FINDING YOUR BEST-FIT COLLEGES

EPISODE 1

When you are trying to decide what car to buy, you probably start one of two ways. You may start with the one car you dreamed about, and clearly want the most. Then you are shocked by how much it costs. Then you say, “I better see what else is out there in case I cannot sweet talk my parents and family to pay for my dream car.” The list expands to accommodate your circumstances. Cost, size, color, style, etc. They are all factors.

Or you may start at the other end of the spectrum: “I will start with a list of several cars. Then I’ll narrow down the list”. You’ll use the same factors – especially cost.

Either way, whether you know it or not, you are getting a big picture. You end up with a pool of potential cars.

This is essentially the same process you should use to select your college – develop a pool of potential best-fit schools and analyze each one according to your circumstances. That process will narrow the pool.

One way to get the big picture is to view the colleges as fitting into two very broad categories:

• Selective: Colleges that admit less than half of their applicants (or an increasingly smaller percentage of applicants).
• Everyone Else: Colleges that admit more than half of their applicants.

Then compare your transcripts and standardized test scores with their published admissions standards. We recommend creating a spreadsheet to itemize each school and their standards, column by column. Save a column for your grade point average (or class rank). Another column is for your SAT and/or ACT. You will quickly find a general range of where you fall amongst colleges.

If you have yet to take the ACT or SAT, you can still research the schools. See their expectations. You then have a target.

A few facts to consider:

BIPOCs (Black and Indigenous People of Color):  

• Over the past three decades, most of the growth in enrollment among BIPOCs has been in colleges in the “Everyone Else” category. So, while more BIPOCs are going to college, they are not primarily attending the most selective or elite schools.
• In fact, for over 40 years, black students have consistently accounted for only 6 percent of the freshman class among elite colleges.

Public vs Private Colleges: At this Big Picture stage, we do not suggest narrowing schools based on whether they are public or private. Many of the schools share common attributes. For example, The University of Virginia is a public college, but it is also one of the most prestigious universities in America. There is much to compare, but not at this point.  Take comfort in the fact that each year about 80 percent of American students attend public universities.  There is no shame or bright line that prevents you from succeeding professionally or in life on that distinction alone.    There are many other considerations. We will walk through them in subsequent episodes. But this is a good starting point.