Curious Parents Parenting Resources

College Visits Reveal Realities of Choice
Publisher’s Note

This spring our family embarked on a ritual becoming familiar to families across the country with high school juniors: finding a college.  The process of selecting a list of universities to apply for admission begins with discussions of your child’s interests and abilities, then progresses to research into the colleges and universities in college guides, websites and guidance counselor discussions. The results are a list of institutions that match your child’s needs and wants.   Factors considered include curriculum, learning style, career, geography, campus culture, finances and a long list of other criteria (it amazes me how much athletics plays a role in many students’ decisions). 

The next step is campus visits to get a first hand feel for the educational environment and campus life that the student will experience.  We have only visited a few of the many colleges on my daughter’s list, but already we’ve learned how different the actual experience can be from the marketing materials and how diverse the campus experiences can be.   So far we’ve visited an Ivy League University, a small Catholic University, a highly ranked urban university and a small State College.

The Ivy League University did an expectedly competent job of communicating all aspects of the education and college life and the tour of the impressive campus.  The presentations were unscripted and discussion focused on questions and answers that conveyed a strong sense of the personality of the administration.  They were the most lacking, however, in a sense of welcoming.  In fact, they went out of their way to dissuade applicants from getting their hopes up for admission due to the huge disparity between the number of applicants and the number of available openings.  This selectivity seemed to spill over into the attitudes of the students whose common characteristics seemed to be ambition and competitiveness.

The small Catholic University was committed to academic excellence and particularly communicated an interest in transferring knowledge to students through a collegial process in small classes of 10-20 students.  A commitment to the Catholic faith was interwoven into every aspect of the education and college life and the University exuded a strong sense of community.  They communicated a strong commitment to successful placement of its graduates in both commercial and academic posts. 

Within five minutes of arriving on campus at the small State College, my daughter wanted to leave.  She didn’t connect with the student body or campus.  The presentations made frequent use of videos, which we could have viewed over the internet and the administration presentations were scripts that were read by the President and Dean of Admissions and rehashed the same information that was in the brochures.  The most frequently quoted reason to attend was the quality and availability of the food.  We left campus with no better feel for the personality of the place than we could have gotten by reading the materials at home.

The highly ranked urban university was by far the most dynamic and inspiring experience of all the visits so far.  The Dean of the Business School was a young woman who came from the consulting industry and communicated a clear and compelling vision for the institution: “Our society is reengineered through economics and commerce.  Businesses are the organizations of commerce, and we are educating young adults to change the world through these means.”  Each of the candidates in the audience felt she was speaking directly to them as she explained that their acceptance criteria for grades and standardized tests were very broad and that the primary factor in deciding who would attend was the applicants level of interest in their program.  She communicated hope and possibility to academically competent applicants who demonstrate a genuine interest in their University.  The student body exuded a passion for business and an excitement about their studies and their possibilities for the future.

My daughter’s interest in the schools we visited were completely different after our visits than before.  My wife and I have developed a high level of confidence that our daughter will have several options that can provide an excellent education and fulfilling college experience.  The colleges made it very clear what our daughter should be doing over the next 12 months to maximize her possibility of acceptance, and she is inspired to act on her own behalf to make those things happen.

John Piccone is the Publisher of Curious Parents