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Searching for the Perfect College
Looking back on my own college experience nearly two decades ago, I can still clearly remember the agony of the application process-the standardized testing, the admission essay, the waiting. What isn't as clear is why and how I chose to go where I did. I liked the idea of being away from my hometown, but didn't want to go too far. My parents couldn't afford out-of-state tuition. It may sound silly, but a major swing factor for me was the size of the university-I wanted to be smack-dab in the middle of Division I sports and all the fever that came with along with it. I wanted atmosphere. Memories. A big name school. In short, I had no idea what I really needed in a college.
As it turned out, I went somewhere that fulfilled all of these needs, but in retrospect, I am not sure it was the best fit. My grades weren't great. The classes were huge. The student population was massive, and I had no teachers or guidance counselors to shepherd me through the process-something I still needed at that time. My major was interesting, but not very marketable. I share my experience now as thousands of hopeful seniors put the finishing touches on their applications and settle into several months of finger-biting and hand-wringing before making their own final decisions.
Today there is much talk of students basing their decisions on rankings and prestige. This will probably always be the case, but I see it as another potential pitfall. I stumbled upon this recent Huffington Post article that, I think, would have helped me a great deal when I was seventeen: Huffington Post . Maybe I still would have made my choice for many of the wrong reasons. However, this is something I do believe-an imperfect college experience may still be a perfect life experience. In the search for an ideal college fit, there are all sorts of different possibilities.
Labels: searching for the perfect college
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