A Publication of OnCampus College Planning

7 Pitfallswhen planning for college

And how to avoid themA Guide for College-Bound Students and Families

TABLE OF CONTENTS1. Introduction2. Pitfall 1: Remain unclear about why you’re going to college.

Critical Question: Why go?3. Pitfall 2: Don’t talk about who’s paying for what and when.

Critical Question: Who pays for what and when?4. Pitfall 3: Rush the decision.

Critical Question: What’s the REAL timeline for making decisions?5. Pitfall 4: Base college choices on the three Fs.

Critical Question: Who are you now, & who will you be in 5-10 years?

6. Pitfall 5: Believe that it’s all about “getting in.”Critical Question: As the paying customer, what do I want and need out of the “right” college in order to get my money’s worth and time’s worth?

7. Pitfall 6: Assume “good school” = good for ME.Critical Question: How do you define “good school”?

8. Pitfall 7: Hold off on campus visits.Critical Question: What’s the best way to get the most out of campus visits?

9. What’s Next?

Let’s get started…

Introduction

“The questions are always more important than the answers.”

-Randy Pausch, Carnegie Mellon University,The Last Lecture

These pitfalls might sound a little ridiculous. But they’re really common. In fact, it’s how I thought about college when I chose a school many years ago.

Smart, well-meaning families stumble over these pitfalls all the time. Quite honestly, between media hype and the way colleges market to prospective students, these statements are often perpetuated as “truth”.

The 7 Most Common Pitfalls When Planning for College

•Pitfall 1: Remain unclear about why you’re going to college.•Pitfall 2: Don’t talk about who’s paying for what and when. •Pitfall 3: Rush the decision. •Pitfall 4: Base college choices on the three Fs. •Pitfall 5: Believe that it’s all about “getting in.”•Pitfall 6: Assume “good school” = good for ME.•Pitfall 7: Hold off on campus visits.

Read on to find out how these pitfalls can harm your college planning process, and discover the critical questions you must ask in order to avoid them.

My College Manifesto: Why I Got Ticked Off and Decided to Become Part of the Solution

If you’re reading this, you’re looking for answers. I get it. I myself am the parent of a high school student and we are just embarking on the often-daunting college planning process. But answers aren’t what you really need, at least not yet. After thousands of hours of research, visits to more than 80 campuses, interviews with professors, admissions counselors, staff and college students, and thousands of conversations with families I’ve worked with in my 25-year career in high school and college education, I know the only way to get where you need to be is to ask questions. Ask more questions of more people. Process what they say and what you feel and think. Then go back to the questions to see if you’ve reached a conclusion or need to ask more questions, possibly of more people.

Colleges do their best to convolute the college planning process. Academics are often averse to simple, definitive answers, and they sometimes abhor resolute promises. They deal best in theories, “experiences”, pedagogy and hypotheses.This contributes to a compelling classroom experience, but it can drive you mad while you’re shopping for colleges.

Meanwhile, your high school guidance counselor is more burdened than ever before with everything BUT single-minded focus and individual attention on you as a college-bound student. It’s not necessarily their fault.

In Wisconsin alone, where OnCampus College Planning is based, the average public high school guidance counselor is responsible for 454 students. Studies show they’re able to spend just 38 minutes per year per student on college prep counseling. According to a study by the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA) guidance counselors themselves report they spend less than ¼ of their time on college prep-related topics due to competing priorities. They have more paperwork, more meetings and more at-risk student cases on their plate than ever before. These are worthwhile pursuits, and they’re the nature of the high school environment today. But if you believe that between the 38 minutes per year a guidance counselor spends with you plus some online research and brochures will be sufficient for guaranteeing a successful path to the college of your dreams, you will be disappointed.

College is the only thing you’ll ever buy where you have to turn over a copy of your tax returns, your transcripts, some standardized test scores and a thousand-word essay before they’ll even tell you how much it costs! Meanwhile, most colleges don’t care anymore than they did a decade or so ago whether or not you get your money’s worth or where you land after college graduation. Although they are now less able than ever before to tell you with certainty whether your college degree will result in employment in your chosen field, or whether you’ll be able to pay off your student loans by the time you have grandchildren.

