Hooray! A bunch of colleges want me! Now what?

Congratulations!  You’ve gotten into at least a few of the schools you applied to.  Doesn’t it feel good to be wanted?

Now all the adults you know are asking:  So, where are you going to go?

How should you choose among the schools that said “yes”? 

Make a few lists based on criteria. For example,

• If all of the schools that said yes were down the block from each other, which would you pick?  (And now, decide how much distance matters.)
• If all the schools that said yes cost the same, which would you pick? (Have you tried telling your top school that they ARE your top school, but you might have to decline because another school gave you a better financial aid package?  Financial aid departments have the most flexibility right now, while everyone is trying to get admitted students to commit.)

Revisit your top three choices.  See if you can sit in on a class or two, or, even better, stay the weekend.  Go eat in the cafeteria.

Check out the schools’ Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages. Ask current students online about your particular major:  what are the best and worst things about that major at that school?

Ask me.  I’ve been helping kids get into college for over 30 years.  I have a fairly good sense of what most of the colleges my students go to are actually like, which ones have more of a clove-cigarette-smoking, birkenstock-sandal-wearing culture and which ones have more of a beer-drinking, everyone-goes-to-the-football-games culture and which ones have more of a we’re-here-to-study culture and which ones have more of a we’re-here-to-have-a-good-time culture.  I know kids who are attending or have attended most of the most common schools and I might be able to find you someone from northern Westchester for you to ask some questions.

Most important advice ever: Choosing a college isn’t a permanent decision.  

Some decisions are forever.  If you commit suicide, you can’t take it back.  If you have a child, you’ll be a parent forever, even if you don’t raise that child.  But choosing a school isn’t one of those forever decisions.  About a third of all college students do not graduate from the same college they first attended, so if you have to transfer, you won’t be alone.

Make the best decision you can with the information you have now, and then settle into it.  If you realize the school wasn’t what you thought in a few years, or if you yourself change in a few years, you can always change schools, especially if you’ve done a good job of keeping up your grades your first year or two.

Please don’t forget to tell me where you applied – and which schools said yes.  That sort of information really helps me give accurate advice next year’s students.

Congratulations on your success!

Wendy Segal

www.wendysegaltutoring.com