S3E4: How to Build a College List
Today's question of the week- "How do I build my college list?"
LISTEN NOW
Today's question of the week- "How do I build my college list?"
In today's episode, Thomas delves into the intricate process of building a college list, a pivotal task for high school juniors as they navigate their way through the admissions journey. He addresses common concerns and misconceptions surrounding this process, emphasizing the importance of considering various factors to craft a well-rounded and realistic list of potential universities.
Have your own question you want answered? Leave us a comment on social media @admittedlypodcast for a chance to get featured.
About Thomas
Thomas is a parent and alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania. After earning his MBA at the Wharton School in 2003, he moved to Silicon Valley. For three years, he was director of admissions and financial aid at Wharton School. He worked closely with admissions professionals, students, alumni, and professors to create the best possible MBA class.
Thomas has been an entrepreneur his entire life in the fields of finance, agriculture, wellness, and sporting goods. As the founder of Global Education Opportunities, he works with diverse and underserved communities to help them become successful college students. Thomas started the podcast Admittedly because he is passionate about demystifying the application process for parents and applicants.
Related Links
Apply to be a guest: www.thomascaleel.com/apply-for-podcast
Follow Admittedly on Social Media
TikTok: @admittedlypodcast
Instagram: @admittedlypodcast
-
Hello, and welcome to the Admittedly Podcast. I'm your host, Thomas Caleel, and today we're going to be talking about something I've gotten a lot of questions on, and that's building a college list. About this time of year, juniors, you're meeting your college counselor at your school, and depending on the school, they might be very involved in the process, they might be more hands off in the process. But one of the things (generally) your college counselor provided by the school is going to do is, they're going to ask you, "What is your college list?" What does that look like? And there's a lot of components that go into that. And we're going to talk about it in more detail as we go through the admissions process. But for today, we're going to take this long term view. We're gonna start thinking about, "Okay, how do we build this list?" Now, something that I get a lot of feedback from families and students on is, "Well, the college counselor is trying to sandbag the list, they're trying to give us a bunch of schools that are kind of lower ranked and we're a little upset about that", and that's not something we want to get mad at the counselor about, right? They're trying to create a list where there's balance that's realistically calibrated to how they view the student and yes, do they aim down a little bit? In most cases, absolutely, and that's not a criticism of school counselors, right? Their job is to make sure that everybody gets into a school that they are relatively happy with. And from any school, you have a lot of students who are vying for those top universities; the Ivy League, the ivy plus, and obviously, you can't, the school can't send, your high school can't send everyone to a top Ivy League school; and so they're trying to manage expectations. They're trying to manage application flow and generally they're seeing the broader picture of the class, right? How many people are applying to Yale? How many people are applying to Stanford? And they're also able to see as they meet as a group, right, "Who has what advantage? Is somebody a multiple legacy there, does somebody have strong ties to the university". And a lot of times what they're doing is, if a family is dead set on, you know, "I'm absolutely applying to University of Chicago" and if the high school counselor looks and says, "Look, really, we don't send that many people to Chicago and there's two people or three people who are also applying, and they are stronger, and in our view, a better fit for Chicago", they're going to try and nudge you away from that. Now, it doesn't mean that you can't put Chicago as your top choice but it does mean that you should listen to the feedback from the counselor because a lot of times they're going to be nudging you in directions. That it's very important to keep in mind, but that gets a little more imperative as we near the fall. For right now, we're just trying to build a global universe of schools. How do I do that? Well, I think the first thing is to think about, realistically, want to start at the macro level. Think about "Okay, where am I going to be happy?" Right? "What imperatives do I have? What needs do I have, as I'm thinking about where I want to spend the next four years of my life". We want to think about things like location, right? Proximity to family, proximity to friends, where you're comfortable. Look, if you are a born and bred Californian or Floridian and you know that you hate cold and snow and ice; well, look, Chicago, the northeast, these are places that for much of the year are very cold. You'll be wearing heavy jackets, you'll be inside most of the time. The days are short and dark and people will laugh and they'll say, "Well, look, if I get into a good school, that's all that matters" but school is only, the academics are only one component of this, right? You're going to be living your life day in day out at this university and whether you like it or not, environment, climate, daylight, all affect