September 19, 2017
Buying a new house always starts in your
imagination. A bigger yard for the kids to play in. A brighter kitchen.
Another full bathroom. A quieter neighborhood. More storage space
(always more storage space). We build the ideal house in our heads and
set out to see which ones match up.
Then reality sets in. Or rather, the realtor sets in. She shows us houses that have the yard and the bathroom, but not the kitchen. The storage space but not the yard. The kitchen but not the neighborhood. And we see the great things we hadn't even thought of: The finished basement in one, the sunroom in the other or the fireplace in the master bedroom. Yes, I want that! I'll give up the closets for the sunroom! And so we negotiate with ourselves and our spouses, comparing the pros and cons of each place until we narrow the list down to one or two choices.
As we proceed, we realize that we're not just choosing elements we
like, we're setting out priorities. Deciding a yard is non-negotiable
makes it a priority. Needing an extra full bathroom puts any house with
that feature near the top of the list. After seeing a number of brick
and mortar places, you can sort them according to what have become your
priorities. (Even if you had a list before, it's more than likely
changed as you realized what you could give up to get something else. No
place is going to have 100% of what you want.)
Building a college list is remarkably similar. Students start with an ideal college, perhaps one they've visited or that a friend attends and likes. It just feels right or fits the image of "college" in their heads. Perhaps they know they want a big school with all the social and athletic bells and whistles. They want it to have a great advisory system and lots of options for majors. Or they want a small school with good student-faculty relationships.
As a counselor, I try to listen to what students and parents tell me when we first meet. Sometimes they have no particular ideas at all, but in conversation, I hear about an interest in business or a love of theater that gives me clues about what schools to recommend. Sometimes, I hear things I know are incompatible, such as the time one student told me he wanted a "small liberal arts school in the woods" with a "library like Regenstein." He didn't know it at the time, but he was trying to merge two incompatible things: Small colleges don't have the massive research facilities of a University of Chicago. That was his introduction to creating priorities.
From the first meeting, I take what I hear and construct a list that encompasses what I've heard. With this particular student, I started with research institutions and small colleges so he could see the differences in more detail. After visiting several and seeing the realities for himself, he decided his priorities were based on having good research facilities, so the smaller colleges were off the list.
We volleyed back and forth as he defined his understanding of what he wanted. He liked the dorms but not the location; the majors but not the core curriculum; the location but not the condition of the labs. I showed him different "properties" that had as many of his desired options as possible and we narrowed the list down to a reasonable eight or so. None was 100% but all were well within the range of what he'd determined his priorities to be. (Of course, we also considered admissibility when we got right down to it, the same way you'd have to qualify for a mortgage to buy that "ideal" house.)
Building a college list is as much about defining your priorities
as it is about finding a place for your post-high school education. And
sometimes you don't know what those really are until you look at what's
available. That's the reason I always advise students to take notes
about what they don't like as well as what they like when researching a
school. Getting a clear view of both helps clarify your vision and
define what's important to you. Often, students surprise themselves when
they realize what they thought they wanted wasn't even as important as
they thought it was. In the end, though, the likelihood of a good fit
and, ultimately, college success, comes through the give and take
between the ideal and the real.
Then reality sets in. Or rather, the realtor sets in. She shows us houses that have the yard and the bathroom, but not the kitchen. The storage space but not the yard. The kitchen but not the neighborhood. And we see the great things we hadn't even thought of: The finished basement in one, the sunroom in the other or the fireplace in the master bedroom. Yes, I want that! I'll give up the closets for the sunroom! And so we negotiate with ourselves and our spouses, comparing the pros and cons of each place until we narrow the list down to one or two choices.
Building a college list is remarkably similar. Students start with an ideal college, perhaps one they've visited or that a friend attends and likes. It just feels right or fits the image of "college" in their heads. Perhaps they know they want a big school with all the social and athletic bells and whistles. They want it to have a great advisory system and lots of options for majors. Or they want a small school with good student-faculty relationships.
As a counselor, I try to listen to what students and parents tell me when we first meet. Sometimes they have no particular ideas at all, but in conversation, I hear about an interest in business or a love of theater that gives me clues about what schools to recommend. Sometimes, I hear things I know are incompatible, such as the time one student told me he wanted a "small liberal arts school in the woods" with a "library like Regenstein." He didn't know it at the time, but he was trying to merge two incompatible things: Small colleges don't have the massive research facilities of a University of Chicago. That was his introduction to creating priorities.
From the first meeting, I take what I hear and construct a list that encompasses what I've heard. With this particular student, I started with research institutions and small colleges so he could see the differences in more detail. After visiting several and seeing the realities for himself, he decided his priorities were based on having good research facilities, so the smaller colleges were off the list.
We volleyed back and forth as he defined his understanding of what he wanted. He liked the dorms but not the location; the majors but not the core curriculum; the location but not the condition of the labs. I showed him different "properties" that had as many of his desired options as possible and we narrowed the list down to a reasonable eight or so. None was 100% but all were well within the range of what he'd determined his priorities to be. (Of course, we also considered admissibility when we got right down to it, the same way you'd have to qualify for a mortgage to buy that "ideal" house.)
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