what school is right for you?
 

hey GC! im a sophmore in high school..i was wondering if anyone had any good suggestions on good schools..im considering savannah state and howard..i would appreciate any good advice on finding good schools and scholarships too...thanx

The first thing to do is figure out what you want in a school. Big or small, rural, suburban or urban campus, student population size, location (north, south, midwest etc.), public or private. You also look into the relative strength of the degree programs you're interested in...for instance, if you're poli sci, consider a school close to Washington DC.
Using collegeboard.org will help you with a lot of your criteria. It will also give you a heads up on financial aid and scholarships for each school. The most important part of your college search is how you feel when you set foot on campus. A gut feeling.
For college tours-try to break away from your tour guide and talk to regular students, ask them how they like the school. Pick up a copy of the campus newspaper-that's a very telling sign of campus life glossed over by tour guides and brochures.
Good sites:
http://www.collegeboard.org
http://www.colleges.com

I'm sure others have great suggestions too. I bought a couple of big books by the Princeton Review which gave good statistics on every college, including average SAT scores and gpas. I recommend getting a copy.
That's all I got, anymore questions, ask away, and I'm sure someone else has a lot more to add.

After you have done all the research online (collegeboard.com is a good suggestion to narrow it down), the most important thing is to try to set up a visit where you spend the night in the dorms. This was the deal breaker with my daughter. She had a certain school in her head, we had visited 3 or 4 times, but spending the night in the dorms was a real eye opener for her.

Basically, she just looked at everyone she met and thought "what would my friends be like if I went to school here?" She realized that although the classes, the course offerings, and the academics were suited to her strengths, the campus atmosphere and the kind of people who attended the college were not her bag of rocks. You have to be able to visualize yourself on this campus living your life comfortably for the next 4-5 years.

She did a total 360 on the type of college she was interested in and is very happy with her choice.

Spend the night, spend the night, spend the night.

And sometimes...

it will be just a "feeling" in your gut. If you can't verbalize why you like one school over the other, but have that "feeling" - don't discount it! Go with it!

If you have an idea of what you want to study, then find Rugg's Recommendations on the Colleges by Frederick Rugg. Your local library or your college center at your high school should have the book if you don't want to purchase it. Once you know the schools, look on the websites of the schools to view the admissions requirements/ current freshman stats/ school size/ cost of attendance (tuition, r/b, expenses) etc. If you are undecided as to a major, then look at size, geographic distance, academic reputation. Your PSAT score will provide a score that can give you an idea of target schools. If you have low 500s in everything, Harvard is relatively unrealistic in terms of admission and you may not want to waste your time in exploring that option. Conversely, the student with 700s in everything may do better looking at Tier 1 schools.

Since you are in hs, I'm sure you know that the SAT changed significantly for the high school class of 2006. It is now 4 hours long and it is 3 sections of critical reading, critical writing (includes a timed essay), and math. Analogies were dropped. Math concepts are through an Algebra II level. SATs used to be 2 sections and the max score was 1600. Now a perfect score is 2400.

The college application process is daunting to say the least. I can go on and on about this. I'm happy to answer any questions. Start visiting colleges during your Spring Break this year and arrange overnight stays in the dorms. Some college admissions only arrange overnights for hs srs. The new buzzword is "fit". This is something that really can only be experienced by visiting the schools.

There are a lot of great forums that are devoted to the college application process including merit and need-based aid. I found them AFTER my D had been accepted to school but I stay on the boards for my S's process. My favorite is http://talk.collegeconfidential.com. www.admissionsadvice.com is also helpful but it doesn't get the quantity of user traffic.

Agreed. IU was kind of my "safety" school. I applied there only because my parents suggested it. That was actually the first school I got into but I had no intention of going. Then my dad dragged me there on a visit (he coaches golf and goes to IU's women's tournament every year because lots of his former players play in that tournament. That year it coincided with IU's Red Carpet Days for admitted students) and I just fell in love with the place. I knew that's where I was supposed to be, and so I went. :)

The opposite can be true as well. We visited UVa and my D absolutely hated it. We had her apply anyway as she also needed a safety school. She ultimately went with a different choice.

thanx...what school do you go to and how do you like the atmosphere?

haha..thanx...where did you go to school and how did you like it?

thanx for everyones advice...i want to be a surgeon( not sure which kind just yet)..but i also like to draw..any one know any good med schools and art schools?

