College Fit and Social Engagement

On the one extreme are the campuses where apathy tends to reign supreme:  most students are primarily concerned with their various activities, academics, and personal lives.  On the other extreme are the colleges where virtually everyone on campus seems to have a cause they support, and where community service is central to college life.  Whatever the merits of political and social engagement, students must ask themselves where they fit on this continuum.  How engaged are you now, and how engaged do you want to be over the next four years?

Keep in mind that most college campuses lean to the left, politically speaking.  There are many reasons for this, and an exploration of these reasons would take us on a tangent.  However, there are many campuses where more conservative students will feel quite comfortable and plenty of kindred spirits.

So the first order of business is to take your own political and social temperature.

• Are there issues that you care deeply about?  Examples might include animal rights, the environment, abortion, or homelessness.
• Have you ever been or wanted to be more politically active?
• Philosophically speaking, do you think one of the reasons to pursue an education is to learn how to be a more effective, more active citizen?
• Or is education primarily a means to get a successful job and contribute to society in that way?

What are the questions you might ask to get a bead on the level of political and social engagement on campus?

One way is to look at the college’s mission statement, and then ask students, faculty, and staff the degree to which they feel that mission is put into practice.

Examples might include themed “living and learning communities,” principles of course design, numerous and active student organizations, or particular campus-wide programs that help to channel student engagement in specific directions.  In each case, make sure to compare campus priorities and initiatives with your own:  is this the sort of place where you envision making your own contributions to society?

If so, it may be a perfect match.

Since 2007, the expert team of college admissions consultants at Great College Advice has provided comprehensive guidance to thousands of students from across the United States and over 45 countries across the world. Great College Advice has offices in Colorado, New Jersey, Chicago, North Carolina and Massachusetts.  

In addition to our one-on-one counseling, Great College Advice extends its support through one of the most active and resource-rich Facebook Groups for college-bound students and their families: College Admissions Experts. With nearly 100,000 members—students, parents, and experienced counselors—this vibrant forum offers peer support and expert advice like no other. 

The post Elements of a Great College Fit – Social Engagement first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

As you plan the general goals of your campus visits, plan the logistics, take the tour, listen to the information session, and investigate the campus surroundings, keep in mind these few tips for making the visit as productive, successful, and fun as possible.

Parent Tips for Campus Visits

Don’t ask too many questions, either in the information session or during the campus tour. Even if your kid is silent, try to restrain yourself. Silence does not indicate that your child is comatose. I can guarantee that even the most taciturn teen is taking it all in, trying to incorporate new ideas about their own future, some of which are really exciting, and some of which may be sort of terrifying.

Don’t try to fill the silence by embarrassing or annoying your child. I can’t tell you how many tours I’ve taken on which students and their parents have traded eye-rolls, verbal jabs, elbows to the ribs. This is a stressful time for everyone, so don’t your parental instincts interfere with your child’s experience.

Do help your student to brainstorm the questions he or she has about this college and its campus before the visit starts. What information do you already know about this campus, and what questions remain? What things are important to see during the visit—facilities that may be important for your child? Encourage the student to ask the questions by helping to formulate the right questions in advance.

Do seek answers to your own parental questions. If you have particular questions about financial aid, for example, that remain unanswered in a general information session, you may want to call the financial aid office and seek their counsel. Similarly, if you want to learn more about a particular sports program, an academic offering, or more details about the curriculum, make sure that you check the college website thoroughly.

Colleges have become pretty adept at putting tons and tons of information online. If you can’t find what you seek, by all means pick up the phone. Better, if it’s a question that you and your child share, encourage the student to do the communicating. Empower the student to take charge of gathering the information that will help him or her find the right college match.

Don’t even think about accompanying your student to the interview with the admissions officer. Just asking the question could be a red flag for admissions officers who really don’t want to have to deal with overbearing, bossy, and domineering parents. Assume that you are uninvited, and be surprised (and pleased) when the admissions officer engages you in some conversation before or after the interview. If such a conversation does take place, don’t talk about anything beyond pleasantries. The worst thing you can ask is, “what are my kid’s chances?” Not only will they not answer that question, but they may be a bit annoyed that you even ask it. So don’t.

