It is January, so you know what that means. We are now approaching a stressful time for most high school seniors: college acceptance season. As students sit home and wait for their email to buzz or the postman to deliver a large package (not a small envelope—they never want the small envelope from a college), they relish, “Did I do everything right? Were my SAT scores high enough? Did I participate in the right clubs? Did my essay adequately convey my humble, yet confident, yet extroverted personality?”
Well, we’re here to tell you to breathe. It will be okay.
The college admission process has developed a lot over the past ten years, and more and more families stress whether or not their children will be admitted to their choice schools. We can confidently say that if your senior did his or her research on schools and applied to at least 5 of them, he or she should be okay. College Planning Experts stresses the importance of broadening your horizons. Don’t apply to only “name brand” schools just because they’re the only ones of which you’ve heard before. Don’t limit yourself to colleges that only admit less than 10% of their applicants because you’re setting yourself up for a good chance of rejection. The value of education doesn’t weigh solely on the commercial brand of a school. A college education involves many aspects, like networking, research ability, class sizes, access to professors, etc. Cast a wide net, and you’ll definitely catch something.
This brings me to my next point: did you know there are almost 4,000 colleges in the United States? Have you heard of Jarvis Christian College in Texas? How about Bismarck State College in North Dakota? Well if you haven’t, maybe look into them. Both of these schools are reported to have admitted 100% of their applicant pool this past year. That’s right… pause… 100%. Maybe it is because there aren’t many teenagers who are high on the idea of moving to the “warm” environment of North Dakota. Or maybe it is because these kids haven’t heard of a school that doesn’t have a football team playing on ESPN on Saturdays in the Fall. Either way, these are perfect examples of solid colleges in need to qualified students.
We are here to tell you.. there are options. If you have younger students at home, please keep this in mind. With the right investment in time and research, you are sure to find the right colleges for your child. If you’re interested in learning more, just call us! College Planning Experts has proprietary software to find these hidden gems and match students to their best fit colleges. It’s the most important piece of the puzzle because if you’re going to invest something that can cost us much as your mortgage… you want to make sure it is a college where your child will get in and thrive.
