My College Road Consulting assists students with every phase of the college application process.
As the holiday season arrives, it’s the perfect time to pause and find reasons to be thankful. If you’re a student early in your high school career, hopefully you have settled into the groove of your classes and have begun exploring one or two activities that are genuinely meaningful to you. You may or may not be thinking about colleges yet, but the most important thing you can do at this point is to challenge yourself academically and invest your time outside the classroom in ways you enjoy.
I had the pleasure of visiting Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina on a gorgeous fall day last week. WWC is one of the Colleges that Change Lives and also has the unique distinction of being one of eight colleges in the United States designated as a Work College. Every student who calls Warren Wilson home is assigned to one of over 85 work crews, and money earned is applied to tuition. Work opportunities are as diverse as the student body with job titles ranging from 3D Art Studio Assistant to Blacksmith to Forestry Crew Member. Community service is also an important element of a Warren Wilson education, and all students are required to complete at least 100 hours prior to graduation.
We all grow up hearing the names of certain colleges. Whether it’s the school where your parents met, the home of your favorite football team, or an ivy league institution idealized in the media, your dreams of the perfect school may have imprinted in your mind long before you began seriously considering your options. However, when the time comes to formulate and finalize your list, you may miss out on some extraordinary opportunities if you don’t dig deeper and consider colleges that might not previously been on your radar. One of my favorite nonprofit organizations is The Colleges That Change Lives.
As students prepare to apply to college, the choices may seem overwhelming. In years past, it was common to be told, “Major in anything—it doesn’t really matter as long as you get a degree.” To some extent, this advice can still hold true. As George Anders argues in his excellent book You Can do Anything, “Employers want to hire college graduates who write well, speak clearly, work effectively in teams, and know how to analyze complex problems. All those virtues are central to a good college education, particularly in the liberal arts.” In fact, many top technology companies actively seek graduates with liberal arts degrees because they often have an excellent ability to communicate, work cooperatively, and approach problems in creative ways. So, if you’re one of the many students about to enter college without a specific career goal, you might give strong consideration to enrolling in a liberal arts program which will typically allow you to wait one or two years before declaring a major.
For students who were hoping to have an early acceptance to one of their top college choices, a deferral can be a frustrating development during the college application process. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you await a final decision:
Don’t despair! The number of applicants at many colleges continues to climb each year, and early action/decision application rates are soaring. Just because you were not admitted in the early round DOES NOT mean you are not a competitive applicant. Many successful early applicants are athletes, legacy candidates, or those with very specialized skills sought by a specific college. If you applied to a variety of colleges, you will likely have SEVERAL excellent options in the spring, so don’t allow yourself to develop a mindset that you can only be happy at one school or program.
One of the many decisions families must make during the college application process is whether or not to apply Early Decision (ED), Early Action (EA), or Regular Decision (RD). Early Decision is binding, so you should be 100% sure that a college is your top choice and that you can afford the cost of attendance if you are admitted.