Student Tips for Campus Visits

Do take charge of the visit. Don’t be passive. Don’t let mom and dad do it all for you. Look at the maps and figure out where you are and where you’re doing. Take the lead as you wander around campus. Know what you want to learn during the visit, and know how you are going to learn it. At this stage of your transition from high school to college, every parent is a bundle of nerves, and they hate a power vacuum. When parents sense that their student is disengaged, they engage more forcefully. So don’t give them the chance. Do your homework, be involved in planning the visit, and take charge of the visit once underway.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. This is a big decision, and you are going to make it based on the information you have gathered. This is not the same as asking a question about proof in geometry class or about mitosis in biology. This is about your future. Everyone (including your parents) knows that you have about a zillion questions rolling around in your brain during a college visit. So ask a few, especially those that you think that a tour guide or an admissions officer can ask. If you can’t figure out how to formulate your own questions, perhaps memorize one or two from this list.

Don’t be afraid to talk to other students on campus, and to ask them what they like about their school. In most cases, students on campus love their choice of college and will be only too happy to share their thoughts with you. You can also ask them what they don’t like—for no place is nirvana. Usually, they will readily tell you. Of course, the answers they give will be based on their own, personal experience of that campus, and cannot be said to represent the entire student body. But if you ask several students the same question or questions, you may find a pattern that will help you confirm (or disconfirm) your own impressions.

Do focus on academic factors at least as much—if not more—than social, environmental, and geographical factors. Remember, you are choosing a school, not a vacation resort. You will spend a great deal of time in class, studying for exams, preparing lab reports, and writing papers. And you will spend a lot of time interacting (or not) with professors.

So try to gather relevant information about the academic program. Tour guides will all say that “professors are accessible” and the “average class size is low.” Dig beneath those platitudes, especially when you talk to other students on campus. Are professor-student interactions limited to office hours? Do academic departments host activities open to all students?

Do guest lecturers come to the campus, or is there not enough of a scholarly audience (or budget) to attract them? Do professors offer open lectures frequently about their research or other timely and interesting topics? How active are academic societies on campus? Do the honorary societies merely hand out certificates, or do they sponsor academic activities? How often do individual professors or departments host meals or other social events for students?

Prepare for Campus Visits

Campus visits contain some of the most important moments in the entire college selection and application process. You need to prepare. You need to be aware. And you need to know what things are important to you—and which are not. As with every other aspect of the college search process, the focus should be on you: your abilities, your preferences, your desires, your needs, your aspirations. The primary question in your mind should be, does this campus fit me?

The more you are able to keep yourself at the center of the visit, the more productive and helpful your campus visit will be.

Great College Advice

The post Tips for Successful Campus Visit For Parents and Students first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

TRANSCRIPT:

So right now I’m at Occidental College in the greater Los Angeles area, and I’m in a dormitory, and this is the gender-neutral — actually, no, this is a co-ed, that’s a different thing, gender-neutral and co-ed, different thing. This is a co-ed bathroom. So that is kind of a scary thing for a lot of parents when they think about sending their kids off to college, and I was talking to one of my former students who’s showing us around campus, and it is kind of something to get used to. But I just want to give you a tour or this bathroom so that you can get an idea that actually it’s an okay place. even though it’s co-ed, not gender-neutral.

Inside the Co-Ed Bathroom

So here you have sinks over here, and then the showers are here, and they’re actually pretty nice. So you’ve got a changing space, you’ve got a lock on the door, and then you’ve got the shower with a curtain here. And it’s very private so it’s not like you’re running around naked with all of your classmates. It’s very clean, very handy. There are, let’s see, one, two, three stalls, it looks like, for students to take showers in here. Sink’s very modern over here, and you’ve got places for the students to put all of their things, a couple more sinks over here. And then let’s see, one, two, three, four five toilet stalls. Again, not completely private but private enough.