These facts aren’t meant to discourage you. They’re meant to wake you up, like they woke me up nearly a decade ago. I decided to become part of the solution. I set out to de-mystify the college planning process and serve college-bound students and their families in helping you be your own best advocate as you prepare for college.

You MUST be your own best advocate. But you don’t have to do it alone. Today, one in four high-achieving students works with a professional college planner. That makes sense, because the investment is higher and the process is more complicated than ever before, with an outcome that’s far less certain than it used to be.

Dialogue drives decisions

Your best tool is dialogue. Open, healthy, inclusive, engaging, and at times messy and frustrating, dialogue. You the student and you the parent(s) are the key players in this. You can and should enlist the help of so many others (people like me, for instance) but you’re the only ones who will be there at the beginning, middle and end of this -- and you are the ones who have to live with the outcomes (and student debt).

Chapter 1

Pitfall 1:Remain unclear

about why you’re going to college.

One surefire way to lose out on the potential value college can provide is to fail to understand why you want to go to college. If you were to ask the average intelligent, capable person how willing they are to make six-figure purchases without really having a good reason, that person would say, “NO way!” (NFL players and Hollywood actors may answer differently, but many of them go bankrupt, so this is not our benchmark.)

Many high school students and their parents default to college as the “next logical step” for any number of the following reasons:

•It’s what’s expected of me.•It’s just what people do after high school.•I have to go to college to get a good job.•I don’t know what else I’d do next year.•I’ve just never thought of NOT going to college.

Critical Question: Why go?

Why go to college? Why spend so much money, time and effort on a degree that provides less and less assurance of a good job when you graduate? Why go off to live at a residential college when so many recent graduates are returning to technical colleges to equip themselves with practical skills packaged in a more condensed, less expensive format? Why go now? Why not later?

Perhaps this might be a useful essay to attach to any senior’s final exam: In 250 words or more, please justify spending $100,000 (or more) over the course of four years (or more) to earn a college degree. Build a convincing argument using data to support your position, taking into account the counterarguments of rising student debt, a stagnant job market, and the existence of individuals such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg who attended college but did not graduate.

Most essays would fall somewhere along a continuum between “job training” and “expanding one’s horizons”.

Of course there are plenty of good reasons to go to college. But you need to stop and ask, “Why go to college?” out loud and repeatedly, then answer honestly, until everyone in the room is convinced.

Prove it. Separate the “usual” reasons for going to college from YOUR reasons. Own it. Prove it. Use “Why go?” to set expectations for your family because in the end, it is your family that must function as a cooperative unit to reach your goals. You need everyone to buy in to this investment and choice. The biggest mistake you can make is to not fully address this question head-on, and instead avoid deep reflection and possible discomfort, choosing to blindly head down a path that many believe guarantees less and less of a return on investment.

Finally, never go to college if your primary reason is a lack of other options. You have plenty of options, namely: working, living, volunteering, travel, growing, learning, and becoming more of who you hope to become after you finish your degree. Technically, you don’t need college for any of these, although the formalized process of higher education will certainly help when it’s done right.

So what’s your response? Why do you so desperately want to go to college? Better yet, why do you need to get a college degree? Mark Zuckerberg is on record as saying all you really need to do is learn to code. He seems to have done alright.

Homework Time:

Chapter 2

Pitfall 2:Don’t talk about who’s paying for what and when.

The people who determine college pricing go to great lengths to prevent you from feeling any sort of comfort about, or command of, the final price. Tuition may be $25,000/year, but you really have no idea what you will pay with everything thrown in. In fairness, great strides have been made by institutions of higher learning (with considerable arm twisting from the federal government) to get you a ballpark figure early on in the process, using tools such as net price calculators.

In its most recent survey of college pricing, the College Board reports that a "moderate" college budget for an in-state public college for the 2011–2012 academic year averaged $21,447. A moderate budget at a private college averaged $42,224.