First I started at the University of Vermont. I thought I wanted to go pre-med, but when I found out how hard those science classes are (and seriously guys, it's not me being dumb, UVM has an oustanding science field), I wanted to be a nurse. Their nursing program is practically impossible to get into, so I finally transferred to UMASS Amherst.
UMASS Amherst has many negative reputations attached to it. It has earned some, but not others. When I first toured there, it was because all juniors in MA high schools look at UMASS and many consider it a safety school. I never thought I'd want to go there. It was too big and just 'not me'. I started having problems with UVM and when I couldn't get into nursing up there and I was paying $32k a year to go to UVM, I decided to transfer to UMASS. I have since fallen in love with the place. All the residential areas are different, if you like urban city life, southwest is for you, if you like a quaint New England feel, right in the center of campus, Northeast is for you, etc etc.
There are a million clubs, if you don't want to drink or party-guess what? There's so much going on, you don't have to.
UMASS is a big diverse mashup and ranked in the top 50 schools in the world. It does have its problems but I'd never go anywhere else.
You have to be happy at college. That's the number one rule. I wasn't happy at UVM. As soon as I arrived that first night at UMASS and checked into my dorm room, I instantly felt at home. My floormates came out to meet me and helped me carry my belongings upstairs. That never happened at UVM.
You'll find the right place for you.

A major that combines your two interests would be medical illustratration. The artists that specialize in this field are the ones that draw the anatomical depictions in JAMA, medical textbooks, etc. Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Medical College of GA are two schools that offer that program.

---

Back in the days of the dinosaur, I chose Carnegie Mellon for its research reputation, its small size (for a university), its Nobel Prize winners in the field that I wanted to major. My H chose West Point because he wanted to serve his country, he wanted to compete in his sport at a D1 level, he was the 2nd of 5 stairstep kids and didn't want to unduly burden his parents. More recently, our D chose a tiny southern LAC because it has a fantastic alumni network, she really wanted professors teaching her classes instead of large lecture halls and foreign TA's (a major complaint of research U undergrads), it is top in her intended field of study.

And just as a point to the importance of individual "fit" , one of my siblings went to UVM and loved it. A couple of my extended family relatives went to UMass and loved it. More importantly, they were able to find a great job or great PhD program as follow-up. However, my sibs and I would have had a horrible time at ZooMass. For us, it was just too big and too wild.

There's a whole host of things that should factor into the college selection process. How does it stack up academically, so that when you leave you can either go to the grad school you want, or get the job you want? What kind of feel does the campus give you? Does it have some activities (school newspaper, debate society, etc.) that interest you? Does the campus location fit your style (is it in a city or rural, is it an actual campus)? Also check into costs, and scholarship availability. Also, if there are any faculty in particular that you want to study under, try to make sure that they teach all students and are at least marginally available. For example, Elie Wiesel teaches at my alma mater, but he only teaches a couple of classes, and it is mostly grad students who can get into his sections.

I know not every high school works this way, but my high school's guidance department was excellent in explaining the process and helping decide what place would be best. It might not be a bad idea to see if people from your high school went to the schools you are interested in, just to get a students' point of view.

It's a big decision, but good luck. When it turns out right (like it did for me), it's a great experience.

if you are considering medicine, then as you are looking at colleges, you may want to find out what percentage of their graduates apply to and are accepted into medical schools and how many are accepted on their first try. ask the admissions counselor how closely the professors work with the pre-med students, and if there are any special programs(like mock interviews) that help prepare the students for their real medical school interview

check your pm.

