Exploring Every Avenue to the
Right College
From earning good
grades, to achieving the best possible SAT or ACT score, to coming
up with a plan to make it affordable, many parents and students view
the path to higher education as a multi-year journey that ends in
triumph when the first acceptance letter arrives in the mail. But
it’s equally important to ensure that your son or daughter ends up
at the college or university best suited to his or her aptitudes,
interests and needs.
So if you’re
feeling a bit of anxiety, you are not alone. Concerns about
location, size, academic programs, extracurricular activities,
financial aid and even proximity to jobs can seem overwhelming even
to parents and students who feel as if they’ve done everything
absolutely “right” in the years leading up to this important
decision. Fortunately, there are many resources that can help you
find the institution where your son or daughter will thrive. Here
are some of the best avenues for guiding the way.
Guidance
Counselors and College Fairs.
In a perfect
world, you and your son or daughter have already spent a bit of time
talking with guidance counselors about college choices by his or her
sophomore or junior year. But if you haven’t, you should. These
professionals are generally well-equipped to respond to questions
about everything from the college application process to academic
requirements to which institutions may be best-suited to your
child’s needs.
With support from
counselors, teachers and administrators, most schools and school
districts also open their doors to representatives of colleges and
universities through college fairs that spotlight many different
institutions at a time. These fairs typically offer students the
opportunity to learn about institutions’ offerings, and to make a
personal connection with someone who can answer all kinds of
questions about student life and culture at an institution.
Web sites and View
books.
Today’s higher
education “marketplace” is extremely competitive, and many colleges
and universities go to great lengths and expense to promote their
offerings. For this reason, it’s now commonplace to see
institutional Web sites with virtual tours and many other resources
that give online visitors a detailed view of everything from
academic offerings to extracurricular activities to campus life.
Most also offer glossy “View books” which also describe their
offerings and are available via special request.
Ranking Guides.
Most school
libraries also have magazines and books that spotlight institutional
offerings and rank colleges and universities according to several
factors. U.S. News & World Report magazine publishes a very
well-known America’s Best Colleges Guide every year. The guide
offers detailed information on affordability, academic offerings,
graduation rates and much more. The magazine also presents a rich
array of informational offerings on its Web site at
www.usnews.com.
Another excellent
resource is the Fiske Guide to Colleges. Called “the best
college guide you can buy” by USA Today, the guide has
provided insight about top colleges in clear, engaging language for
more than 20 years. The author, former New York Times
education editor Ted Fiske, has also written a guide to the new SAT,
which requires students to write an essay, and The Fiske Guide to
Getting Into the Right College, which helps students understand
how to choose the best college for them – and excellent information
about how to get in. For more information on these guides, visit
www.fiskeguide.com.
Other Online
Resources.
The Internet can
be a gold mine of information as long as students stay with Web
sites created by reputable organizations with their best interests
at heart. One of the most effective is the National Association for
College Admission Counseling (NACAC), at
www.nacac.com. Visitors who
click on the “For Students” link can obtain information about
financial aid packages, college fairs, insight about “early
admissions” policies, a college prep and admissions calendar and
help in avoiding the numerous “scholarship scams” at play on the
Internet.
Another excellent
resource is the Web site for the College Board. Created by the
organization that administers the SAT, the site (at
www.collegeboard.com )
includes a college search engine, a great deal of information on how
to determine which colleges and universities are best suited to
different types of students, and plenty of information on the
admissions process.
And if you and
your teen want to talk with others who are going through this
experience and gain insight from experts, be sure to check out
College Confidential at
www.collegeconfidential.com.
While all of these
resources are excellent sources of information, they should never
take the place of a campus visit. Students who experience the
offerings of a school firsthand will get a far better sense of how
well they’ll fit in. Adult family members who join them can likewise
be assured they’re making the right decision – and feel a
well-deserved sense of pride in the accomplishments that have led to
this exciting and important phase of their children’s lives.
Dr. Huntington is co-founder of Huntington Learning Center, which
provides personalized instruction for improved performance on the
SAT and ACT as well as instruction in reading, writing, mathematics
and overall test-taking skills. For more information, contact
Huntington at 1 800 CAN LEARN, or visit
www.huntingtonlearning.com.
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