Formulating a list of colleges to which you will apply might seem fairly straightforward at first, but it can be the most important factor in determining what kind of choices you will have in the Spring and how satisfied you feel with your ultimate decision.
I’ll start off with an observation from my own experience, because I think it’s more helpful and concrete than speaking in the abstract. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the Bay Area, and in California generally, there is a pretty well-established hierarchy of universities. At the top is Stanford, followed the various University of California Campuses, usually led by Berkeley and UCLA. When I was in high school, it was very common for those in my peer group to apply to Stanford (and perhaps Harvard) and limit the rest of their choices to the various UC campuses. Due to Stanford’s selectivity, most students would end up at one of the UC campuses. Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. Both of my parents attended UC Berkeley and, as you all know, I’ll be a Berkeley law student myself come this Fall. At the same time, being thrust directly onto a campus filled with 24,000 undergraduates is not for everyone. Many of my friends found that it was difficult to adjust to the fact that they were now literally one person amongst a sea of others (often vying against one another for scarce resources like grades, academic support, or even seats in a particular class). On the plus side, going to a place like Berkeley certainly tends to make one tough, independent, and worldly. Yet when I compare those friends’ experiences to my fiancee’s (who also went to the same high school as me), the differences are a little striking. She attended Amherst, which has 1,600 undergraduates. If she had a question about something in class, she could stop by her professor’s office at any time (and the classes were small enough that they all knew her by name). Instead of the giant lecture halls that my friends at larger schools described, Amherst classes were intimate and often resembled small academic discussions and debates rather than lectures. After graduating, she worked for a well-known consulting company before joining a software company in Silicon Valley and will be off to Harvard Business School in the fall. All of this after attending a school that most of my high school classmates had not even heard of! (Though naturally Amherst has a great reputation among folks on the East Coast).
The point of the little anecdote above is to demonstrate that, with a little bit of research and introspection, you may discover wonderful opportunities that you never knew existed when you started thinking about where to go to college. On an encouraging note, I’ll share with you two figures. The first is that there are about 2,500 four-year colleges and universities in the United States. Moreover, the number of top-caliber, prestigious colleges and universities in the U.S. is far greater than any other country in the world. As a point of contrast, many other countries, even in highly-educated regions like Asia and Europe, may only have a handful of universities that are truly considered “top-tier.” The graduates of the top foreign universities have a direct line into the most lucrative careers, whether they be in business or government, while graduates of less prestigious universities face a much more difficult path. In the U.S., this is far less true. Top employers do not limit themselves to recruiting at three, five, or even ten schools. Tiny colleges that you may not even have heard of, like Amherst, Swarthmore, and Pomona, typically send more students per capita to elite graduate programs in law, medicine, and business, than well-known public universities like UC Berkeley and the University of Virginia. What this means is that, while not all schools are created equally, you can afford to consider a variety of schools without worrying about whether you might hinder your long term professional or educational goals.
The second figure you should know is that the vast majority of students end up liking the college that they attend. This should also be a liberating fact to have in the back of your mind. I know many students typically approach the college application process as though they are trying to isolate one “perfect” place. The reality is that every college experience has positive and negative aspects and, on balance, most people find a situation where the positives more than compensate for the negatives. If you put in the effort to determine what you’re looking for out of the college experience and what your various options have to offer, I’m certain that you will end up making a terrific decision.
With that in mind, I’d like you guys to give some thought to the following factors and write about a paragraph on each, which you will then e-mail to me so that I can start helping you research some schools that might be a good fit for you. At this point, I would like to avoid mentioning any specific college names (though it’s fine if you already have a few in mind – as I’m sure you do!). Also, do not feel that you have to respond to every question or idea that I have raised. These are just starting points; please feel free to record whatever you feel is appropriate.
Academics
What subjects are you interested in? Is it more important that you have a curriculum that tries to build a common base of knowledge among all students or would you rather have more academic freedom to explore a wide variety of things? Describe the kind of college classroom that you think you would feel most comfortable in. Are you interested in engineering? How important is it for you to have access to your professors or other faculty members as a learning resource?
Social and Extracurricular Engagement
How would you describe your current group of friends in terms of social characteristics and/or personality? Is it important to you that a college has a more intimate, nurturing atmosphere? Have you given much thought to how you might feel about selective groups like fraternities/sororities or social clubs (whether your feelings are positive or negative)? Are there any causes or activities to which you are very committed and definitely plan to pursue in college? Do you have any strong political or social beliefs that you would want to see reflected in the student life at your college? Do you play a sport that you would like to continue doing once you are in college?
Other Concerns
Many students have difficulty with the idea of attending school far away from their family and the place where they have grown up. How important is it that you attend school close to home? Do you feel pressure from friends, family, or peers to attend a certain school or set of schools? How important is the prestige factor to you in terms of deciding which schools to apply to? Anything else you’d like to mention!
(As a special note, please do not feel hesitant to say that any of the above are important to you: I know they were to me. My family definitely wanted me to stay close to home and the culture of my school was very oriented towards the most selective colleges-I certainly felt the pressure!).
I realize that you all have a lot of things going on, so please do not feel that you need to take more than 40 minutes to an hour, total, writing up your thoughts. It would be terrific if you guys could e-mail your responses to me at jonathanjewlim@gmail.com by Wednesday, May 28.
Looking forward to hearing from you all!