But this doesn’t scratch the surface of the conversations you’re going to need to have in order to avoid this common pitfall. I have heard the following phrases more than once from intelligent, well-meaning, loving parents.

•I just don’t think it’s any of my child’s business what my husband and I are doing to prepare for college expenses. That’s private.•Don’t worry about college costs. (Which should be taken to mean what? You’re paying for the whole thing? Or does it mean, yeah you’re going to be buried in debt but why worry about it?)•We’ll help you however we can. (Again, C- for vagueness.)

Quite often, we avoid dialogue about college costs because no one really knows what they are. We’ve all heard scary news stories about skyrocketing college costs, but we avoid getting to the bottom of what we’re really talking about here. Is it a hundred grand, or a million dollars? How much will merit aid lower the cost? What financial aid might we be eligible for? Families are afraid to have the money talk because they feel completely inept and unprepared. One of the most common conversations I have with the families I work with is college costs. So many factors go into what college will cost, not the least of which is which school you choose. We start by breaking down misperceptions, such as “public institutions will always be cheaper than private” (not true), and “we’ll never get any aid, so I’m not even going to fill out the FAFSA (Big mistake!). Step by step, we eat the elephant a bite at a time, and examine it for what it really is: a super huge investment that will pay big dividends, if it’s done right.

Critical Question: Who pays for what and when?

On or before your child’s 12th birthday, please have this conversation:

“We think it’s important for you to go to college, or at least consider the options you have. So here’s what we’re going to do to help...”

The answer to this question is incredibly personal. THERE ARE NO WRONG ANSWERS. Don’t avoid having the conversation because of what you assume “most families are doing” or because of your discomfort with what you’re able to do (or unable to do) as a parent to contribute to college costs.

My dear wife and I had a series of conversations about our respective philosophies about paying for our sons’ college education. We had two different philosophies within the same household! My wife insisted we pay for the entire cost of college, including room and board and incidental expenses, because this is what her parents had lovingly and generously done for her.

Then we faced facts about how college costs have changed in the past two decades. And we openly acknowledged that we started having children later in life than her parents, putting us that much closer to retirement, another expensive investment to prepare for.

Then I shared my personal feelings that our two sons should have some skin in the game.

Through a lot of dialogue between us, some of it pretty tense, other conversations merely intense, we arrived at a unified position that we could then share with conviction and in detail with our two sons, in plenty of time for them to make their own preparations to put up their share of the costs, or at least make a dent in the first couple of years.

Families that fail to address the question of “Who pays for what and when?” risk the collateral damage that is caused by poor communication and the poor planning it leaves in its wake. You absolutely must speak openly and in quantifiable terms about all three components of this question: the who, the what and the when. None of these variables is optional.

Some options could look like this:A)“Mom and I will pay for all tuition, fees and books at an in-state public university. Everything beyond that is yours.” B)“We will contribute $30,000 per year for four years. If you go somewhere more expensive or take more than four years, you’re responsible for the balance. And no, we will not ‘refund the difference’ if you graduate in three and a half years or choose a very inexpensive option.” C)“It’s 50-50 all the way.”D)“We’ll pay for everything, but we want you to work at least ten hours per week during college, so you learn how to manage your time, just like in the real world. You can keep what you earn, but you have to work.”

What you’re doing is creating a contract. And it’s acceptable to include a performance clause. Whether or not you put this onto paper is up to you, but the basic premise of “If I do this, I expect you to do that” will go a long way toward eliminating surprises.

In your situation, who pays for what & when? Be prepared for open (and at times uncomfortable) dialogue about your desired “contract” and especially the values you hope it conveys to both student and parents (IE, sharing in the sacrifice, providing the student with ample options, making sure your family can also cover the cost of other family priorities, etc.)

Homework Time:

Chapter 3

Pitfall 3:Rush the college

decision.

Truly successful decision-making relies on a balance between deliberate

and instinctive thinking.- Malcolm Gladwell

Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking

I die a little inside when I ask someone how the college search is going, and they respond with a shrug of their shoulders, a deep sigh and the statement, “I’ll just be glad when this is over with.” As someone who relishes the process of exploring options, weighing possibilities and arriving just in the nick of time at the right, well-researched decision, I feel badly that they’re missing out on what can be (SHOULD BE) a really enjoyable process. After all, college is a young adult’s first big adventure as an adult, and it can change the trajectory of their adult life. It’s not a decision to be “gotten over with”.

