Choose your college wisely

A College can reduce the size of your universe, or a college can expand it to an extravagant one. Choose Wisely.

“Stay open to all the possibilities — don’t limit your search. Decide What You Want.”

Choosing the right college is not an easy task. With so many colleges offering the desired course, it becomes very difficult for one to pick one college over the other. And it’s difficult, for the ones with very good score in competitive exams and even for those who have not qualified any exam… Since, there are many options available and at this crucial age students are not able to decide what’s good and what’s not. Every college has its own USP and the marketing strategies that fascinate students even more. Finally Students end up choosing a college in a confused state of mind and later regret the decision.

Sometimes, students are restricted for options because parents don’t want to send them far away and sometimes he/she wants to go to a college a friend or a sibling went to. Adding to the confusion even more, students make bad choices while selecting a college because of lack of guidance and proper knowledge.

There are certain factors’ on which one decides her/his college. There are criteria’s like “make or break”, things on the list that your college must have; while the rest would be desirable but is not mandatory. If you can identify your “must haves” ahead of time, making a decision to choose a college might be a little easier.

Depending on personal priorities, the one given above may or may not be a good reason to pick a college. And it's important to remember that what makes one institution a student’s dream may also make it a nightmare. Nevertheless, there are some common steps that we believe all students need to take that will help them in choosing the right college.

1) Narrow down the factors: Narrow down all the factors which will decide your college like some parents do not want to send their child out of city while there are others who are not able to pay the hefty fee. So, let’s just list down all the factors which will decide a college for you.

• Location
• Distance from the Native place
• Availability of the branch you are looking for
• Hostel
• Available extracurricular activities
• Campus atmosphere

2) Make a list: After listing the factors that will decide your college, narrow down the list of colleges you have as options so that you can rate the colleges based on the factors discussed below.

The best way to find a college is to speak to those who live around you. Talk to your counselors, teachers, family friends and even (get ready for it) your parents. Often these people will be full of friendly advice and what's nice is that since they know you, they may have specific reasons for recommending a certain place. Take a note of their recommendations but don't assume that they will give you the answers you want them to give. Remember, you are just getting started.

Asking the people you know for recommendations is a good way to generate a preliminary list of institutes. As you research these institutes, you'll begin to discover what is important. It may turn out that these initial recommendations are a spot on or total off.

Keep an Open Mind. While it’s good to have some ideas in mind about what sorts of colleges will be right for you, stay open to all the possibilities at the beginning of your search.

3) Research: Once you have a list of schools, it’s time to research about them. To learn more about the colleges you're considering, check out college guidebooks and the colleges’ websites. Evaluate the list of colleges you have made on these factors:

~ Accreditation: Check whether the college you are looking for is accredited by all the required government bodies or not.

~ Placement: What matters at the end of degree is a placement, so it’s necessary to check the placement and package offered to the students. Most of the colleges show fake data so dig out as much as you can.

~ Faculty: Enquire about the qualification and experience of the faculties in the prospective department.

~ Collaborations: Check the collaborations of the colleges with companies and other universities.

~ Infrastructure: Check whether the college has all the required labs with complete set of equipments or not, check its library, hostel, playground and each and every thing about their infrastructure.

~ Extra Curricular Activities and Student clubs: Enquire that how many student clubs exists in the college and how many extracurricular activities are held every year because these are few things that separates a college from the other. Enquire about the accolades won by their students.

~ Alumni: Try to dig out information about the alumni of the college successfully placed in different companies.

~ Reputation: Check the rankings of the institute, its reputation, the position of students of the college in inter college competitions, check latest news reports on the college, exchange programs with foreign universities, etc. finding such things will help you to judge an institute.

4) Investigate about the colleges

Investigate, investigate, investigate, and be sure to separate reality from (often baseless) opinions. Lots of folks will refer to a college as "good", "hard to get into", "a party school", "too expensive", etc. without really knowing the facts. Don't accept these kinds of generalizations without evidence. Try to find out as much as you can from the internet about the colleges you have listed.

When you consider which college to attend, remember that you’ll be living in that same place for the next four years or more. After all, you want to enjoy coming home after classes.

Some ways to get the real picture of the college:

1) Visit college and meet the students there especially the ones who are senior (Maybe the pre-final or final year).

2) Subscribe to the facebook group of the colleges from your list; try and interact with the people present in that group.

3) Search students of the listed colleges on Linkedin and seek their advice by writing them personal mail/message.

4) Talk to your relatives who are in the same city where college is for their feedback.

5) Beware of the Fancy brochures

No doubt you'll be soon receiving tons of beautiful full-color brochures from the colleges you’ve contacted. While these brochures are filled with lots of useful information, remember that they are biased and will tout only the positive aspects of the school. See the pictures of the students studying under the trees in the warm sunshine? Always view the college’s brochure with a healthy dose of caution.

Compare the brochures from the various colleges. They can be useful in helping you assemble a list of questions that you want to ask representatives later in one-to-one interviews.

6) Don't rely on Magazine rankings.

Most of the colleges will claim them no. 1 by according to the survey take by one or the other magazine or a TV channel. Do not rely on these ranking and awards as most of these rankings are biased and paid. Sure, you can use rankings as a guide for reputation (whatever that means!) but you definitely need to do your own research and have concrete reasons for applying.

A word of advice: Keep your research organized. Too many statistics can be overwhelming if you don't keep up with what you find. Perhaps you can start a folder for each college or a notebook with pocketed dividers. Separate the information you gather for each school and put the rankings information in its place, right next to the brochures and notes you took at the College Fair.

Final Decision

As you explore colleges, you'll discover that some factors are not as important to you as to others. In fact, the whole point of going through the process outlined is to make you discover what aspects of college life will determine your focus. Ultimately, you want to pick schools that meet your needs. As you do your detective work, keep in mind that your college education is one of the most important investments you will ever make in your future and it's worth spending the time to make sure you make the right decision.

If you have a tough time choosing among two or more colleges or universities it is probably because you have done a good job putting together your list and you will be happy at whichever institution you choose. Once you make your choice, don't agonize over it. If you have followed these rules there is an excellent chance your final college choice will be a good one.

So dig as deeply as you can into what the statistics that colleges showcase do and don’t assure. And treat your undergraduate education as a rare license, before you’re confined by the burdens of full-fledged adulthood.

If you know only the North, think about the South. Seek diversity, not just in terms of region, ethnicity and race, but also in terms of financial background, especially if your bearings have been resolutely and narrowly upper middle class. You’ll most likely encounter a different economic cross-section of classmates at one of the top state universities than you will at a small private college. Doesn't that have merit, and shouldn't that be weighed?

And if your interests and circumstances don’t demand an immediate concentration on one field of study, go somewhere that’ll force you to stretch in multiple directions. A core curriculum based environment isn't a bad thing as well. The world is in constant unstable state, life is a series of surprises, and I can think of no better talent to pick up a college than courage, agility and the ability to adapt changes and improvisations.

A College can reduce the size of your universe, or college can expand it to an extravagant one. I vote for the latter.