Dipping a Toe into the College Process

Second semester junior year is a great time for you to start taking those initial early steps into the college process. Don’t worry at this stage about diving into books and websites and trying to learn about specific colleges. Instead, this first phase should comprise 2 basic (and hopefully low-stakes) steps: looking inward and looking around. 

Looking inward is about doing a (keyword: HONEST) self-assessment, and asking yourself questions like: 

• WHO AM I? (This can be about identity, values, desires, goals, etc)

• What am I looking for out of my college experience? (socially, emotionally, academically, intellectually, career-wise)

• What are my priorities/deal-breakers? (make sure to really interrogate these a la “would a ____ school really be so bad?” and boil them down to what seems absolutely essential to you)

• What do I need and want? (both on and off campus - socially, academically, etc)

• What do I bring to the party? (Be brutally honest with yourself here: do you have appealing talents/passions? Have you demonstrated leadership? Perseverance? Tenacity? Compassion? Are you going to bring something additive to a college campus?) 

• How competitive are my grades/test scores? (Another time for some radical self-honesty: did you work as hard as you could have? Do your grades represent the pinnacle of your abilities? Did you take the most challenging classes you could manage and that were available to you?)

• What can I still do to make myself a more appealing candidate? (It’s never too late to start/keep working on your answers above about what you have to offer!)

Looking around is about beginning to familiarize yourself with the college landscape. With nearly 3,000 4-year colleges in the US alone, the options are DIVERSE! I recommend students start close to home and visit colleges within a short distance (even/especially those they would never even consider attending: remember, keep it low-stakes!) Are there a handful of different types of schools nearby? Small and large? Ones inside a city and more traditional campuses? Public and private? Research universities and liberal arts colleges? Use your time now to take in a wide range of different experiences as you’re working towards building that priorities/deal-breaker list I mentioned above. On these visits, try to think more broadly about the experience you would have at a school like this one, rather than the particular school itself (especially if it is too close to home!) You’d be surprised how actually getting on a campus might challenge some of your pre-conceived notions about [insert adjective] schools!  

If you’d like more insights into or have questions about the early phase of this process, I encourage you to register for my upcoming webinar series: Getting Started with the College Process!