial Aid and tuition costs may not
seem like much to you and are a foreign concept. However, the cost of the
college is not something that you want to overlook. At first, it may not seem
like a big difference between $8,000 a year and $18,000 a year because you’re
thinking you can just pay it off with the job you get after college. That
difference in cost makes a huge difference when you’re graduating and seeing
the amount of loans you took out and what you have to pay back throughout your
lifetime. Don’t just look over the financial aid and tuition costs. These are
incredibly important and you don’t want to go to a college that is out of your
financial range.
Don’t go to a college simply because it’s in an area that
you like. This is helpful, but don’t let it be your sole reason. Make sure the
program is good and it’s within your budget. On your list of questions,
colleges, and finances, you may also want to make just a general list of what
you’re looking for in your college. Maybe you want to make sure it has a great
library, maybe you want to make sure there are plenty of options for getting
involved in sports. Whatever you’re looking for, make a list of it so you can
ensure your college has what you need to be happy and successful there.
Once you decide on a handful of colleges that you are
interested in, go to campus visits for those colleges. Sure, the college can
sound amazing on paper and you know you definitely want to go there, but once
you get to the college that can all change and you may not feel like it is a
good fit for you. Don’t get discouraged by this – the reason for the campus
visit is to help narrow down your choices!
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