Picking a college can be complicated, and there are many steps to the process. Find the right college and your college experience will be far more rewarding. All the work that you invested in researching financial aid for college tuition, pre college summer programs, college counseling services and all the rest will seem like time well spent if you find the right college. A major part of selecting the right college should be a campus visit.
Your concepts and notions about what a college may be like could differ greatly from the reality of the situation. Selecting a college without first visiting the campus could be a decision that you might regret. A college might look great on paper, but when you visit in person you may find that aspects of college environment, such as college dorm life, may vary too dramatically from what you want out of your overall experience. It is difficult to perform well when you are not happy. This is why selecting the right college is so important to your eventual success both in college and in life.
1. Do You Feel Safe?
During your college visit, you need to take many different factors into consideration. The first consideration is whether or not the environment is a safe one. In this regard, it is important to look at the environment around the school and try and gather some insight into how safe the campus is and how well it is policed. A sad reality is that many college campuses are seen by criminal elements as target areas. Your physical safety needs to be at the top of your list.
2. Do You Like the Overall Feel of the School?
Another important factor is how comfortable you feel at a given university or college. If you visit five colleges and one has a “weird vibe” to it, then don’t ignore that feeling. The simple fact is that if you don’t feel comfortable, you should pick a different institution.
3. Are the People Friendly?
Whether or not people are friendly is an important issue for many students. Every university or college comes with a different vibe, and this will radiate out through the student body as well. So when you visit a college campus, simply sit back and try to evaluate how happy your fellow students seem. If everyone seems miserable, you have a key piece of information.
Don’t hesitate to ask around. You should ask a variety of students about how they feel about the college or university in general. If most people have positive feelings, that is a great sign!
Perhaps most importantly, you should not base your entire decision on what university officials or tour guides have to tell you. Their job is to only paint the university or college in the best possible light. Making the best decision for you means taking in a variety of information before selecting your college of choice.
Once you’ve sent in your college applications, you might think that there’s nothing else you can do to sway an admissions counselor in your favor. But that’s not always true. Here are a few ways to help your odds in the college admissions game.