When I applied, I applied to a really bipolar group of schools, and was accepted into all of them. I applied to :

Penn State main
St. Bonaventure
Ball State
Bethany College (WV)
Otterbein College
University of Alabama (yeah, I know)
University of Pittsburgh

There may have been others. But here's the deal. I wanted, no, scratch that, NEEDED to get away from people in my high school. I was done with it. Those people were poison, and would have ruined my college experience. So remove the poison, go out of state! That meant that Penn State, Pitt and Indian Uni of PA were out. Plus, I wouldn't have been given much financial aid because I didn't qualify for "need". I needed merit.

I visited Ball State and St. Bonaventure...both were WAYYY too big for me, and had to have a big emphasis on partying...not what I was looking for. Plus, Ball State's representatives were rather rude to me when I did my visit.

Now on the other end of the scale was Bethany. Bethany had been part of my childhood because my grandfather is an alum. My brother also went to Bethany and would have been on campus w/me for 2 years. Its a beautiful school...BUT it is in the middle of NOWHERE and has a student body of 500. Yes, you read that right, 500. Plus it is too close to home. Plus I would always be known as Brother's Little Sister, and the whole point was to get my own identity. Plus their art and journalism programs were not quite what I wanted.

Then I found Otterbein. When I first started looking at schools, I wanted to be an Equine Veterinarian and OC has a great program in equine sciences, but I decided that my math and coping skills were not good enough for vet sciences and that my real calling was in journalism and art. Otterbein was far away from home but not too far, small but not too small, in a small town but connected to a big city, private, collegiate, perfect class size (1:14 i think?)...all in all, wonderful. It just felt right, and I know that seems trite, but when you know, you just know. As I sit in my dorm with my senior ring on, I'm ordering my hood and gown right now and wearing my letters. I'm so happy to be here. The college made every attempt to get me here. I was offered nearly 17,000 in merit aid. They sent me to Northern Ireland. I was able to get involved in nearly every aspect of campus life (newspaper, religious life, governance, GREEK LIFE!!!), I started a rowing club...the campus offered those opportunities, and made them accessible. I think that's another thing you've got to look at-- what sort of opportunities are there to be a leader? Its one thing to be a member of x club, but can you LEAD. OC has those opportunities.

Sorry, I'm getting sort of teary right now. I had my last undergrad thesis defense meeting today and I'm sort of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel...

O-T-T-E-R-B-E-I-N let's go O!!!

thanks for your help..i never heard of a medical illustrator before now..im going to look into that...

everyone thanks for all of the help..im mos def trying to get away from my mama..she doesnt want me to leave tennessee..but too bad..im tryna get as far as possible..but close enough to be able to come home some weekends..so im thinking about schools in ga and al.....what i'm looking for in a school is for it to not be too big and not too small..southern of course..greeklife..and other things...another question: what were some of the clubs/groups everyone enjoyed while they were/are in?

- Alpha Lambda Delta/ Phi Eta Sigma - First year honorary societies
- Order of Omega- Greeklife honorary society
- Mortarboard- senior honor society
- Tan & Cardinal Newspaper (staff writer, photographer, then asst. photo editor, now photo editor)
- Starving Artists (student arts group)
- United Greek Governing Board (greek life judicial)
- Tau Delta (can't you tell ;) )

I knew I wanted to be close to home but not TOO close to home. I ended up at a small school nearly 2 hours away, 1100 students. It was a perfect fit. Small, liberal arts, interesting history. They offered me a good scholarship that sealed the deal in my mind.

In college, I loved the choir and Camerata (a more selective choir), and I was really in the campus newspaper and the literary journal. I served as a peer mentor, and it was one of the best experiences of my life.

Take a look at www.scholarshipcoach.com.

Hey, Big is not better! I did not want to be a Number.:o

Small, is knowing people of the school and Organizations!:)

Walk across a Campus and say High to Folks!:D

Know Members of different Organizations and learn about them.:)

That all depends - KSigRC and I went to a pretty large school (Boston U), and we were able to get to know quite a few people, both Greek and non-Greek.

