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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Fit certainly matters if you go somewhere small. A pre professional kid is not going to fit in at Hampshire, nor a pot smoking hippie kid at Washington and Lee.

I get that. But at bigger places, with classes even in the low thousands? The law of large numbers takes over. Your tribe will be somewhere to be found. Ranking, affordability, availability of majors, and location matter much more than fit for medium and large sized institutions, because they're big enough to fit many different types of kid.

In short, fit matters for SLACs, but not normal sized schools.

Thoughts?[/quote]

I agree! I came to the same conclusion. And this is exclusively an American phenomenon. Rest of the world there is no such thing as a fit.

This is more like marketing to deflect from the pressure to get into top schools. This is more a calming technique to soothe anxious families that there is a college that uniquely suits their child.

If there really is a "fit", then we should be able to define it clearly, provide that criteria and publish it. So that any student can check it and have a ready list of "fit" colleges.

Now, every family is supposed to be on a journey of self exploration and find its own list of "fit" colleges.

People start foaming at the mouth if someone applies to two seemingly different schools. [/quote]

I'm confused because we DO have these tools at our disposal.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/opinion/build-your-own-college-rankings.html
Add naviance and other resources I'm forgetting, these are all available assets for students. I do think many students are horrendous researchers and then incessantly complain about their college experiences. American students demand too much compared to other countries for a college.[/quote]

We are not talking about just campus location, size, rating, etc. but also subjective things like "vibe" etc. which are going to change depending on the day of the year, weather, etc. to find "fit".

Fit should be objectively measurable. If a student says I like a, b, c d, e... factors then we should be able to select those factors and come up with a list of colleges. But no. We are supposed to visit colleges, read student news papers, eat the cafeteria, get the vibe, to see if it is a "fit".

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