And as my former student mentioned, the bathrooms really are fairly empty most of the time. So you’re not sharing it with a whole group of students at any one time. Generally speaking, people come and go, they’re getting up at different times and going to bed at different times, so you generally have the bathroom to yourself. But this is a new thing, it’s very common on college campuses now to have co-ed bathrooms, and also gender-neutral, but that’s for a different story, so welcome to the bathroom at Occidental College.
 
Great College Advice

The post Educational Consultant on Co-Ed Bathrooms: You Get Used to ‘Em first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

TRANSCRIPT:

Today I’m on the campus of Hamilton College. Which is located in Upstate New York about an hour or so from Syracuse, New York. Beautiful, rural campus, about 2,000 or 2,200 students. Very historic Hamilton is named after Alexander Hamilton, the first director of the Federal Reserve Bank, the national bank. It has illustrious history. I’ve been taking the walking tour and of course, the focus is on all the historical significance of the campus as well as the people who have gone here.

Princeton, too, I was recently at Princeton. And that was what the admissions officer led with, was the fact that George Washington had used the campus, the ties with the historic roots of the United States. And certainly Hamilton has that in spades, too.

As I visit colleges, I am like most of my clients. I sometimes will do several in a week. And they do all tend to kind of run together at a certain point. It was interesting, at an information session at Princeton. Maybe two thirds of the way through, a father finally raised his hand and said, “So what makes Princeton different?” And of course, that’s what we all want to know, right?

Because the educational mission of these universities is virtually identical one to another. If you’re talking about a liberal arts institution, or even an institution that is — maybe it’s a university but has a liberal arts curriculum, how do you tell one from another?

One school on this trip that has done a really good job of that is Bates College. The admissions officer who was, interestingly, it was his first information session ever, and the admissions director was very personable. And he did a fantastic job of really explaining how Bates was different from its competitors. From places like Hamilton, which is one of its peer institutions. It was very clear he was able to differentiate Bates. But how does that help you as a student or a parent as you’re trying to differentiate among these colleges?

What’s Important to YOU?

I think, again, what’s important first is to figure out what is important to you. What are the things that matter? Hamilton is a residential college, everybody lives here, it’s in a rural location, and it’s far from any urban area. Certainly there are lots of outdoor activities to do and to participate in, athletics, and student life, there are about 25% of the students here who are in Greek life.

It’s also snowy here because of the lake effect of Lake Ontario, there’s maybe 100 to 120 inches of snow per year. While walking around the campus you can sort of get an inkling of that, the way things are kind of put together. But what’s really important to you? What are the departments that are important to you? Also, what are the kinds of people you want to go to school with?

What is the way of thinking that animates you? Once you have that, then you can begin to understand that Bard College is not the same as Hamilton. Not only do they not look alike, but the kinds of kids who go there are quite different. Same thing with Vassar versus a Colgate. Very different kind of campus community.

The Point of Visiting

Now, the campuses themselves are absolutely gorgeous. So why visit? Well, it’s helpful on the one hand, because you get a sense of the real estate on that particular day, whether it’s raining or sunny or snowy or whatever, but you get a sense of the real estate.
But the most important thing that you need to try to uncover as you’re visiting these campuses is the student vibe. Who are these kids that go here? What are their priorities? Not only while they’re here as students, but also after they graduate? What are their politics? What are the activities that really animate them?

So that’s tough. That’s tough to do in a day as you’re visiting a campus. So that’s why campuses, admissions offices, do welcome overnight visits, they welcome you to visit in a classroom. I always tell students, “Don’t evaluate the professors while you’re there, evaluate the students while you’re there.” Eating in the cafeteria can also be helpful, just to watch the people and see how are they dressed? How are they interacting? Are they interacting? What kinds of vibe you get from these kids.

Talk to Students

And then finally, and this the hardest thing to do, is to actually go and speak to people. Go talk to students, and ask their opinion about the vibe here and the activities and their kind of social scene and the priorities of students. Are they the kind who are really, really academically focused? That they really are passionate about their academic inquiry? Or are they really, really intelligent and driven to succeed, perhaps financially and professionally, and this is a school in which they can grow and expand and explore new things, but perhaps it’s just not as academic as others?

