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Exploring Early to find the Right College
In American culture, college is more than a simple beginning to a new academic venture. It is a spreading of the wings-a symbolic marker of a student's transformation from teenager into independent adult. If you're lucky and can take your pick, this may be your first opportunity to start over far away from home. It's like closing your eyes, tracing your finger on a map and picking a place to go.
Well, not exactly. But it is a lot easier to relocate before you've got a job, mortgage and kids.
For most students, the only real barrier to attending a school far from home is the higher out-of-state tuition. The reality, however, is that most of us stay close to home. It may be the familiarity, but more likely, it's the cost of simply traveling and researching far-away places. Thankfully we now have the internet to thank for virtual tours, but it isn't the same. Seeing and experiencing a place is something that can't be faked.
I'm not one of those people that advocates college prep for kindergartners, but I do think it's a good idea to plan ahead. So when you take a regular family trip with older kids, think about using it as an opportunity to check out a campus. Let your kids get a visceral feel for a place by just wandering the campus. Sometimes just seeing the majesty of a large university is something that sticks in a young person's memory.
Helping your kinds to mentally map out a larger region of possibility is the first step in stretching the limits of their expectations. Done in the right way, this can be a real positive when the college crunch finally comes to pass.
Labels: Exploring Early to find the Right College
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