While deciding on what university to attend can seem daunting, organizing college searches can be beneficial to students. Throughout high school, compiling information about colleges is a good way to prepare for senior year and the
college applications process.
Creating an Organized College Search
Opt-In to Emails and Physical Mail
Most accredited universities have outreach programs, where they reach out to prospective students and offer resources to students considering applying to their institution. In order to opt in to emails and physical mail from universities, students can sign up for
College Board’s Student Search Service or sign up for college newsletters on specific universities’ websites.
Once signing up for various recruitment emails, however, it may be tough for students to organize all of the physical mail and emails that they receive.
Rank What Matters to You
Before organizing recruitment mail, it is crucial to rank
different aspects of college life that matter to oneself. Whether it be figuring out what campus size would be ideal or what college fraternities, sororities, or activities one wants to join, identifying personal preferences is an integral part of searching for the right college.
To effectively understand personal preferences, students can identify characteristics of a university that they know are important to them.
For example, a student may want to attend an institution with a strong football team, well-known business program, and an urban campus. As a result, because they already have set expectations, they can use this information about themselves to shortlist universities based on information provided in recruitment mail.
Create a College Search Binder
When
students receive mail from colleges, they can use the information provided about each college and match a particular university’s characteristics with the characteristics that the student identified earlier as traits important to them. Based on how closely a university’s features match with the student’s desired characteristics, the student can organize recruitment mail into three binders: closest match, neutral match, and not a good match.
To organize digital mail, students can create folders for each college’s mail and organize those folders into the three categories described above. Most students apply to between eight and twelve schools, so finding schools that best fit the student’s needs before senior year can help stressed seniors pick what schools to apply to.
Make a Cover Letter for Each College
In order to completely understand what each university has to offer, students can develop cover letters for each university that detail specific characteristics of the university that the student finds enticing or repellent. Furthermore, they should include details about the acceptance rate, average tuition, aid, cost of living, standardized test scores, etc., so that they have a comprehensive understanding of both what the university has to offer and
how likely the student is to receive acceptance.
By including such details in a ‘cover letter’ format, students will be able to pick safety, fit, and reach schools from their ‘closest match’ binder easily in their senior year.
Research Each College In-Depth
While recruitment mail can often be insightful to students, it is important to note that recruitment mail serves as a university’s way of advertising itself. In order to learn more about the university, doing other
research through the school’s website, news sources, etc., can serve as ways to make sure that the student does not miss any important information about a prospective school.
Furthermore, it can be helpful to talk to alumni of specific schools in order to understand how daily life is at a particular university. Because
school rankings and statistics may not always paint the complete picture, utilizing alumni, guidance counselors, and other individuals affiliated with an institution are vital in understanding how well a student may fit at a particular school.
For instance, certain schools have a more competitive culture, which may not be revealed through recruitment mail or statistics. Therefore, doing research on all the components of a university that matter to a student is essential to finding the ideal college.
Research Now Leads to Informed College Decisions
By gathering all of this information before senior year, students will have the resources they need to pick universities to apply to. It is impractical to apply to an extensive number of universities, so compiling information can be useful in
choosing specific schools to apply to.
However, compiling information is merely the first step of the college research process. It is equally important that students avail this information when choosing schools to apply to.
In order to maximize satisfaction, students should pick different tiers of schools from their ‘best match’ binder/folder. Students should find some schools that they are very confident will accept them, some schools that have
standards that fit their resume, and some schools that are harder to get into or have high standards.
By organizing their college search, students also make their applications process more structured, enabling their senior year to be as smooth as possible.
