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Choosing The Right College
By: Thomas Sowell
Wednesday, September 23, 2009

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Beware of grossly misleading information.
There is so much for high school seniors and their parents to know about colleges that they not only need to get a lot of information but also need to make sure it is the right kind of information.

A number of college guides have useful information but, unfortunately, the best-known and most pretentious of these guides — "America's Best Colleges"— is grossly misleading.

There is no such thing as a "best" college, any more than there is any such thing as a "best" wife or a "best" husband. Who would be best for a particular person depends on that person.

Would we not consider it absurd if someone collected statistics on people and then used those statistics to rank individuals according to who would make the "best" wife or husband? Yet that is the approach "America's Best Colleges" is based on.

A college that would be best for a particular student could be a terrible place for that student's brother or sister. One of them might find West Point a great experience, while the other would fit in perfectly at Reed College— and each might be miserable at the other institution.

Choosing the college that is right for a particular person is not about the rankings of institutions. It is about matching a student with an institution that can enable that person to flourish while there, and to graduate with an education that is a foundation for a fulfilling life in the years ahead.

Among the things you need to know about a particular college is whether it has a real curriculum or just a smorgasbord of courses, so that it is possible to graduate knowing nothing about history, economics or science, for example. Some of the most prestigious colleges in the country are places where you can graduate completely ignorant of such fundamental subjects.

What also matters is whether the intellectual atmosphere is one in which competing ideas are explored and debated, or one in which there is a prevailing orthodoxy of political correctness that a student can challenge only at the risk of being ridiculed by the professor, given a low grade or— in some places— suspended or expelled for violating a campus speech code by giving an honest opinion about things where an orthodoxy is imposed, such as issues involving "race, class and gender."

In short, what is important is not choosing the "best" college, according to some statistics that conceal the arbitrary choices behind the objective-looking numbers.

What is important is choosing the right college for you.

The best of the college guides reflects that difference in its title— "Choosing the Right College." Its latest edition has just been published. Like people, it has put on some weight over the years and its seventh edition is now 1,140 pages long. Unlike some of us, however, its additional weight is muscle rather than fat.

"Choosing the Right College" tells you whether there is or is not a curriculum at each of the colleges it covers and whether classes are taught by professors or by graduate students.

It also tells you whether the intellectual atmosphere is free or is hidebound with political correctness, and plagued by professors who think their job is to use the classroom as a place to sound off about their political ideology to a captive audience, even when the course is about chemistry or accounting.

"Choosing the Right College" also presents information on such things as black separatist organizations at Lafayette College, for example. Whether you are for or against such things, you need to know about them, in order to choose what you think is right for you.

Co-ed living arrangements are also discussed, including just how co-ed they are— that is, whether males and females simply live in the same dormitory and/or share the same room and/or use the same bathrooms and showers. It also mentions some colleges where you don't have to live co-ed at all, if you don't want to.

If you want to get more than one college guide, there is also "Barron's Profiles of American Colleges" which has much more statistical detail and can be a useful supplment. But "Choosing the Right College" is a must— even if it is not carried in your local bookstore, and you have to order it on-line or from its publisher, ISI Books in Wilmington, Delaware.

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Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

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Feature:

 

College Won't Wait—Start Planning Early

Volume 1 / Issue 3 / Spring 2001

Gifted youth need to start planning for college before the eighth grade. Why so early, when most teens don’t start until their junior or senior year? Because they need to develop an academic plan for course selection in middle school and high school. Parents, you should help with these plans and continue to discuss goals throughout your child’s secondary school career.

 

Classes: What to Take, What to Take?

Gifted students should take the most difficult group of courses they can manage without burning out. If options for advanced courses are limited in your child’s school district, look to local community colleges or universities for courses your child can take in lieu of normal schoolwork. University- or district-sponsored distance learning via the Internet or teleconferencing is another possibility. Forming partnerships with teachers and high school and college counselors will ensure that your child receives the enriched curriculum needed to reach his or her academic goals.

 

Résumés—Already?

A student résumé is important in the college admissions process. The usual categories are

 

• volunteer and/or summer study experiences;
• extracurricular activities—athletics and community service; and
• awards.

 

Encourage your child’s interests and record them in summary form.

 

Colleges look for dedication and passion. The goal is not to have the most items on a résumé but to show a high level of commitment to the activities listed on it.

 

Activities and achievements in sports and the performing arts need to be recorded in a portfolio as well as on a résumé. Portfolios include news clippings, playbills, awards, and audio- or videotapes. Keep slide portfolios for the visual arts. Your child’s résumé will also be a passport to special opportunities during the middle school and high school years. These opportunities include academic summer experiences, outdoor camps, intensive arts programs, governor’s schools, and internships. Such experiences may lead to special consideration when applying to colleges. College and scholarship applications ask for this information, and an updated résumé will have it organized and readily available. Keep résumés computerized, so the information can be reformatted to fit each application.

 

Keep your child’s résumé current. You and your child may think you’ll never forget the wonderful activities and learning experiences he or she has participated in, but it’s almost impossible to remember everything the night before an application is due.

 

College Marketing Materials

By high school graduation your child will have received enough marketing information from colleges to fill several file cabinets. Brainstorm with your child about his or her vital parameters for colleges—a particular curriculum area, a certain school size, a sports or music program, and so on. Learn to sort the materials according to these interests.

 

Starting the Search

Middle school isn’t too early to start looking at colleges. On family trips, try to drive by or walk through campuses; physical layouts and styles of college life will become part of your child’s basis of comparison. The earlier you start, the more information your child will have and the easier some of the choices will become.

 

The Alphabet Soup of Admissions Tests

PSAT, SAT I, SAT II, ACT, PLAN, TOEFL—for gifted kids, the testing can start as early as the seventh grade as part of programs such as the Duke University Talent Identification Program. Not only are these out-of-level tests a means of assessing your child’s abilities, but taking them is a great way to become familiar with college entrance exams. If your seventh-grade child can sit in a room with juniors and seniors and take them, it won’t be nearly as stressful in high school. Taking college entrance exams more than once is often a means of preparation in itself. Initial test results can expose weaknesses that further study can overcome the next time around, and taking the tests early also gives students another chance if they have a bad testing day or miss the exam. For gifted students, the PSAT or PLAN may be required for consideration in special programs offered for high school students. Finally, if your child does well on the tests the first time, the testing may be over for him or her in the junior rather than the senior year.

 

College planning is an intensive and enormous job. Following these key steps will spread the work out from middle school to high school graduation and will make the process achievable with minimal stress.
—Jill F. VonGruben

 

Jill F. VonGruben is the author of The College Countdown: The Parent’s and Student’s Survival Kit for the College Admissions Process (McGraw-Hill, 1999) and the parent of two college students. She has spent 20 years in an advocacy role in gifted education.

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