The College Search

Post Reply New Topic

How do you know what you want in a college?

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to look for in a college. I have No Clue what's "right" for me. and my parents are both NT and went to state schools. The only thing I know is that I want to be close to home.

What determines if a college is right for you? How do you know what you want out of a college?

Thanks. Confused Sophomore

Well, I graduated high school at sixteen. Jumped around colleges -- from Adirondack CC to Harvard University. Changing majors along the way. I finally figured out what I want: physics and a mathematics degree. I was just accepted into Stanford.

I would *really* recommend a small school. Close relationships to faculty is what you want. I don't know where you live, so I can't really advise. And how close is close?

You can always enter college as an undecided student. You have two years to declare a major. If you still don't know what you want, pick your best strength, and go with it. A liberal arts education opens many doors.

Kind regards,
Chris

Are you a sophomore in Highschool or college? I would say go to a good state school because the professors at private schools think their sh** dont stink. In fact they will try to feed you their sh** like food and tell you to chew hard and do not complain. State schools have better array of courses and it is easier to switch classes if you like. Do you like binge drinking...then pick a school with a lot of that. Do you like the club scenes or big cities...then go to a big town witha lot of that. if you like smoke a lot of ganja then e-mail me at [email protected] and i can tell you whichschools are the best for toking sensi.
-Yo, married to marijuana
smoke mad trees,
catch me with the same bit** in B\elize--Noreaga

I'm a sophomore in high school. I definitely do not like drinking/smoking. That I do know

I dunno what I'm going to do with my life. As far as things are going, I'm not sure if I'll ever live on my own. As far as majors, I've not a clue. I can do math pretty well, as well as chemistry. My main love is music and I would really like to somehow work with autistic kids. Possibly continue studying sign language as well. It's pretty spread out, as you can see. From performing arts to intense math, it's quite diverse.

It depends on the community college. Are you AS or autistic? If you are, you may want to think about going into maths - it would probably be best suited for you.

But...if you plan to never live away from home, that can cause some problems in terms of employment...

Let me ask you: do you really want to go to college, or are you just going to college because it's what society expects of you?

Kind regards,
Chris

Stay in high school forever? Oh man... I wouldn't mind being a professional college student, but surely not high school.

Maybe dual or triple-major? Then, you can satisfy all your intellectual curiousity?

What society expects from you? You know, that "American Dream" BS?

Kind regards,
Chris

Well, what I would look at is trying to figure out what type of program that you would want to get into. Certain schools are better at certain things. I would also look at schools that have certain qualities that you could consider desirable(location, state-funding, offer scholarship money, etc). You are tackling the college decision thing pretty early; you might not need to address it now though, you will eventually start figuring out what you want more and more and that will help you decide. I would suggest that you live life practically and look at college expenses, you don't want to have massive debt or make your parents pay a lot of money for your college.

When I was a Junior in High School I knew what I wanted to do. I always loved helping others out. So, I decided in order to help others out, I was going to major in Special Education and help others who were like me and be a role model for those whom I could relate to. Anyways, I wanted to have something else under my belt, so I thought about Music Therapy because I loved music and I knew I could use my musicianship skills to help out the special ed students. Didn't really work out, but for a long time, that is what I wanted to do.

When I first looked at colleges, I looked at the size of the school, how far away it was, if it had the accommodations that I needed, if the school had my major that I wanted, etc. When I started searching for colleges, I only applied to three, but I looked at four. The fourth one is the college that I transferred to, but at the time of starting off in college, I would've been 8 hours away from my home, and I wasn't ready for that, even if i had family in the area. Anyways, the three that I looked at, one was a private college out of state and was really small, and I didn't like having it be way too small for me. The other two schools were in-state and almost about the same size (between 8,000-11,000). One of them I didn't like because it was in the middle of nowhere, and I didn't like the contemporary style look of the buildings. So, I ended up going to the one school with about 10,000 people and my major, and great accommodations. And I liked the crowdedness in a way and it was away from home, but not so far away. I was about 1 1/2 away.

Now, about the music therapy idea, I think that if you like music a lot and you want to help autistic children, that would be a great thing for you. Feel free to ask me any questions you have about the field because I almost minored in it and I just did a poster and presentation on music therapy for my Intro to Health Services Field class that I'm currently taking so the information is still fresh in my mind. If you want more information, go to www.musictherapy.org