Narrowing The List
Now that you’ve compiled a set of criteria to help you in creating your college list, it’s time to utilize the Internet and other resources. Here are some suggestions for what to do in creating a preliminary list and then narrowing down from there. GO TO FAMILY CONNECTION!!
Preliminary List
Juniors should try to develop a preliminary college list the second semester of junior year. The first place to begin is with themselves. There are a number of questions juniors can ask themselves to begin this reflective process; they are listed in the [Getting Started] section.
There are also various college search engines, such as College Board and Princeton Review. The sophomores signed up for Family Connection which is the software program Judge uses to keep the students college searches, personality profile, interest and skill levels, GPA, test scores, et. Family Connection also allows them to search for colleges and then to see how Judge students fared in applying for those colleges.
This would be the time to compare a student's own profile to what the college usually accepts in their incoming freshman class (see Assessing your Chances) ; those figures are often available on the college's website as well. Another way to compare colleges is to find out more about the factors that matter to you:
Is there a level of sports that you want to play?
Is knowing the average financial aid package going to be important?
Do you want to know the level of research opportunities available to undergraduates?
What is the relationship between professors and students?
What kinds of athletic offerings do they have (the level of school spirit)?
What kinds of study abroad programs they'll offer?
If you know what you want to major and/or minor in, how strong is their program in that major? (Is it a popular major? Are many of the faculty Ph.D.s? What kinds of research are they doing?) If you're thinking about broadcast journalism, for example, does the college have its own radio and/or TV station?
If you enjoyed being part of Bulldog Press, The Basilean (yearbook), or Catharsis here at Judge, does the college have a publication you would like to join?
Do they have a good retention/graduation rate?
For pre-professional programs (pre-law, pre-med, pre-pharmacy), what are their percentages for helping their graduates get into graduate schools?
What's the campus culture like? What issues do the students care about most? Is is mostly liberal, mostly conservative, or is there a broad spectrum of ideologies and concerns?
The answers to many of these questions can be found on the colleges' websites, with a little digging. There are also a couple of other websites that can help:
www.nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator The Department of Education has a very helpful search tool that will give you the retention/graduation rates, average financial aid packages, majors offered, athletics offered, for individual colleges.
National Survey of Student Engagement The NSSE has been studying Benchmarks of Learning at various colleges and universities for many years now, and USA Today finally gave us a tool with which to best use that data. This website allows you to compare colleges on various benchmarks, such as level of academic challenge, student-faculty interaction, and enriching educational experiences. It's the first tool to actually tell us about what happens in college rather than focusing on what people need to get into college.
Other things you can do on a college’s website include:
Take a virtual campus tour
Read the student newspaper to discover what’s happening on campus
Read descriptions of majors and their departments
Email professors in departments in which you’re interested
Ask questions of admission staff
Read current students' blogs, check out residence and dining halls, and learn about campus activities
Historical Application Information for JMCHS
The Family Connection website has past data on which colleges Judge students have applied to and where they have been accepted or not. This resource is a great tool for looking at the current trends in admission decisions for Judge students, although it does not address the influence of other factors (athletics, activities, or other talents). Seniors should have their passwords to Family Connection; juniors will receive them in February.
People as Resources
- Your college counselors, Ms. Koles and Ms. Cabal, can tell you how you might like a place and fit in with the kinds of students who attend those schools.
- Recent Judge graduates are often willing to share their experiences.
- Teachers, parents, and college alumni are additional resources to investigate.
- College representatives visit Judge every fall to share about their institutions. They are valuable resources for information about campus culture, what distinguishes that college from others like it, etc.