choosing and getting into college

[Kimmyt]

I never met with a guidance counselor for college stuff. Of course, I was the third kid in about 5 years to go that route, so my mom and dad new what was up, sorta. But I did most of the research myself. I looked online, thought about what I wanted to do.

Even if he doesn't know what he wants to do, he may have an idea of what his strengths are, i.e. math/science, communication/english, or lib arts. That might help to determine colleges.

Personally a big factor for me was cost, but then if he is looking out of state I guess that is not an option. Definitely visit colleges, get a feel for whether you like a more urban or rural environment.

If there is a specific program he wants to get into, now is a good time to start building experience in the field through part time jobs and internships.

(ps. i wanted to go to U of M so bad! But I had to stay in state due to funds. I ended up at PSU and loved it. I'm glad, actually, I'm a much better Football fan than a basketball fan!

[Irulan]

ersonally a big factor for me was cost, but then if he is looking out of state I guess that is not an option. Definitely visit colleges, get a feel for whether you like a more urban or rural environment.

Out of state can be relative. Here in the west, we have a program that is called e WUE (woo-ey) where if you have the right grades, you can get instate tuition at a WUE school in another state. I know that participating states are Washington, Idaho, Colorado, Arizona and Montana, Hawaii,Californiato name just some of them . Not all state schools participate: Colo School of Mines is the one Colo state school that is NOT on the list, where son #2 is attending. But most do. Son#1 is about to graduate from Northern AZ at Flagstaff, AZ, and we've been paying the same that we would have at UW here in Washington.

Is there not something like this in other parts of the country?

Here's the list, pretty extensive:
http://wue.wiche.edu/search_results.jsp?searchType=all

[Aggie_Ama]

Nothing like that in Texas. Then again we are fortunate to have a very extensive state school program since we are a huge state. UT and A&M are fairly highly ranked in business and engineering, Texas Tech is also a good school. The smaller state schools Texas State, UNT, Sam Houston State and the satellite UT and A&M branches are good as well. Then we have tons of smaller state schools like Stephen F. Austin, Tarleton State, Sul Ross and others that are available.

Of course I had a lot of high school classmates go to Nebraska, Oklahoma, Louisiana on out of state tuition waivers, basically a partial scholarship. I am sure Texas does that but it is definitely a case by case thing and not a formal known program. Pretty cool what you have.

[BikeDutchess]

Yes, we love WUE, my son is benefitting from that program as well since going out-of-state was so important to him. It's 150% of in-state tuition. His school did have ACT/SAT test score criteria to be met to qualify.

[Irulan]

Yes, we love WUE, my son is benefitting from that program as well since going out-of-state was so important to him. It's 150% of in-state tuition. His school did have ACT/SAT test score criteria to be met to qualify.

Yes, certainly they don't hand WUE out. Son #2 picked the one school in CO that is NOT on the list, grr, but he got lots of scholarship money so if his college accoutn doesn't lose any more value, we should be ok.

[Madride]

I am a freshman at weber state university and I have loved my first semester so far. I think the most important things in picking a college is picking a place you want to live and picking a college with the right programs. I love WSU because it is a small university. my classes range in size from 8 to about 70 students so they are not very big at all. You just need to get an idea of what you might want to major in and pick a school that offers it. I am going to WSU for pre pharmacy. I want to go to graduate school in Oregon after i get my bachelors.

[Flur]

I graduated in 98. I definitely agree with those who have said to visit the schools he's considering. This made a huge difference to me. After visiting a number of schools I picked a school that wasn't my original pick and I'm positive I made the right decision. If I hadn't visited there's a good chance I would have been unhappy, or not as happy, somewhere else. I loved my school so much that I cried when I had to leave after graduation, and my college friends are still my best friends.

I absolutely do not come from money, but when I picked (with my parents) what school to attend we only ruled out schools that were not need-blind or that stated up front that they could not provide aid to all incoming students that needed it. The only school I looked at that fell into this group was the University of Notre Dame. I didn't know what I wanted to do so I applied to Liberal Arts colleges (even at the bigger Us that had multiple colleges). I applied to six schools in total up and down the eastern seaboard - four large schools and two small schools (one of which was really tiny), three were private and three were public, two were reach schools and two were safety schools, and I got in to four of the six.

In the end I chose to attend a school that was not as highly ranked as another school I applied to, and that was really tiny and less well-known than any of the other schools I applied to. I did it because when I visited I knew it was the right place. I got enough aid to go to any of the schools on my list and no, the student loan payback did not kill me. I should also mention that the school I chose did not give me as much aid as the others up front - my mom called and asked them why the didn't give me more aid and they rectified the situation. So don't rule out any schools because of $$, there are ways to make it work.

So why did I love my school so much? Well, I was po' so I couldn't afford a computer, but a computer was included in my tuition - a rather nice laptop loaded with software so I never needed to sit in a computer lab. It was a small school in a really expensive town so almost everyone lived on campus for all four years - it felt like a community, I'd even go so far to say that my college friends became my family. There was a grad school but it was really small, and it wasn't a research U, so the faculty were focused on my learning not their own projects. The class sizes were really small so a lot of stuff was taught as a seminar, opening the door for students to learn from each other, not just the professor. There were no frats so most parties were open, and again, at a really small school, everyone knew everyone else so you knew what you were getting into when you went out. And we partied like animals. Like. Animals. I don't think you can have that much fun if you don't feel like the people around you have your back. I don't think I would have had as much fun at a big school, or have gotten as good of an education, because of the individual attention. But... this is me. Every new frosh-to-be needs to find what is right for them, for how they learn, and for what they want out of the experience.

So my advice to you is, he should definitely do the "college tour" thing and see the schools he's considering. And no one should tell him he can't apply somewhere he wants to go, either because he doesn't know his major or because he doesn't have the $$. The straight-out-of-high-school college experience is just that - an experience. It needs to be what is right for him, not anyone else.