June 23, 7:45 PM

Miami College Guidance Examiner

Simon Vainrub

If you’ve been watching TV perhaps you have heard of Dakota Root, she’s the homeschooled girl who was accepted to Harvard, Stanford, Yale Columbia, Penn, Brown, Duke, Chicago, Cal-Berkeley, USC and several other elite schools in America. So how did she choose her college? According to Fox News, she picked Harvard because it’s the school everyone in the entire world knows about. For the record, Harvard is so elite that only 1% of the best high school seniors dare apply (30,000 applicants) and out of that number about 1,500 will get to attend Harvard.

Dakota’s story is exceptional, the average person doesn’t get accepted to 10+ of the best schools in the country, but with more than 4,000 colleges in the US there are plenty of great colleges for you that cater to your individual needs, the challenge becomes, where do I go?

College Rankings

Google “college rankings” and you’ll find that schools are rated by organizations like US News & World Report on a wide variety of categories such as “Highest (and Lowest) Acceptance Rate,” “Top-Public Schools,” “Best Nursing Programs,” “Most Students in a Fraternity,” “Most International Students,” etc.

“Rank vs. Individual Fit: College admissions counselors universally agree that a school must "fit" the student in terms of academic environment, social environment, athletic and other extracurricular opportunities, urban or rural location, etc. A good fit will result in a great college experience and, most importantly, maximum personal growth and achievement. Rankings can be a negative influence when students or parents look more at how highly a school is ranked instead of how well it will serve the needs of that particular student.”

http://collegeconfidential.com

Example, say you’re a passionate outdoorsman who enjoys kayaking, hiking, horseback riding, etc. If that’s the case, the rankings of Outside Magazine are going to suit you perfectly. Perhaps you’ll love Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina. At Warren, “The Bent Creek Experimental Forest offers miles of singletrack, road riders convene every Tuesday at Liberty Bikes for a morning ride, and runners can join the Asheville Track Club. Prefer solitude? Hop onto the Mountains to Sea Trail…Hikers, mountain bikers, and horseback riders don't even have to leave the 1,200-acre campus, as more than 25 miles of trails cut through the grounds.”

Of course, you’ll also want to know how Warren and other schools rank nationally, in your major, cost, and other categories relevant to you. For example, if you are a vegetarian you should check the PETA’s college rankings, did you know Yale, Oberlin, NYU and University of Florida are among the top-ten for vegetarians? Thanks to rankings, you don’t have to sacrifice your desires to get a top-notch education and you can find great colleges you never even knew existed.

Small vs. Large

Want a school where you know everybody or do you feel more comfortable studying with 40,000 students? There are great schools in both categories, so your job is to examine the benefits and drawbacks of both. For example, a large school is more likely to have more student groups, more student activities, more majors and more classes. A smaller school offers a more intimate environment, more personal attention, more access to your professors, among other benefits.

According to Forbes Magazine: “Small liberal arts schools shine in our rankings, probably due to both the quality of their faculty and the personal attention they can provide. Williams and Swarthmore both rank in the top five, while Pomona, Smith, Middlebury and Amherst all come in the top 20, ahead of such schools as Stanford (23rd) and Brown (27th).”

Source: http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/13/college-university-rankings-oped-college08-cx_rv_mn_0813intro.html

Public vs. Private

The main difference between public and private universities is price. Just compare the cost of attending a top public university like UC-Berkeley ($8,353 in-state, $31,022 out-of-state) versus top private universities like Harvard, Columbia, Georgetown, Boston College and Cornell where you can expect to pay more than $50,000 a year without need-based aid. With need-based aid chances are you’ll still have to pay more than $20,000 a year, and that’s not counting room and board which can cost you another $10,000+.

Think about what will happen if you graduate with a huge college loan debt, consider the salary prospects of your chosen career and how you will feel when you’re making $900+ a month in loan payments for a job that pays $50,000 a year. Remember, you don’t need an expensive private school to succeed in life, Suze Orman got a BA in Social Work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, look at her now!

So if you can’t afford a respected and extremely expensive private school, consider that “according to the 2009 Academic Ranking of World Universities, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign ranked 25th out of the more than 1000 international institutions recognized. It is home to some of the highest-ranked Engineering, Computer Science, Library and Information Science, and Accounting programs in the United States.” And here’s the best part, it only costs about $9,000 a year for residents and $23,000 for non-residents.

