We are so very proud of our seniors. The colleges and universities to which our twelfth graders have been accepted and in which they have enrolled are impressive and are illustrative of the intelligent and diverse group of students who make up the class of 2013. We are proud of their intellectual successes and of their plans for the future. How did these students come to make these plans?
The college application process involves two major choices. In the spring of junior year, during “college class” and in conversations involving their families and our college guidance office, the students chose a group of schools to which to apply. This is Decision #1. Carey Socol, our Director of College Guidance reports:
I begin the process during junior year and give students a list of roughly 12-15 schools to research based on academic interests, size and location preferences and financial considerations. They are also based on my gut feeling about what schools the students might “connect” with. The beginning of the process is broad with an emphasis on keeping an open mind and researching a variety of schools….The students’ lists should include schools that they have heard of and know about and those institutions that they might be less familiar with, ones where I think they will thrive. As long as we come up with a list of schools that meet academic and financial considerations, students (and families) will have a choice to make.
Families quickly see just how many options there are. There are many hundreds of colleges to choose from, with most focus going to a group of highly selective institutions. Families also have to factor out the noise that comes at them from a society that, unfortunately, generally recognizes only a very small number of schools as “excellent” and does not recognize the variety and diversity of colleges that exists nor the needs of the individual. During the spring of junior year and the summer that follows, students will research the schools on their list, hopefully making visits to experience a number of them first hand.
I asked the seniors and their parents how they constructed their initial lists. A few indicators stood out in their replies, including the strength of specific academic programs (“The colleges that were on XXX’s list to begin with were all considered for their excellent programs in math and physics” and “ I started to make my list by looking at what schools had the best business programs, because I knew that that’s what I wanted to study.”)
- Geographic location was important to a number of our seniors (I did not want to look at any rural colleges, but I am going to one next year as it turns out” and “After that I narrowed it down to schools on the East Coast, with a few exceptions of schools that had everything else I wanted such as UMich and Northwestern.”)
- Financial issues are a significant factor, (“Something that was always in the back of my mind that I could not ignore when considering colleges was affordability. I want to go to law school, so graduating college being thousands of dollars in debt is definitely not an option for me. I chose Macaulay Honors College at CUNY because (1) it’s free and (2) it’s a prestigious school that provides an excellent education with many great opportunities. Because of that, I didn’t feel like I had to compromise or sacrifice any one thing.”)
- Family history at a particular school was also important to some (Needless to say, it’s a strong school with a notable breadth of choices in fields of study. But the fact that he will be third generation, that both his siblings attended and that I have two degrees from Cornell….)
Balancing the factors described above and a host of others including available majors/degrees, campus life, extra-curricular offerings, athletics and many more, students create a list of “reach schools,” “target schools” and “safety schools.” Students spend significant time meeting with college representatives who visit LREI and visiting campuses themselves. To allow all to participate in this essential part of the process, a portion of the senior class gift over the past three years has created a fund to support families in visiting schools they otherwise might not have been able to afford to see. In addition, LREI organizes a group visit to three or four schools in the spring of eleventh grade. That is Decision 1.
Decision 1.5 is who will make Decision 2? Families come out in different places on this, but I think that most would agree that in the end, all things being equal, it is the student’s choice. One student shared that, “All the decisions I was presented with (where to visit, where to apply, where to accept) were ultimately made by me (although financial restrictions would’ve been the ultimate deciding factor had I not been able to afford one school) but influenced by my parents, friends, and college guidance counselors.”
Decision 2—How to choose one school from a number of great choices? Carey Socol, suggests:
Regarding acceptances, after students hear back from schools, it is important to do a “re-visit.” As much as things change from junior to senior year, things also change from fall of senior year to spring of senior year. Going back to visit the schools that you were accepted to can shed important light on where you want to enroll. And then the conversation of financial concerns and/or the opportunity to study in a specific program and other factors will play a making a final decision.
One parent from whom I heard added, “We let our daughter make the decision where to enroll. She knows herself well and she senses where she will be happy and have the best opportunity to thrive. She made the decision based upon those criteria.” This student added, “Ultimately the most important thing to consider is environment – do you feel comfortable there, do you like the people, can you imagine living there? Overnight visits are really helpful for that.” Another factored in a school guaranteeing admission to a Master’s program in which he is interested. His classmate added, “Then when I went for my overnight, I just felt super comfortable with the people and with the school itself, and that’s what really sold it to me. I also like their attitude towards teaching and their honor code.”
These are hard decisions and well worth the time and consideration that families give to them. At LREI, along the way, families are supported by our high school faculty and administration and by Carey Socol in the college guidance office. Of this support, one family added, “Carey provided an immeasurable, crystal clear voice in this process.” We see students move through this process with an understanding of themselves as learners and as people, which has developed during their time here. This allows them to make decisions that lead to the next set of experiences at a college or university that will be, as one parent reminded us, not only a place, “where he wants to go, but in LREI’s constant reminder, where he belongs.”