your experience and all affect your mental health, your well being and your attitude. So I would start by thinking about "Okay, what are my imperatives on that? Where do I feel culturally most at home?" Right? If you are from Texas, you might say, "Hey, look, I want to stay in the South. It's where I want to build my life. It's where I'm comfortable" and that's great. You might look for an adventure. You might be from Colorado and say, "Hey, know what, I like the University of Virginia. It's totally new to me, this this whole environment, and that's something I want to experiment with and try for the next four years." You want to look at things like size, right? Are you going to be comfortable with a school like Michigan? Some people love that; they love the community and largeness and just the massive amount of choices and people and things to do. Other people want a smaller school, right? And there are advantages and disadvantages to both and I think you really need to kind of unpack that in your own mind and think about, "do you want a more intimate environment, do you want a larger environment?" These are things that, really, especially once you get to your third or fourth year, a smaller school might feel a little bit more constricting to you socially; and a large school though, your first or second year, might be overwhelming as you try and make friends and establish yourself there. You want to look at your academic path. Alright, so just because a university is large, or prestigious, does not necessarily mean it has the best program for you. So I really encourage you as you start to sort this down and you start to think about, "Okay, location, size", and now you start thinking about, "Okay, what is it that I want to study?", and as you look at that, I want you to really go in and start to unpack on the website, what your academic journey is going to look like there. Now look, I understand that almost all of these school websites can look the same. They all talk about flexibility, and welcomeness and inclusion and diversity and all these great things. But we really want to go in and we want to drill down to a course level, right? What kind of courses can I take? What are my options, and then I want you to also think about, "Look, if I go to UCLA, for example, my freshman year survey courses are going to be massive, right, and then I'm going to break out groups with TAs" and for some students, that's really exciting. They don't mind that, they like that, they want the energy of a large class. But other students are gonna say, "Well, wait a minute, I want a, you know, a good faculty to student ratio. I want a more intimate teaching environment, right?" So teaching versus research; your larger universities are going to do a lot of research, they're going to have very busy faculty, and most of the heavy lifting on the courses is going to be done by TAs, at least for the first couple of years. And so if you're looking to build that kind of close, intimate bond with your professors, you want to look at smaller schools. You want to look at schools that are focused on teaching (a lot of liberal arts colleges, for example), that are going to give you that nice warm bear hug. You're going to know your professors from day one and you know, will there be less research opportunities; definitely. But that's a trade off, right? And that's a personal trade off that you need to think about as you are evaluating schools. Another thing you want to look at are social aspects of the school, right? For some of you, wellness dorms and sober living facilities, and an absence of Greek life are going to be a tremendous plus. It's going to be something that draws you to the school, you're going to resonate with that and that's going to be your journey. Others are going to want large, noisy, crazy, Greek life type universities where you're out, you're having fun, you're meeting a lot of people, you're getting a lot of experiences and opportunities. And I would say you know, for those of you who are listening overseas, the U.S. universities do have heavy drinking cultures. In general, there are schools that monitor that and police that. There are schools that have a lot of alternatives to the party culture but I think it's very important to think about, "Okay, day in day out, what is my life look like? If I am not interested in a party culture, are there opportunities for me to make friends and have fun and enjoy everything that schools have to offer?" and this also gets to size. So if you're in a remote small school in a small college town, you're going to be constrained in your opportunities to do different things and so I think it's very important for you to take a critical eye and look at those opportunities and what your social life is going to look like. Because again, it's a very important part of your enjoyment and your mental health while you are at school. Something else that I would look at, and we hear a lot about this from students and families is student support. So if you have an IEP, if you need support around extra time, around notetaking, around accommodations, it's very important for you to look at whatever it is they call it; the Office of Student Services, Office of Student Support, Office of Student accommodations; you can reach out to them they usually have quite a bit of information on the website, but look at that. What does that look like? How are they granting accommodations? What accommodations are available? What kind of tutoring support is available? Are there student groups where you have peer support, right? What are your access