One of the key aspects of my college manifesto that drove my decision to become a college planner was the desire to make the college planning process not only clear but fun, exciting and invigorating. I am thrilled when I hear the families I work with say things like, “Wow, this is actually pretty fun and it’s not as daunting as I thought it would be when we break it down, step by step.” Or, “I can’t believe all the things we learned about ourselves along the way, and it was really a cool experience.” Music to my ears!

I see high school students these days buried in pressure from all sides. Life as a high school student today is way more difficult than it was when I was in school. Academics, Athletics, Social Pressures, Uncertainty about the Future, Finances, Relationships, you name it. They’re feeling overwhelmed by it.

Our children need our love, our patience, our understanding and a big dose of calm serenity as they sort through their options for college. What they do NOT benefit from is our cooperation in rushing to a decision too quickly. As a loving parent, when I see my son feeling anxiety or discomfort, my natural instinct is to get them to the point where they no longer feel that. It may feel good in the short-term to “get the decision over with” but if it’s not a well thought out decision, or if it’s a decision made for the wrong reasons, in the end, it will come back to bite both our children, and us.

One in three college freshmen transfer to a different college at the start of sophomore year. The cost in time, stress and money is high for making a swift decision you’ll second-guess later.

Critical Question: What’s the REAL timeline for decisions?

This one is easy. Just count backwards from May 1st of your senior year of high school to determine the number of days remaining until you need to make a final decision. There are some exceptions such as Early Decision, but for the most part you have until May 1st of your senior year to accept or reject any offer of admission. For most people, this is later than they would push themselves to make a decision.

People rush to judgment on so many things in life. Unfortunately, the same is true for choosing a college. What’s the rush? Yes, senior year is filled with anxiety, and it would be nice to have this all wrapped up by, say, spring break. But who said that this should be an easy or quick decision?

When it comes to decision-making, most people fall into one of two broad categories: those who enjoy making decisions and those who don’t. The latter may decide quickly partly to avoid discomfort. The former may actually enjoy keeping options open as long as possible (which drives the first group nuts), but for our purposes this happens to be a very valuable skill.

Decisions are opportunities, and quite enjoyable ones at that. The search for the right college requires imagination. You have to envision yourself not only at Obvious Choice U., but at Second-Choice-but-Half-the-Price State, or I-Had-No-Idea-This-Place-Existed-But-It’s-Perfect-For-Me College. Many kids and even parents struggle with that. Remember, the goal is not to lock in on one school early on, but to widen the search and find a good handful of choices, earning admission to as many of your prospective colleges as possible. Get comfortable with discomfort during the college planning process. If you do this well, you’ll create discomfort in your life as a final decision looms. It may sound like this:

“I really loved Luther and could see myself cross-country skiing up in those hills after a new snowfall. But Northfield is such a great college town, and I feel like I could fit in with the people I met at both St. Olaf and Carleton. There’s also that pull of the East Coast...Bowdoin or Colby...jumping into a car and driving down to Boston to see a concert...and even if I don’t go to NYU, I’ll always remember the way it felt to walk into the Village after the tour and think, ‘Wow, I could actually live in Manhattan’.”

Work backwards from May 1st. Determine when each decision needs to be made. Then map out what needs to be done to make a confident decision. This is project management at its core. You have a project that needs to be completed and that decision in turn is driven by a series of smaller tasks followed by decisions. So who is the project manager in your family? Enlist their help and get started.

Spend some time creating your own personal timeline, working backward from May 1 of your senior year. Think of key milestones that need to happen between now and then in order to arrive at a wise decision, like act/sat test prep, application deadlines, writing essays, visiting campuses, etc. outline a rough timeline to break down the big decision into bite-sized, manageable tasks with doable deadlines.

