How and When to Start the College Search!

I’ve had several conversations in the past couple of weeks with various friends and there seemed to be a common thread woven throughout – How do I even start to look at colleges? What do we do? When do we do it? They ask these questions with wide eyes and panicked voice. These people have kids ranging from 8th grade to a junior in high school.

Let’s look at the answer to those questions. Everyone with a kid from about age 13 on surely has them in mind, even if they have not voiced them out loud. At first glance it can surely appear overwhelming. Think about it, at last count there were over 7,000 institutions of higher learning in the U.S. And it is safe to say at this point, most kids have absolutely no idea what they want to do (nor should they) or what kind of school they want to go to. If you weren’t already anxious about all of this I am sure I have you on the edge right about now.

So what is a parent to do?

There are three things to keep in mind as you begin this journey:

1. Be practical – every kid grows up having a favorite college team or a college that they have always dreamed about attending (Notre Dame, Duke, Princeton, etc.). Reality is that these are really tough schools to get into and while you should never discourage them from their dreams, inject a bit of practicality and reality into the situation by preparing them to look at a lot of schools.
2. As I mentioned earlier there are thousands of schools and that means there is a college for everyone no matter what your situation. I can guarantee you that your child will get admitted to a school that you and she/he will absolutely love.
3. Enjoy! Look upon this as an adventure – a family adventure. Really!

When to Start Looking

The answer is, anytime you want. If you have a kid in 8th grade, freshman and even sophomore year, it is an excellent time to casually begin the process. Remember though that a lot changes in these three years and the ultimate list of schools will change also. By junior year you want to start to focus on a manageable list. Remember, your student will be applying to schools as early as the fall of their senior year (for early decision) and typically January 1 for regular decision (there are various other options we’ll discuss at a later date).

How to Start Looking

To borrow a phrase from an infamous brand,

The summer is an excellent time to start. If you have a family vacation planned pick a few schools around the place you are visiting or a few along the way if you are traveling by car. Don’t over think it. You don’t even have to get out of the car. Drive through the campus and get a feel for what speaks to your child.

Let me digress here for a moment and give you a straight from the heart bit of advice. This really is all about your child. You may be writing the check but your student is the one that will be living there, making their home there for four years. And this may be hard for some to accept, but it may all come down to a “feeling”. So it is important that your student visit the schools and you listen to what they are saying, or not saying about what they see. I read a book when we were just starting to think about the college adventure with my older son (they didn’t have many blogs then and even the information on the internet was not as easily accessible 7 years ago). The author told a story of her husband and daughter going off together for a weekend of college visits. At one point during the weekend when they were driving onto the campus of one of the schools the daughter turned to her father and said they could leave before they even had the chance to get out of the car. When the father inquired why, she said she didn’t like the shoes that the students were wearing. Sounds a bit odd, I know, but what she was saying was she didn’t think that she would fit in there. So they left.

“One of the greatest things about this time of your life, and the college-search process in general, is that there are so many possibilities open to you. The college search is a journey of self-discovery. This is the first time you’ll have to ask yourself some tough questions: What’s important to you? Where do you want to be? What do you like to do? Follow your instincts. If you trust your gut and start thinking about the next steps in your life, you will have a better understanding of who you are and who you want to be.”  – From CollegeXPress

You should start to talk to your child about themselves, basically an exploration of who they are and this will guide your search. Keep in mind these ideas:

• Do they want a college in the city or a rural setting – do activities off campus matter to them?
• Do they want an intimate smaller school with smaller class sizes that afford a better relationship with their professors. A school where they can walk around and know everyone? Or do they want a big campus with tons of activities where they can be anonymous with classes that may be in the 100’s of students and a BIG college feel? (One thing that may dictate this is your student’s learning style).
• What kind of social life do they want and what is their social style?
• Does the type of weather matter to them or does a seasonal activity that they love to participate in matter?
• Are there certain cultural ideals that matter to your child that are only offered in certain schools (i.e. all girls or all boys schools, religious affiliations)
• Are they comfortable (or are you comfortable) with them being hours away only accessible by a plane ride and are they independent enough to do this?
• Do they want to play a sport in college and if so, at what level can you, in practicality, expect them to play?
• Do they have a real, driving interest in a career path that is only offered in certain schools?

As you visit schools, keeping the answers to these questions in mind, you will start to create a working list of schools. And YES, a list is the least of what you will need. I know people that keep Excel spreadsheets and one of my older son’s friend’s parents had a wipe board in the kitchen. I, myself, had a simple notebook that I kept in the car.

I’ll discuss what you can do with all of this information and other tips for your initial college explorations in the next post – stay tuned 🙂