I need help with how to research
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Anonymous
| Hi. Please don't wail on me. I need help on how to research schools beyond taking tours. I bought the Fiske guide. I go on the colleges web sites. What are the other best ways to really educate yourself about schools? What it's really like to go there and what makes them good/great/less good. Thank you so much! I've been touring, and of course there are differences, but it's hard to really tell what they are like to actually go! Thanks for any help! |
Anonymous
| Read reviews (a lot of them) on Niche, princeton review, etc - look for trends that a lot of people say (not tue one student who loves or hates it) |
Anonymous
| Your college bound kid - website and podcast |
Anonymous
|
You -- or rather, your student -- needs to narrow it down. Urban, rural, or suburban? Large or small? Tech? Liberal arts? How competitive? What part of the country? Generous with merit and/or financial aid?
Once you make those decisions, you'll have a reasonable number to research/visit/apply to. |
Anonymous
|
Are you a parent or a kid?
Either way, I recommend doing things a more appealing way than sifting through a phone book of colleges. Go to YouTube and look up shows and student reviews. We watched the Voice of America - Korea's shows about U.S. colleges my kid was interested in. We are not Korean but have work and Korean-American family. So we are interested in Korea. These videos were informative and the Korea connections were fun to learn about. We also watched videos of kids talking about their dorm rooms and viewing the comments on their application files. |
Anonymous
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PP. You can also do a priorities check with your kid.
https://www.timpoynton.com/resources/mycfp/ I think the one above is free and online. You can make or buy printed cards that let you do it with real cards/objects. |
Anonymous
|
Every kid is different and so how you research will be different too. Here is how we searched for my child who was in a STEM magnet program in MCPS.
1) Starting point - knowing what my kid wanted. Listed in order of importance. - My kid was interested in CS, Comp Engineering, Math, Economics. - He did not want to be in a rural setting which was far from hospitals and airports (specific anxieties of my kids after USA failed so spectacularly during COVID.). - He wanted to be driving distance of maximum of 10 hours from home. (again - specific anxiety and lack of confidence in USA), if possible. - He did not want to go to Southern and Red states, if he could help it. - He did not care for Greek life, but he wanted to have a good ratio of females and males. Plus, he wanted diversity - Wanted to be in East Coast - He was also interested in taking some interesting Humanities classes - Did not care about Ivies, or prestige schools (except MIT). 2) Listed down the top x schools by majors - using internet ranking. Found that many of the colleges were coming up again and again. CS, CE, Math were the same schools. Instate flagship was in the lists 3) Made an extensive list of what schools people from his program applied to by using Naviance. Instate flagship was listed 4) Cull down the lists in 2) and 3) by using the top 4 criteria of what the boy wanted in 1) 5) Add in some easy target schools for RA. JIC. Instate flagship was in EA round. 6) Chance yourself by using Collegevine for all the schools in the culled lists. 7) Read up on Fiske (which is an underwhelming book and did not really tell me anything). 8) Did deep dives on the colleges using their website, reading up on the research work being done by professors, watching their promo on youtube, sitting through their informational remote meetings. 9) Picked 5 colleges for EA. Got into 2. One was instate flagship. 10) Applied to 3 more for RA. Got into 2. Good to have options but we did not end up considering or using them. The cream of the crop was in EA round. 11) Visited both schools that he got into in EA. Liked both. 12) Chose the instate which was T15 for his major, instead of OOS which was T6 - because instate was giving same academic opportunities and internships as T6. The prestige was also similar, alumni network was similar. In the major, skill mattered more. Prestige helps in getting internships and first job. DS managed to get good internships for each years though he had to hustle a bit. Other than that, instate was free, gave him $$ and recognition, close to home, had a better ratio of males and females, and he was already heavily networked with peers he knew in DMV, had done previous internships in HS, so it was easy for him to hit the ground running. |
Anonymous
| Look at the college's subreddit |
Anonymous
|
Ask Chat GPT. Seriously.
Obvi he is not the final answer and needs to be verified, but could save you time and give useful info to point you in a new direction. I am amazed at the results for all my requests. |
Anonymous
| While I do my own research and have a general idea - major, urban/rural, size, location, etc. I have College Confidential parent board to be very helpful in coming up with schools that add to my kids lists. Especially if you provide your kids records. One of my fav sources. But, now I'm going to go try ChatGPT! |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
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Honestly, sometimes it's the luck of the draw. Come up with your list of priorities and consider what you need to live somewhere for 4 years, and go from there. Most kids change their major so being too major focused could be a mistake.
My DC ended up at one of the universities which reports the happiest students and has a high freshman retention rate, but they didn't like it and transferred. Sometimes all the leg work can't protect you from not being able to see around corners. |
Anonymous
|
Unigo college reviews by students:
https://www.unigo.com/colleges |
Anonymous
I have never heard of Unigo. I suppose the actual comments by students might be helpful, but as a factual resource, all it has going for it is humor value. Here’s what it has to say about Mary Washington, for example: “Admissions at UMW are considered Selective, with ,48% of all applicants being admitted. In the school year, of the students who applied to the school, only 16 of those who were admitted eventually ended up enrolling. 0% of incoming freshmen are in the top half of their high school class. 0% were in the top quarter, and 0% were in the top tenth. ” Or Willam & Mary: “Admissions at W&M are considered More Selective, with ,67% of all applicants being admitted. In the school year, of the students who applied to the school, only 10 of those who were admitted eventually ended up enrolling.” So maybe read the student reviews but ignore any actual statistics. 😂😂 |
Anonymous
You aren't in the studen tlife reviews. I learned about Unigo here a few years ago. Maybe its been taken over by AI? But the actually kid written reviews were helpful (you have to dig into the site to get the scroll down). Example for Cornell: Cornell University is a school that attracted me through its rigorous academics, its vibrant student body, and its competitive nature. I specifically was drawn to its computer science program that is boasted to be one of the best in the nation. It has the tendency to over-prepare their students in terms of skill sets needed to succeed in a STEM space. This has definitely enhanced my visibility in regards to opportunities which I am extremely grateful for. As for the student body and campus culture, there are always so many events and clubs for students to connect with one another. Furthermore, despite Cornell's student population containing only 10% black students, there are so many organizations and connectivity that increase my feeling of belonging on campus. On top of that, Cornell has a party school reputation, so it's really good at allowing you to find time to decompress and have fun outside of your studies. |