Maybe that's because of our winning personalities, or something like that, but going to a big school doesn't mean you'll be just "a number."

thanks for everyone's reply...

I wanted to go to a big school-the bigger the better. My classes had about 150 to 300 students usually, some were smaller at about 100. I loved it. I am not the type that needs the one on one teaching(I would rather remain faceless to my professors :)). I ended up having the one on one teaching in grad school and it was a bit of an adjustment. Of course I knew when I was a child where I was going to college and what I was going to study. Good luck!

I got into:

Georgetown
George Washington
Hampshire College
Boston U
Tufts
Florida State
DePauw
Morehouse
Fisk

I have nothing else to contribute, I just felt like bragging.

you rock,senusret!!

lol thanks..... little known fact: I was rejected or waitlisted from every school I applied to in the state of NY!

Yeah, I go to a school with almost 50,000 people and I know plenty of greeks and non-greeks.

what were some of the differences everyone noticed about high school and college?

College applications are a whole different ballgame.

Tabulating Senusret's list and adding at least 1 school from NY, he applied to 10 or more colleges/universities. This is definitely a generational phenomenon. When I applied to colleges in the early 80s, the college counselors were recommending 5 applications. 2 reaches, 2 matches and 1 safety. A couple of decades + later, my D was applying to schools and HER CC said the average hs student applied to 8 for a breakdown of 3 reaches, 3 matches, and 2 safeties.

At $50 a pop for the application fee, my daughter applied at the school she wanted to go to, a backup school and a reach. I didn't feel like spending $$$ to apply at a bunch of schools just to see if she could get in to them.

Applying to 8-10 schools costs about the same amount of money as books for one semester.

I went to a high school in which the majority of us were low-income. I was living in Section 8 housing at the time I was applying to colleges.

Knowing that our school's most talented were mainly low-income, our college counselor instituted a program called the 10x10 Challenge. If you had a 3.0 and a 1000 on your SAT scores, she would ask that you fill out the common application and she would send the application to ten schools of her choosing that either did not require an application fee or had fee waivers. Many of us basically applied to schools we had never heard of, but our counselor knew that they would be matches or safeties for us.

She made me do the 10x10 TWICE, and I chose my own schools (also about ten).

Any HBCUs I was admitted to were from the 10x10, Morehouse, Fisk, and some other place I have since forgotten. Also that boy's school in Minnesota (St. John's?). Denison, Albright, Washington College.... I got into every 10x10 school I applied to, and it was nice to have options.

(And most of the schools offered at least 40k in merit aid BEFORE financial aid.)

uva as a safety school? wow.

as for me..i applied to 9 schools..well, actually one school called my counselor and had her fax a copy of my transcript to their admissions office even though i didn't apply..is that even legal?
i personally think college admissions is a joke. i was accepted to a service academy, rejected from two of the three state schools i applied to, got almost a full ride to syracuse, and ended up just taking the full ride i got from IU.
VISIT, VISIT, VISIT! that's the biggest thing..visit your school. the first time i visited IU was during my orientation and i loathed it. luckily i ended up loving it there. the thing also to remember about state schools..they may seem large, but that's an even better opportunity for networking and getting involved. i've found that more majors and activites are available at the larger schools.
oh, and the last thing... TAKE ADVANTAGE OF INTERVIEWS!! i'm convinced that they can do nothing but HELP..that is, unless you're a hermit. it shows that you've got interest and nothing's bound to impress someone more that the fact that you took the initiative to go to an interview.

LOL, the boy is Canadian, and he thinks our college app system is hilarious. Is it true that you just fill out one form with your top choices?

I think it's more regional than generational. I graduated from HS in the South, and I only applied to four, which was pretty standard for my HS. It wasn't until my freshman year, when I met kids from NYC, DC, Boston, and San Francisco that I knew that people who applied to 10+ colleges.

During the past rush recommendation season, I spoke to some of the hometown girls about their college search--the same thing was true in that most kids only applied to four or five schools. On the other hand, I do alumni interviewing for my alma mater, and all of the kid I've interviewed in this cycle applied to 15 or 16 schools.