Campus Activities

I used to refer to the university I attended as a weekend cemetery. Why? Because there was nothing going on, it was completely dead, the library would close at 5 on Saturdays and all day Sunday, everyone was at the beach, clubbing or drinking in the campus bar. I was so bored that I would walk to Blockbuster, and sneak into classrooms to watch DVD’s. Yet when I visited a relative at a much cooler university during spring break, I was amazed at everything that was going on. There was a film festival, cafes, and even the library would open until 4 am, close for one hour and then reopen at 5 am. So if you’re a bookworm, a jock, a philosopher, or just a person who’s drawn to a certain social environment; make sure to find a campus that fits with your lifestyle. Check out their individual websites and see if the school has fraternities, student clubs, fitness facilities, sports, and so on. For example, Penn State University recently dethroned the University of Florida as the top party school according to the Princeton Review. You can also check studentreviews.com which lists Tulane University as the #1 school for social life, and if you’d rather be volunteering, US News & World Report recommends Duke, University of Maryland, Stanford, and other colleges where you can learn and make the world a better place at the same time.

Campus Politics

They say you should never talk about sex, politics or religion if you want to avoid making people uncomfortable. In college however, you’re likely to meet people who will discuss all three so if you’re a progressive who voted for Obama or a conservative who voted for McCain, you should think very carefully about what kind of people you want to study with.

While some schools encourage vigorous debate, others censor students who hold unpopular views and there are cases of teachers who are openly hostile to conservatives, members of the military, Zionists, etc. Some universities even have “speech codes,” or other draconian laws that stifle the First Amendment of the US Constitution. For example, according to FIRE, an organization that fights for individual rights in education, Binghamton University suspended a student for making posters criticizing the Department of Social Work.

That doesn’t mean conservatives or libertarians have to study at places where they’re not welcome, consider options like Hillsdale College which currently ranks 89th in the 2010 U.S. News & World Report listing of best American Liberal Arts colleges and 76th in the 2009 Forbes report of America's Best Colleges. It ranks second in the Princeton Review's The Best 371 Colleges 2009 listing of colleges where students are "most conservative" and among the fifty "best value" private colleges.

Of course, if you’re a progressive or liberal, you’ll feel perfectly comfortable at Duke, NYU, Columbia, Oberlin, Ohio State University, Princeton, Tufts, Berkeley and lots of other great schools, some more politically correct than others.

Religious vs. Secular

Nietzsche said that God was dead, yet almost every school in the nation has at least one religious student group. Catholic and Protestant schools have their own chapels, even orthodox Jews can attend top-rated schools like Baruch College and Brandeis where the food follows Jewish dietary restrictions. The question for you is how much or how little religion you want in your life, there are top-rated Christian schools like Wheaton College, ranked 59 in U.S. News & World Report (2008) and 11th in total number of graduates who go on to earn doctorates. Other options include Baylor University with over 146 undergraduate degrees, Pepperdine University, Calvin College and others.

One thing to consider about religious schools is their standards of conduct, many of them don’t tolerate smoking, drinking (even if you’re over 21), drug use, premarital-sex, homosexuality, and in the case of Bob Jones University, interracial dating used to be against their laws.

The rules of conduct are less strict at top-rated Catholic universities such as Georgetown, Loyola, Boston College, Creighton, and others.

If you are religious and choose to attend a secular college find out if they have college ministries, a college-age Sunday school class or youth group, worship services, and churches near campus.

How not to choose a college

Believe it or not, sometimes people pick the wrong college for the wrong reasons. Some may say “my boyfriend/girlfriend/best friend” is going there, others are impressed by the football team (which makes no sense unless you’re going to be on the football team), some pick a prestigious school even if they don’t have the major they want, others want to go where their parents went, and so forth.

Choosing a college based on factors that have nothing to do with you could become a disaster. Remember, these four or more years could affect the rest of your life, and unlike Suze Orman, most of us don’t get to go turn a B.A. is Social Work into a lucrative career as a Television Financial Adviser. So when it comes to your college choice, research, research, research.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1348503&forum_id=1#15335618)