Decision Time

Seniors have one more week to decide where they will attend college. Hopefully, they have built balanced lists and have many great acceptances to decide between. I so often hear, “I will go to the best school I get into.” What makes a school “the best?” It’s not necessarily the school with the lowest admit rate or most prestigious name. I love how Jeff Selingo discussed high school by saying it “shouldn’t feel like a four-year performance review for college. It should be a time for exploration, curiosity, and growth, experiences that matter regardless of where a student is admitted.”

When students are considering their acceptances, there are quite a few questions to consider. Where will I find professors who care? Where will I be able to get involved? Where can I build strong relationships with peers and professors? Where can I take initiative early to set myself up for success after college? Where can you afford to attend? Where will you find your people?

Frank Bruni wrote a great book entitled Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be. There are plenty of people who choose to go to a state university for undergrad knowing that they’ll be going to grad school, law school, or med school. Students find huge success coming from these state flagships as well as smaller liberal arts schools. Students don’t need to go to an Ivy League school or somewhere that admits only 20% of applicants or somewhere that costs $90,000 per year (an increasing number of universities each year) to love their experience or learn critical skills needed for job success.

The research suggests something many families don't expect: on average, graduates from Ivy League schools and top public universities often land in very similar early career roles. That's because what students do in college, how they engage, the internships they pursue, the relationships they build, matters far more than the name on the diploma. Outcomes aren't determined solely by where you go but by how you take advantage of the opportunities once you're there.

This picture is super interesting (and note the fine print saying they surveyed 975 institutions).