Homework Time:

Chapter 4

Pitfall 4:Base college

choices solely on the three F’s.

Over the course of more than 25 years working with high school and college-aged students and talking with them about their college choices, I find three common F’s that are primary contributors to most college decisions: Familiar. Friends. Family.

None of these are bad things in and of themselves. But they can lead to F for Failure if they’re the only factors a student considers when choosing a college. Why? Because your student is an individual.

I encourage the students I work with to journal about big, self-exploration questions long before we start assembling their list of prospective schools. Who are you now? Who do you want to become? These are tough questions, no matter what your age. The purpose is reflective - as in the reflection one sees in a mirror. Students and parents spend all their time looking outward at colleges (what does this one have to offer? how highly is that one ranked?) and spend far too little time looking inward.

It’s all about the fit.

What you’re after is a “great fit” between what they have to offer and what you want and need. Fit, by definition, is a delicate balance between the external and the internal. Harvard is Harvard, and you are you. Even if you get in, it might make for a lousy fit because you are exactly one-half of the fit equation.

Think about this as if you’re in a store doing some comparison shopping of two items. In one hand you hold your own identity, and in the other are the colleges on your list. Your job is to try to see each as clearly as possible, and then to test the potential match between them. Which parts fit like a glove? Which parts don’t? What might happen if you try to force it? What other information do you need to make these decisions?

The two parts of this question require different answers, obviously, but also different ways of thinking. The first asks you to define who you are at this very moment, to take a snapshot of your life, interests, values and ideas. Even though we’re asking for a snapshot it’s tricky because you are changing at such a rapid pace and will continue to do so throughout your college years. So the snapshot should be more of a collage or time-lapse photograph.

As you begin the college planning process the end of your sophomore year or the beginning of your junior year, sit down in your “happy place”-- your room, a coffee shop, your favorite park or Barnes & Noble, take out a pad of paper and your favorite pen and DREAM. Jot down your answers to the following questions:•Who are you now? What defines you? •What makes you unique?•When you are your most joyful self, what’s going on around you? Where are you? Who are you with? What are you doing? •How would others close to you describe you?•Think about your first year out of college. Describe your ideal day in terms of what you’re doing, the ideal job you have (you can list multiple options!) Where are you living? What do you do on your days off?•Think about 5-10 years from now. It’s a LONG ways off and having the RIGHT answer doesn’t matter here. But what do you imagine for yourself? What do you want to have accomplished by that point?•Best day/Worst day. It can be a day in the present or any imaginary day in the future. What makes a day your “best day”? What makes a day your “worst day”? I find that this can tell me a lot about student’s passions, goals, desires and fears.

Note that none of the questions above are directly related to college. Let’s start first by getting to know YOU, since YOU are the most important element in creating a great college fit for you.

Schedule time on your calendar in the next two weeks when you can spend two solid hours with no rush at your favorite “Happy place”, be it a coffee shop, library, park, lake, beach or ice cream shop and revel in answering the questions above and any others like them that you find helpful.

Homework Time:

Chapter 5

Pitfall 5:Believe that it’s all about “getting in”.

This is where the panic can start to set in. It’s a pitfall that can cause significant amounts of stress during the college planning process for both students and parents.

College-bound students scramble to figure out what the “good schools” are looking for, and then try to turn themselves inside out to be what those colleges are looking for. Worse yet, friends start telling you what they’ve decided and what they’re doing and where they’ve been accepted. If it doesn’t match up with what’s happening for you, you may feel you don’t “measure up”.

At this point in the process, I remind families I work with that when you look at acceptance rates for colleges on average, most schools accept most students. Let me repeat that. Most schools accept most students.

Don’t become fear-stricken by reading stories of how elite universities are rejecting all but a handful of students. Yes, it’s true that some universities have incredibly low acceptance rates. You only need one great fit. If we’ve done our jobs right, we will have built a solid list of reach, target and safety schools for you. When it comes time to make a decision, if you are like nearly all students I work with, and chances are that you are, you’ll have a wonderful set of options from which to choose.