These things are difficult to discern. I make no apology for the difficulty of trying to get at this, and this is something of why people will hire an independent counselor, is to try to get a handle on that vibe.

Take-Aways

So as you’re visiting schools, yes, look at the real estate, do as I’m doing today, poking into buildings and exploring the history of the school. But ask yourself that question, “What is different about this place, if anything?” From the other schools that may be on your list? And doing so, take some time. Your first impression as you’re just wandering the campus may not be the most accurate.

Don’t judge a book by its cover, right? You need to see what’s inside. You can look at the buildings but you need to be able to try as hard as you can to get a picture of what the community is like at any particular college you visit.

So good luck, it’s hard, but do the self-examination first. Know who you are and what you seek, and then systematically go out and see if you can find that.
 
Mark Montgomery
Expert Educational Consultant

The post Expert Educational Consultant on the Importance of Visiting Colleges first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

TRANSCRIPT:

I’m here on on the campus of Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut. This is one of a group of liberal arts colleges in New England that I’ve been visiting a lot on this trip. And I’m outside the Shain Library. Which is undergoing complete renovation. It’s fenced off, the construction workers are inside, and there’s a big sign on the outside of the fence saying they’re going to renovate this to bring in new collaborative spaces. A brand new cafe, upgraded technology, better access to learning services at the university, and all this brings up a fact of American universities today. That libraries are undergoing a change and even a questioning of their relevance.

It used to be, back in the dark ages when I was a student. The collection was not digitized, so even searching for a book that would help you in your research was a chore. Just searching. So you would learn about a particular part of the library. A certain part of the stacks, where you could go and maybe browse. And see if you could collect books that were related to the one you were searching for.

Moving Libraries

But what’s happening now is that libraries like this one and the University of Denver, quite notably, too, moving their book collections off-site, completely off the campus. So that if you want to do that research, you want to find those books, you can request those books to be sent over from a massive storage facility. It may reach you in an hour or two. But it’s not going to lead to the kinds of serendipitous discoveries of the perfect book that is going to help you in your research.

Why is this happening?

Again, students are doing much more online. All of the major periodicals are online, there is not the need to have these big facilities to store paper. So what are they doing? They’re putting a nice cafe they’re making 24-hour study facilities. They’re bringing all the learning services together and call them “Learning Commons,” learning centers, academic communities, all kinds of things except not really a library. It’s a different kind of use for the building. And a different way of accessing the information that students may need to further them in their research.

So in some ways it’s really nice to see that Connecticut College is investing in its library. It’s an important hub of the learning of what happens at a college or a university. It’s nice to see that that’s a focus of financial energy and support. But at the same time, it does sort of mark a change in how libraries are being used and accessed on American college campuses.
 
Great College Advice

The post Educational Consultant Asks: Are Books Obsolete at College Libraries? first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

TRANSCRIPT:

Cornell University

Right now I’m on the campus of Cornell University. And a visit to Ithaca, New York is the easiest way to see the variety within the Ivy League. There are eight universities within the Ivy League. And the only thing that really unites them is the fact that they play sports against one another. There are some academic similarities in terms of the competitiveness of the schools. But in terms of the undergraduate experience, there’s a huge breadth of experience that a student might have.

Here at Cornell, there’s a school of architecture, and art and planning. There’s an engineering school, there is the hotel management school, there’s the human ecology or something, I forget exactly what they call it, the human ecology school, and the labor relations school. All of these are professional tracks for an undergraduate that are quite apart from the traditional liberal arts where you might major in sociology, biology, chemistry, classics, English literature, etc.

Dartmouth University

At Dartmouth, for example, with only 4,000 undergraduates. Versus Cornell with over 14,000 undergraduates, it’s a huge research university. A beautiful campus but much more eclectic. Much more a mix of old buildings and traditional architecture with very modern square buildings.

The other thing to keep in mind is that this really is a university with big graduate programs. It’s also a university that allows you to not only major in the liberal arts, like at Princeton, or at Dartmouth, or at Yale. Which is the only thing that you can major in as an undergraduate.