Yeah, in both my undergrad and law school application processes, quantity was stressed. I don't think I had a "safety" school, per se; my high school transcript/resume was really good, and I made my application decisions based on journalism/liberal arts programs (in case I didn't want to stick with journalism, which turned out to be a good decision). Looking back, one of the schools I shouldn't have even applied to, but I only applied to 6 and wasn't going to go overboard applying to schools where I had no intention of going.

It's a vicious cycle perpetuated by the college admissions offices to get a higher number of applicants in order to increase their selectivity rate. With the advent of the Common Application and even online applications instead of paper applications (it's the same application, just electronic), kids are applying to more and more schools. Perfect SATs/GPA/ECs do not guarantee admission. The stellar classmates of my D's that were Ivy-bound ended up applying to all 8 Ivies because it is such a roll of the dice as to which school would accept them.

I do believe that there are certain regions of the country where the application numbers are higher per hs student. Although we are below the Mason-Dixon line, the DC suburbs are definitely not considered the South, at least not by true Southerners. I'd be curious if the Atlanta/Dallas/Houston suburbs produce more students who apply to a larger number of schools.
Not a big deal. D was an instate applicant.

There are eight Ivy League schools.

Each school is so different from the other, I can't understand why a kid would apply to all 8...other than just wanting to go to an Ivy--which, if you're a non-athlete, doesn't really matter.

Even my friends from other Southern cities weren't caught up in the admissions madness the way that Northeastern Corridor kids are. It's tough because some of the good public high schools here will have 250 kids in a class applying to a school...and they won't all get in.

Most of the people I knew in HS either aplied to A&M or UT and that was the end of it. A few applied to 2 schools (a Tx school then an out of state school usually Ivy league). It was not the norm to apply to more than 3, but then again most of us have already been brainwashed-either you are a longhorn or an aggie. Several of my friends were accepted to out of state schools but ended up staying in state. You can't beat the in-state tuition coupled with the great education.

I'm from Georgia. So for Georgia schools ... Emory for medicine & SCAD (Savannah College of Art & Design) for art. Both are expensive as hell private schools, tho'. (I loved my free public school to death - but I would't really recomment GT for an art or medicine program unless you're talking about something specialized like biomed engineering or computer animation. ;) )

As for how to choose a school - just keep looking into things and visit campuses. Who you are and what you like is going to change so much between your sophomore year and your senior year when you make that decision - just stay informed. You'll know when you know, and you can't really know for sure yet.

Whoops, what a major typo! Fixing it now....:)

Doesn't this all have something to do with what you want to major in? My major (Occupational Therapy) was only offered at 3 schools in my state. I applied to all 3 (to please my parents) although I knew I didn't want to go Wayne State because I'd have to live at home (and I was going away no matter what!). So, it was between Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan. I had been to Eastern and knew some people there, and they offered me a full tuition, 4 year, merit scholarship, so that was a no-brainer. The scholarship I was offered from Western wasn't as large. Thankfully, I did love the campus when I visited and it felt like "home" from the get go. People kept asking me why I wasn't going to Michigan and I would simply reply "They don't have my major". I don't think I'd have been happy there anyway, because the school is so spread out around the city. I liked that Eastern was a small self contained campus where you could walk from one end to the other in 15 minutes.

I never considered going out of state.

My friend, whose son is in college, is scaring me though. They aren't qualifying for any aid, in spite of the fact that she's a single mom and she has cosigned so many of his loans that SHE had to have HER mother co-sign for her new car loan. Now she's being rejected as a co-signer for her son's student's loans. This is sounding like a nightmare. My girlie should get scholarships, but I don't think my son will (because he's smarter than her but also lazier and doesn't care about grades as much). Scary stuff. I want to keep them in middle school....

if she's from nova, then she must be a genius. our counselors told us not to even bother applying unless we had over 4.0s. and at least 1300 on the SAT. gotta love being passed over in northern virginia for those less qualified students in other parts of the state.