It’s not all about “getting in”. It’s about finding the perfect fit. I empower families to remember that you are the paying customer here. It is as much about requiring the colleges you consider to prove to you that they can deliver the value you’re looking for in a college degree, as it is about them accepting you. This means that you’ll need to clearly define what VALUE in a college degree looks like to you.

The questions on the next page can help remind you that you are the customer here, and the college is the one (at least one of two) which must prove to YOU that it’s the school that’s worth your time, money and energy.

Critical Question: As the paying customer, what do I want and need out of the “right” college in order to get my money’s worth and time’s worth?

What do you expect for your roughly six-figure investment if it comes to that, and it likely will? Talk as a family about your perspectives on the following questions. Parents, this is where your insights and experience become priceless. Student, make sure you pay close attention to what you can learn from those who’ve gone before you when answering these questions.

•What are my top 3 MUSTS for the “right” college?

•What are 5-10 NICE TO HAVEs?

•What is the benchmark 2-3 years after college for me feeling like I made the right choice? (Some possibilities might be job in my field, great network of alumni contacts, minimum amount of college debt, acceptance to my choice of graduate schools, etc.)

•Now here’s a list of questions to pose to key contacts at colleges you’re considering to see if they measure up:

• What alumni in my field can I talk to about their experience here and how it prepared them to reach their goals?

• What are your freshman-to-sophomore year transfer rates, both transferring in and transferring out?

• What are your 4-year graduation rates?

• How many of the students graduating this year with a degree similar to the one I’m interested in will be hired for desirable jobs in their field?

• Tell me about your alumni network.

• Tell me about student programs here such as internships, travel abroad programs, work study programs, etc.

This is just a list to start with. The point is that you’re interviewing the school as much as they’re interviewing you. Make sure you feel comfortable with the answers you receive about how that college is prepared to deliver the value you deserve.

Also make note of how responsive they are in answering your questions and who responds. I’ve seen quite a range from completely unresponsive or delayed and brief responses given by administrative assistants to prompt and thorough responses given by department heads or admissions counselors. The WAY they respond should tell you a lot about how it will be to be a student there.

As in any negotiations process, you will never have more power than before you close the deal. This is the time to set your terms and be your own best advocate.

Write your answers to the questions from Pitfall 5, and discuss them as a family. Parents, write your answers individually. Student, do the same. Then sit down and compare answers. Be prepared for dialogue, meaning you may disagree. That’s okay. You’ll learn something by comparing and contrasting your different viewpoints.

Homework Time:

Chapter 6

Pitfall 6: Assume

“good school” = good for ME.

“Good is the enemy of great.”-Jim Collins, Good to Great

Harvard’s great, for some students. The University of Wisconsin is a fantastic school, for some students. Drake University is a wonderful place to be, for some students. Each of these is unique from the other. None of them is great for everyone.

For any school, it’s only a great school if it’s great for YOU. I find that many students (and parents) look first to US News & World Report lists and other rankings as the definitive source of what schools are “good schools”. This can be a common pitfall when choosing a college.

What most people are looking for is a good school. The good news is that good schools are easy to find. Chances are there’s at least one nearby, and that’s good, right? It depends.

It’s not a matter of good vs. bad, because there really aren’t a lot of bad schools out there. Colleges tend to be filled with hard-working, bright people who love what they do and are committed to their particular field.

The search for a good school is by definition externally focused, i.e. it’s all about what the school has to offer, when the real question is, “How well does this good school fit me?” I’d go for a great fit at a pretty good school over a bad fit at the best school in a heartbeat. Our goal isn’t “good” – it’s GREAT. A great fit.

If you look for merely the good, you’re apt to find it quite easily and have time left over for other things. Good news for those of you who want to make this decision and then be done with it. But what you aren’t likely to find according to that approach is something truly great, because great is elusive and stubborn and sometimes more expensive.

Do rankings actually matter?

