What Should a High School Junior Be Doing Now for College? (or- The Fine Art of Going “Full-Tilt Bozo”) The College List

Now is the time that you should be (as my old aikido teacher used to say) going “full-tilt Bozo”; in the context of aikido, that meant a full-on, caution-to-the-wind technique holding nothing back.  For a college-bound junior, this means the full-court press: forming the college list, taking and retaking standardized tests, feeling around for recommenders, and beginning your college visits.  It feels like a lot (and it is), but you’ll be busier now than you will be a year from now when all your applications are in and you may have even gotten most of your decisions back.  For now, let’s look at building a college list.

In some ways this is the most important thing you’ll do.  You’re certainly not going to end up at a school you don’t apply to, and you’re not going to apply to a school you don’t know exists. There are literally thousands of four-year colleges in the US alone.  How do you decide where to focus your search? When I first speak to juniors about the colleges they want on their list, they usually mention the flagship state university, the college their parents went to, the college their older friends go to, and maybe a college where their intended major is reputedly strong.  Maybe these schools should be on your list (and maybe they shouldn’t), but they shouldn’t be the only schools on your list. 

Family and friends aside, let’s look at the question of the “strong major.”  80%+ of undergraduates change their major AT LEAST once.  When I was chair of a university English department, I can’t tell you how many students we welcomed to “the dark side” from other majors.  We snagged former music majors, business majors, nursing majors, and theology majors.  They ended up being much happier and fulfilled than if they had stayed put.  All this to say, unless you’re a hardcore devotee to your field (and have been for years), don’t go to a school that you have no affinity for outside of your intended major.  Pick a school where you’ll have options.  If you go to a music conservatory, for example, you will pretty much limit yourself to being a music major.  If you go to a more multi-faceted university, you’ll be able to pivot gracefully if you do change your major because you’ll have a lot to choose from.  Overall, I’m more concerned with how well a school fits you as a person than whether they have a stellar international meteorology degree. 

“Admissions is a match to be made, not a prize to be won.”  There’s no point in “getting you into” Harvard, if Harvard is going to make you miserable- if the work is too rigorous, if your colleagues are unrelatable, if Cambridge is too cold- that’s not going to make you a better, happier, or even smarter person.  You must find your fit: your school needs to have your vibe and your tribe.  So when beginning to consider schools, I ask students to think of:

·        big vs. small,

·        rural vs. urban,

·        state vs. private,

·        religious vs. secular,

·        close to home vs. far away.

You need to be both comfortable and challenged: shocked but not electrocuted.  You especially need to seek out these schools you and your family don’t know about; one of them might be your fit. A client of mine is going to go to Agnes Scott College in Atlanta this fall on a merit scholarship.  When I started working with her, she had never heard of the school and had never considered a women’s college.  I suspected it might be a good fit for her when I met her, and then when I revisited the school this past summer, I was convinced of it.  The location, the curriculum, the campus atmosphere, and the other students absolutely felt like her.  On my recommendation, she looked into it, fell in love, and now is a member of the Class of 2024.

The good news is that you have a lot of room on your roster. I want you to start out with a list of twelve or thirteen schools which you might winnow down to eight or so.  You want to play the odds a little: you should have one or two “dream” schools on your list that you have statistically a lower chance of getting in, maybe five schools where you have a good but not guaranteed chance of admission (your GPA and test scores match up with their averages), and finally a couple of schools where the numbers indicate you’ll almost certainly get in (but nowhere that you wouldn’t want to go).  This means that when the acceptances come in, you’ll have options.  Maybe you make it into a dream school, but because of affordability issues you instead choose a school that offers more scholarship.  Maybe one of your “safety” schools turns out to be a lot more to your liking after a campus visit and an interview with a professor and you go there in preference to a school with more perceived “prestige.”  Maybe you get into one school and use that as leverage to increase your aid at another school (“well, I’d rather come to your school, but here’s the scholarship Utah State is offering me: can you match it?”).

The good news is that you don’t have to pick a finalist now.  You just need to figure out how wide to cast your net.  Open your mind: yes UVA is great, but have you looked at The University of Richmond?  Furman?  Warren Wilson?  Do your research online, by speaking to peers and teachers, and even through informal visits to nearby schools (we’ll talk about more formal visits later).  Or better still, call me; building the list is one of the things I specialize in.  Approaching it as a matchmaker, I can show you schools you haven’t looked at, and bring up factors you hadn’t considered.  I want you to find your fit.  If you find the right school to begin with, you’re less likely to transfer, which will almost always cost you time and money in terms of credits lost or recategorized. 

Good luck out there, and before you decide which schools to swipe right on, give me a call and we’ll discuss your list (and much, much more)!  Call or text 704 692 4559 or email to davidreedparker@gmail.com.