University of Pennsylvania

So this is one of the Ivy Leagues that is more similar to the University of Pennsylvania than it is to, say, Princeton. That doesn’t mean that it’s bad, that doesn’t mean that it’s good. I think that it’s important to remember that the Ivy League, while it does denote a certain amount of competitiveness in the admissions process, that these institutions are quite different in their structure. In the organization of the curriculum, and in the offerings, the academic offerings that you could pursue here.

So don’t be fooled by the title or the label of “Ivy League.” Remind yourself that it’s important to decide, do you want a great big university like this with 14,000 or 15,000 undergraduates, or do you want something more compact and more of a residential community like a Dartmouth, a Yale, or a Princeton? And on that residential piece, only 55% of undergraduates live on campus in Cornell, whereas virtually everyone at Dartmouth lives on campus.

So again, you have this variety. You need to think about what’s important to you. And then choose the school that matches your preferences. Don’t just pick the label “Ivy League,” pick the school that suits you the best.
 

Great College Advice

The post Educational Consultant Defines the Ivy League first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

TRANSCRIPT:

I’m here on the campus of Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and I had the pleasure of walking into the art museum today. It’s Sunday, it’s really not an ideal day to be visiting Colby because pretty much nothing is open. I tried with my companion here today. We were trying doors and I was trying to be optimistic, but most everything was closed.

But we did have the occasion to walk into the art museum and spoke with a young woman who is a student here. And I asked her what she liked about it, and she said, “Well, you know, it’s really great. We’re up here on the hill and this is such a bubble.” And that’s a term that’s used quite often to describe a number of campuses around the country that are relatively isolated or separate from an urban area of any kind.

So Colby, in order to get to town, it’s probably, I don’t know, maybe two miles to get to the commercial heart of the city. Not too bad, not too far, but it’s not right next door.

The Bubble

So when students talk about the “bubble” of the campus that means that it really is physically and psychologically isolated from the rest of the world. It’s its own little environment. It’s its own little terrarium, if you will, populated by college students who are eager to learn and eager to be involved and have fun. But they want to do it within the environment of the undergraduate experience.

Colby is an undergraduate college, it’s about 1,800 students, and the young woman we met. She was very enthusiastic that there’s tons to do here, there’s plenty to keep one active. And she did say, also, that students are pretty studious, and that they take academics seriously. So, students who want to come here, they are in some sense trying to avoid the distractions of a big city like New York or Boston or Los Angeles or Chicago. And they want to have a quiet academic life with others. Who share that priority, that their four years in college is to study, to learn stuff.

But they also still want to have fun

She was very quick to say that the kids at Colby have plenty of fun, very outdoorsy. Because we are in Maine and the opportunities for outdoor involvement are terrific, whether it’s skiing. Whether it’s going to the lakes in the summertime, or there’s a pond over here. And I presume they have ice skating in the middle of the winter.

Tons to do, it’s also a very athletic school, it’s a member of the NESCAC group, the New England Small Colleges. Very, very busy place. But it’s separate from any sort of city. It has its own little environment and that’s why we call it the Colby Bubble here on the hill. So a great place, a nice day, next time I hope I can come on a day. Other than Sunday so I can actually get in some of the buildings. But a very attractive campus and clearly a top-notch liberal arts college in the north of New England.
 

Great College Advice

The post Educational Consultant on Colby College first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

TRANSCRIPT:

Right now I’m on the campus of Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. This is a liberal arts college, even thought it says it’s a university, it’s primarily a liberal arts college. It has a few master’s degrees that it offers. It’s in a beautiful area, about 30 or 40 miles from Syracuse, rural area but a small town. So it’s a fairly bustling small town. With the pizza joint and the bars and the cafe and the Dunkin’ Donuts and everything you need.

The Appearance of Students

But what I find interesting in visiting colleges is how different the students can seem, just even by appearance. If you walk around the campus and look with a critical eye about what the kids are wearing, what they’re saying, what they’re doing, you can discern a difference. So I always have to ask my students, “So who are your friends?” And “What are the kinds of people you want to hang out with on a day-to-day basis?”

