By TORY ABBOTT

For those who wish to attend, the college search and application process can often serve as this great, looming monster over your high school career. Throughout your life, you’ve heard stories–horror and otherwise– of the creature, and as you make your way through freshman, sophomore, and junior year, the frequency of these stories only intensifies. The pressure is on, every grade (or at least it seems so) counts, and the feeling that you’re light years behind where you need to be in your search never truly fades. But is this truly what the college search needs to be like?

I began my college search in earnest at the beginning of my sophomore year in high school, and 2 years, 14 colleges visits, 6 college applications, and numerous hours stressing later, I have finally enrolled in the college of my choosing. For me, this was a very demanding and time-consuming decision, but it doesn’t have to be. Here I share a list of all things I wish I had done and mistakes I made throughout my college search. May you, dear reader, not make the same ones.

• Figure out what is most important to you in a college.

It’s a good idea to create a list of what you consider necessary in a college. This may aid you in anything from choosing which college to visit, to narrowing down your top colleges in your senior year.  As you become more familiar with your preferences, you can edit this list to better reflect what would work for you.

• Do some research on the college before deciding to visit.

Depending on the distance of the college you wish to visit, it is usually a good idea to do a little research first. Look back on your list, and, if it doesn’t meet two or more of the criteria, just don’t visit. Another helpful tool is the Net Price Calculator that each college is required to have on its website. Filling this out can help you get a better picture for how much it will realistically cost for you to attend that college, after financial and merit based aid. Once again, if you can’t afford it, then just don’t go. A lot of people will want to tell you that you can’t know if you actually like the college until you visit the campus. While this may be true to an extent, I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve wasted traveling to visit colleges that I had known beforehand weren’t for me. That said, if you are visiting a college that you’re not really sure about, do try to keep an open mind.

• Don’t get too hooked on comparing statistics.  

This may seem like a bit of a contradiction to my last statement, but while it is important to look at things like acceptance and graduation rates, they are far from being a good deciding factor on whether the college will be the right fit. If a college has a particularly high acceptance rate, that doesn’t necessarily make it less impressive or academically challenging than one with an especially low rate. Graduation rates and rankings are slightly more important, however, it is still imperative that you look at these beside the other benefits/negatives of the college or university.

• Bring a notebook; take notes on what you like and don’t like.

For some, the college search is spread out over multiple years. Though this is good in terms of decreasing the overall workload of your senior year, it also means that long stretches of time might have elapsed since your visit by the time you need to be making your decisions. Even if you remember that you like/dislike a college, you may forget the reasons. Or else, when deciding between your top colleges it might be hard to distinguish the benefits of each. This is especially significant for those who, for whatever reason, are not able to make the trip to visit each of the colleges again. By taking notes and jotting down some of the things that set the school apart from the rest, you are ensuring that these will be the things that you remember the college for, and not for the fact that the weather the day of your visit was cold and rainy, or that someone else in your tour group gave you a dirty look.

• Think very carefully before applying Early Decision.

When applying to a college, you may be offered the option to apply Early Decision or Early Action. Early Action is simply an earlier submission deadline, with a corresponding earlier date by which you will know whether you got in or not. This is not binding, and you can still turn down the school even if you get in with Early Action. Early Decision can mean that you have a better chance at getting into the college of your choosing. However, Early Decision, unlike Early Action, is binding. In other words, if you get accepted, you have to withdraw all other applications and enroll in that school. Thus, this decision should not be taken lightly. I, for example, did end up applying Early Decision, but only because I knew that my chances at getting in were low and after I was sure that I would be able to afford the cost of tuition, room, and board. For me, this was the right decision, but in other circumstances I would probably not recommend it.   

• Pick the college feels best for you, not what other people are telling you to do.

After all is said and done this is your decision. This is where you will be spending the next two plus years of your life, and only you can truly know if a certain college will be the right fit. Of course, depending on if your parents or relatives are contributing monetarily, they should get some say in regards to the overall cost of the school. But otherwise, trust your gut, and remember that college will be what you make of it.