College guide books and publishers such as U.S. News & World Report use various criteria to rank schools. I’m not entirely against rankings because there is value in knowing that, for instance, people have consistently viewed the Hospitality and Tourism Management program at Purdue quite highly. If that’s what interests you, then you should probably check out Purdue if only for the reason that people who know about these things think that they’re doing something right in West Lafayette, Indiana. (Don’t forget to consider what employers think of a particular school or program.) Rankings can provide direction and a general stamp of approval. But they should never get in the way of your assessment and your criteria.

Why good won’t cut it

But does it even matter where you go to college? Of course it does, and anyone who tells you that “it’s only a piece of paper” or that “no one pays any attention to where you graduated” misses a critical point: you will be shaped by your time at college not simply because these are your college years, but because these are formative years spent in activities that are or should be exclusively devoted to your growth and maturity.

This is the time when the “you” you want to be from question #2 takes shape. It’s okay to weigh options and make concessions, especially as the financial aid award letters hit your mailbox. It’s never acceptable to settle for the first school that comes along. You can do better than that, and for what you are paying you most certainly deserve more.

Asking yourself “How do I define a great school”? is paramount to knowing which schools would be not only good, but good, make that great, for YOU. If you have worked through these questions in a spirit of honesty, cooperation, and with a willingness to suffer temporary discomfort, then you are well on your way to creating a map or template of the University of You. It may not be set in stone, but it’s much more valuable than a rough idea or no idea at all.

Critical Question: How do YOU define “good school”? In the end there’s only one definition of good school that truly matters most. Yours.

I find that in order to arrive at your definition of what a “good school” is, it’s helpful to get some practice comparing and contrasting schools that are out there. To do this well, you need experience. Refer to the homework exercise below for an idea about how to get real-life practice asking the following:

•How do they compare?

•Where do they mesh perfectly with my idea of what a “good school” is and why? Which one meshes better? Why?

•What about the areas where the match isn’t perfect? What is one lacking over the other? Where are they both lacking?

•Are the differences deal-breakers, or just nice-to-have features?

Pick any two colleges. They can be schools you’re interested in, or schools you don’t think you’re remotely interested in. Using this chapter and the questions above, practice comparing and contrasting the two. You’re going to need to become very good at this during the college planning process. This is a practice exercise.

Homework Time:

Chapter 7

Pitfall 7: Hold off on campus

visits.

I am shocked when I hear families say that they don’t plan to visit the campus until they’ve been accepted. Or that they’ve only visited one campus, or two or three. To me, this is like buying a house without walking around inside it, or buying a car based on the information you get off a website without taking it for a test drive.

My business is called OnCampus College Planning for a reason. I believe the campus visit is the single-most important way to find out if a college is right for you.

To avoid the pitfall of holding off on campus visits, make a commitment to visit college campuses early on in the process. In fact, if you are the parent of a middle school student or young child, please know that it’s really never too early to visit college campuses.

I still remember my first college campus visit, when my older brother was looking at colleges. Even though my college years were nearly 10 years away, being on a college campus started to give me a sense of what it was all about. Long before I started my own college search, I had spent time on college campuses going to sporting events, and visiting my older brothers. Having that general sense of what the college campus environment was like was an important part of making the process less daunting for me when it was my turn.

There are three key times to visit college campuses in order of priority:1)Peak season: Roughly two weeks after the start of the semester until two weeks before the end of it (Roughly mid-September through last week of November for fall). For spring, same basic idea, but avoid spring break and finals week.2)Anytime: In other words, any visit is better than none, even when a campus is closed.3)On your way to something else, like a college football game, a family vacation, or a visit to Grandma’s house.

The most important thing is, visit campuses. Often. NOW. Make it part of your lifestyle so that by the time you need to do it with a purpose, it will already feel familiar and comfortable.

What’s next? Let’s keep in touch. Here are the FOUR most common next step options:1.Go to my website & sign up for my free college planning e-newsletter.2.LIKE OnCampus College Planning on Facebook for college planning tips & updates.3.Follow me on Twitter @OCCollegePlan4.Schedule your free one-hour college planning consultation (in person, phone or skype) Just email me and let me know you’d like to!

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

- William Butler Yeats Irish poet & playwright

Here’s to the kindling and eventual brightness of your fire.

All my best,Tom Kleese, College Planner

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