How to choose a college
How to Choose a College as a Smart Consumer
Start your college search with our tips for being a smart education consumer. You’ll want to be an active decision maker and use your critical thinking skills. Choosing a college is like any big financial investment – a car, house, or computer – keep the end in mind when you are considering options. Will it accomplish your goals? What is the trade off between price and quality? Will it provide the experience you expect?
Our 4-step decision making process will give you structure for making progress through such a big decision, hopefully making it less stressful for you.
Tips for how to choose a college
Learn about yourself with these self-reflection activities. It has information about Holland's Theory of Career Choice and how it helps you choose careers and college majors more likely to lead to your success in school and at work.
Identify careers and college majors that interest you, before narrowing down college choices. Career Key Discovery helps you do that. Even if you think you have no idea what to study, you may surprise yourself with some early preferences. If you know what you want to study, then look for colleges that offer those programs.
Take advantage of professionals who can help. School counselors, admissions counselors, education consultants, parents, and adults with community organizations and nonprofits. People want to help you.
Learn the truth about college rankings. Like many well-known influential consumer resources, these “Best Colleges” ranking lists are designed around marketing and priorities that do not necessarily line up with your needs. Although schools do not pay to be on the list, there is a big consulting industry around placement, advertising sales when these lists are published, and long-time, famous institutions (think Ivy League) have the advantage.
> Research by the respected Gallup organization also shows that a college’s ranking on these list is unrelated to their graduates’ success in life. That’s a pretty amazing finding if you consider how much attention these rankings receive. Learn about their survey.
> Read NACAC’s cautionary advice about relying on commercially produced ranking lists.
Consider these lesser-known but critical factors* in choosing a college. A college should help you be successful, so you need to find out the quality of students' experiences after they enroll. You should find out the school's
> Retention and graduation rates for your demographic, not just for everyone. Include gender and minority group.
> Employment rates for specific degrees. If you are considering an economics major, find out the post-graduation employment rate for that major.
> The level of career services and academic advising provided. If there isn't much, that doesn't bode well for your post-graduate success.
> Average debt of students upon graduation.
> Retention efforts. What is the school doing to keep students in school and graduating on time? If there isn't much or they can't tell you what they are, that signals a lack of student support.
For help fining the information above, use the U.S. Department of Education’s College Affordability and Transparency Center.
Look beyond the marketing messages, just as you would do with any significant purchase. If they say they care about students and employability after graduation, do their services, employment rates, and graduation rates reflect that message?
Make a high-quality decision using our science based, four-step ACIP process. It will help give structure to a long but rewarding project. You can download a free "Decision Balance Sheet" to fill out and share with parents or trusted mentors who are helping you.
* Updated July 2020, originally from "Beyond the Traditional Factors: Learn how you can help your students construct a better list of potential colleges," American School Counselor, Nov./Dec. 2012, by Don Fraser, Jr., former director of education and training for the National Association for College Admission Counseling.
For more information see:
Choosing a College Major Based on Your Personality: What does the research say? (PDF)
National Association of College Admissions Counseling NACAC resource center for students and parents
Guide to the College Admissions Process from NACAC