I always hate myself when a deadline I make comes around and I actually have to start doing something I’ve been putting off. Hello, college search. I haven’t been ignoring it because I’m in denial, or afraid. It’s the tiny, panicky feeling that I’ll end up choosing the wrong one.
I get at least two brochures in the mail every day from colleges, and even though that’s an enormous stack to wade through, there’s still the nagging feeling that my dream college is out there – but it didn’t send me a brochure. If I want to expand my search, it’s difficult. There are some great sites out there to help your search, but the feeling doesn’t go away. Even when I do find one that sounds like a perfect fit, I have to base that on the propaganda put out by the college itself. They all make themselves sound perfect.
Over the summer, I took tours of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore, and Princeton. All the tours were led by a trained guide, and all of the colleges sounded wonderful and went straight onto my list. When I visited Johns Hopkins, however, I went with a family friend – not a tour guide – and I was much less impressed. In fact, the tour kicked Hopkins off of my list.
Obviously, there’s a lot of advertising that goes into colleges. Before this summer, I never once considered Princeton – I absolutely do not want to go to an Ivy – and Hopkins was one of my top 10. Did I get an over-glamorized picture of Princeton? Of course. But I don’t know if my view of Hopkins was accurate or not. The day was horribly humid, and we ended up walking the length of campus almost three times, since my ‘guide’ didn’t know the right path to take to hit all the high points in the shortest distance – so the campus seemed way too big to me, as opposed to the smaller feel of the other colleges. I also visited the week before final exams, so none of the students had anything good to say about the school. My guide asked a friend of his to tell me about all the fun stuff there is to do on campus. She looked at him with a sarcastically wide-eyed expression and asked incredulously “There’s fun stuff to do here? Why didn’t you tell me?”
I was in Yearbook in 8th grade, and I loved every minute of it, except one day. We had all been at school late the night before, and we still missed an important deadline. Our teacher was upset with us, we had lost the yearbook a lot of money, and we were exhausted and frustrated. One of the 7th graders chose that morning to ask us if being in Yearbook was fun. We replied with a resounding “NO.” I’m sorry to say that kid didn’t join the next year.
So what can you base your opinions on, if even a visit to the campuses doesn’t give you enough information? I don’t know. I’m going in the opposite direction – instead of looking for things I like, I’m looking for things I don’t like, and throwing those colleges out. Maybe that did Hopkins in, but I’d rather miss out on a good college than end up at a bad one because it looked better from its point of view.
I get at least two brochures in the mail every day from colleges, and even though that’s an enormous stack to wade through, there’s still the nagging feeling that my dream college is out there – but it didn’t send me a brochure. If I want to expand my search, it’s difficult. There are some great sites out there to help your search, but the feeling doesn’t go away. Even when I do find one that sounds like a perfect fit, I have to base that on the propaganda put out by the college itself. They all make themselves sound perfect.
Over the summer, I took tours of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore, and Princeton. All the tours were led by a trained guide, and all of the colleges sounded wonderful and went straight onto my list. When I visited Johns Hopkins, however, I went with a family friend – not a tour guide – and I was much less impressed. In fact, the tour kicked Hopkins off of my list.
Obviously, there’s a lot of advertising that goes into colleges. Before this summer, I never once considered Princeton – I absolutely do not want to go to an Ivy – and Hopkins was one of my top 10. Did I get an over-glamorized picture of Princeton? Of course. But I don’t know if my view of Hopkins was accurate or not. The day was horribly humid, and we ended up walking the length of campus almost three times, since my ‘guide’ didn’t know the right path to take to hit all the high points in the shortest distance – so the campus seemed way too big to me, as opposed to the smaller feel of the other colleges. I also visited the week before final exams, so none of the students had anything good to say about the school. My guide asked a friend of his to tell me about all the fun stuff there is to do on campus. She looked at him with a sarcastically wide-eyed expression and asked incredulously “There’s fun stuff to do here? Why didn’t you tell me?”
I was in Yearbook in 8th grade, and I loved every minute of it, except one day. We had all been at school late the night before, and we still missed an important deadline. Our teacher was upset with us, we had lost the yearbook a lot of money, and we were exhausted and frustrated. One of the 7th graders chose that morning to ask us if being in Yearbook was fun. We replied with a resounding “NO.” I’m sorry to say that kid didn’t join the next year.
So what can you base your opinions on, if even a visit to the campuses doesn’t give you enough information? I don’t know. I’m going in the opposite direction – instead of looking for things I like, I’m looking for things I don’t like, and throwing those colleges out. Maybe that did Hopkins in, but I’d rather miss out on a good college than end up at a bad one because it looked better from its point of view.
1 comment:
i have some great college guidebook recommendations if you need any, but your judgement seems to be right on anyway :)
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