Love Who Loves You Back

Jeff Selingo has been offering quite a few webinars for people who have pre-ordered his book. I continue to learn new things in each one and wanted to share some tidbits that I thought you would find valuable.

In all his research he’s done over the years, he found that most students choose to attend college within 75 miles of their home. That is not something that I see with my students; I find that they don’t want to be quite that close to home. Also, 60% of students nationally choose to go to public universities. I find that a significantly higher percentage of my students choose a public school. Obviously, public schools have significantly larger student bodies, so it would make sense that more students would attend these schools.

A phrase he used that I’ve heard quite a bit is that when students are receiving their acceptance letters, they should “love the school that loves them back.” It’s easy to get hung up on wanting to attend certain schools, but there are others that have amazing opportunities. Some top research universities focus more on grad students than undergraduates. There are many liberal arts colleges (and certainly some public universities) that provide more direct access to professors rather than teaching assistants to undergraduates, and undergrads are those who are doing the research. In schools like these, the professors care more about their students’ success than their own. This is not a public versus private discrepancy; rather, it’s a school by school differentiation. When students are creating their college lists, they should do their homework and research aspects of a college that are important to them so they aren’t surprised when they arrive on campus.

There is an interesting survey Mr. Selingo conducted when he asked high school seniors and recent college graduates what criteria were important to them. The biggest discrepancy was that the recent college grads valued small class sizes much more than high school students did. If you haven’t heard of the book Colleges That Change Lives, many amazing schools are profiled (including my alma mater). At the end of Dream School, the author will list other amazing schools that he thinks deserve more recognition from families. He wanted geographic diversity in his list and wanted it to feature more public schools than private ones since more students attend those. I always try to balance my college tours with the big name schools that everyone has heard of with hidden gems.