So I was recently at Vassar. And Vassar definitely gives off this very liberal vibe. It’s not necessarily in the way people dress, but it’s certainly a political viewpoint that kind of pervades the student body there. And then at Bard College. If you are walking around there, you see kids who are a little more informal. A little bit more — they’re definitely liberal but they’re much more laid back and much less concerned about what people think.

Here at Colgate, you just see a lot more kids in designer clothing. I saw a ton of Hilfiger, for example, guys in seersucker shorts and women in nice little dresses. A little but more dressed up, I guess you’d say. Slightly more conservative, at least in appearance.
Again, I’m making some generalizations about a student body by looking at different people.

But I think it’s helpful to really think for yourself, who are my friends? I just ran into one of my former students who is here at Colgate. Loving it, absolutely loving it, and I saw him on the rugby field, it was kind of a coincidence. So I asked him, I said, “So who among your friend would be unhappy here?”

And I had a shortcut because this is a student I’ve known since he was in middle school. And I know a lot of his friends, and so I asked him, “So who among your friends would not be happy here?” He rattled off several names of people that just, they’d be smart, they’d be capable of handling a place like Colgate, certainly have every potential of getting in, but would not be happy here among the students who tend to populate this campus. And that was helpful, because I could identify, because I know the students, I could identify that student personalities that would be less comfortable here.

Now anyone could adapt to anywhere. And some kids are more chameleon-like than others, and you know, in some ways how much does it matter? Well, I don’t know, it’s really up to you. But I think it’s definitely something to think about as you’re choosing a college. Who are my peeps? Who do I want to hang out with? What are the types of people that challenge me, that keep me engaged, the kinds of friends I have and like to hang out with? That’s what you’re going to get when you buy a college, you’re buying a community. So think about that, think long and hard, and then try to find the community that best matches your priorities.
 
Great College Advice

The post Researching Campus Culture and Finding Your People first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

TRANSCRIPT:
I’m here right now on the campus of Temple University in Philadelphia, and behind me is the library, there’s a big lawn over here, there are lots of kids hanging out, it’s a beautiful spring day just before finals, everybody’s relaxing. It’s also Friday, and so there are trucks lined up all up and down some of these avenues serving things like hoagies and wraps and crepes and there’s a “sugar bomb” truck or something. All kinds of places, getting ready for a Friday night here on some of the main drags. You can tell it’s kind of noisy, this is an urban environment so if you’re looking for a very active, fun, diverse campus in a city easily accessible by public transportation, this is a good place for you.

Great College Advice

The post Educational Consultant on Temple University: A Lively Atmosphere first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

TRANSCRIPT:

So one of the other interesting things about Bates is its 4-4-1 schedule. So they have this interesting term in spring that is when you can take one class. Usually you take four classes in the fall. Four classes in the winter/spring semester, and then you have this separate term that allows you to take only one course. You must take, as a student here, you must take two of those spring terms. You can take up to three but that’s the max.

The cool thing about this is, number one, it allows you to explore something in-depth. And with some singular purpose during that time. And you’re also able to, maybe, take something that you never — that’s not part of your major. That’s maybe something new and different that you’ve never tried before. So it’s an excellent opportunity to expand your academic horizons. And do so in a way that is both, at once, intensive because you’re just doing that one class, but it’s also a little bit more relaxed because you don’t have the demands of all the other classes that you’re taking at the same time.

You Can Go Abroad

Another thing that’s kind of cool about this spring term is that many of them are offered abroad. So Bates professors will organize a course in another part of the world and take the entire class there. So for example, our tour guide was talking about, there’s a new course that’s being offered in the Galapagos Islands. And they did some community work there, they were doing measurements of beach erosion and green sea turtles and things like that. But they were also really getting — they had a homestay, and living with a Spanish-speaking family. A real variety of things were happening during that spring term.

So again, the interesting, innovative calendar here affords some interesting academic opportunities that you might not find in other schools of the same type.

Mark Montgomery
Expert Educational Consultant

The post Educational Consultant on Bates 5 of 5: A Unique Scheduling Program first appeared on College Admission Counseling.