to counselors, therapists, things that you need, the tools that you need to perform your best in this university environment? So don't overlook that. For those of you who are into athletics, right, there is the one end of the bell curve and that is recruited athletics. So what does that look like for you? Have you reached out to the coaches, have your coaches reached out to the coaches? And before you do that I would urge you to go on the websites, look and see are my times or stats or accomplishments within range of this school? Am I a D1, D2, D3 athlete? For those of you who are looking at rotating away from athletics, or who say, "Hey, look, I'm good, I love this. I'm not good enough to play at the school that I want to go to so I want to look at Club athletics.", and that's important, right? Because this social fabric, these relationships that you build at college are going to, we hope, be with you for the rest of your life, and how do you know people? You know, people in the classroom, out of the classroom, sports, arts, activities, clubs, groups, things like that and so this is a very important part of your journey. Don't just get lost on the academic aspect of your time at university, because that's critically important, right? You're going there to learn, you want that, but think carefully. Put yourself, immerse yourself in what the school offers. Look at clubs, right? If you're a singer, what kind of groups are available? What's the process like? I sometimes get students who will go to a larger school; Cornell is a good example, Penn is another good example; where the club process is very intense. You have to apply, you have to submit a resume, there's a screening. Then you're interviewed and they're taking very small handfuls of students and bringing them into the clubs and it's because they're not looking for these catch all clubs with 1000s of members where a lot of people aren't doing anything. They want tight, focused clubs that are accomplishing things that are doing really interesting work together. So take a look at the club culture as well, because you don't want to get there and be disappointed when you're maybe not getting accepted to clubs that you want. Or, you know, there's a pre-professional focus to most of the clubs, and you're looking for something more creative or more outdoors, or whatever that is. So really think about that carefully, and understand how that process works. Another thing is just general campus culture. So I mentioned Michigan, Wisconsin, you know, there are schools that have very robust athletic cultures; and one of the fun things is, students get together; they go, they cheer on the basketball team, or the football team, or whatever that might be and for some people, that's not going to matter at all and for other people, it's a major component of their decision to attend a school. And so I think, look at that and think about, you know, "If everybody is going to the game on a Saturday, am I good with that? Am I not good with that? If I'm not good with that? What are my alternatives?" Right? So it's really, now about doing that high level analysis. A lot of students will come to me and they'll say, "Look, you know, my school does this, we have this program or that program, we do statistical analysis, and it's showing me former students from my high school that do or do not get into these colleges", because as we look at a college list, we will also want to look at realism, right? And so the standard advice is; you build a list with two or three reaches, a couple of what I call "hard fights", where it's gonna be difficult to get in, but not impossible; and then as you get down, you want not safety schools, but schools that are you know, definitely within reach and certainly looking at the statistics is important. But I think also understanding yourself, understanding how you map to a particular school, is critically important in this process. I would say do not put any schools on your list that you just don't want to attend. It's a waste of time. It's a waste of resources and because the Common Application only allows you 20 schools, we want to be selective, right? So we really want to go in, we want to look at schools. "Okay, I would definitely attend this school if I get in". Right? "If this is the only school I get into, I would definitely attend." So as we are building this school list, right, this is kind of something that we want to do back and forth with the counselor, with yourself, with your parents and we're dialing in that list of 20 schools. We're looking at schools that we would be excited to go to and keep in mind, this list generally can change. Now for some of my international students, I know that your school might only let you pick 10 or 15 schools, you have to set that in stone and you cannot change that. But in general, there is flexibility in this school list process and so you're not handcuffing yourself to a school list right now. You're just trying to get a sense of "Okay, where do I think I want to go?" And then, right, the school list is going to be determined too on how your junior year grades come out in the spring. What does that look like? How is our standardized testing coming along? What are our AP results? Right, so if you overachieve on your grades, and you knock your AP exams out of the park, and you're consistently scoring well on your SATs, or ACT, then that can necessarily shift your school list up. Whereas a poor performance may adjust our school list down. So we want to remain flexible, right and not overly committed ourselves and maintain that focus and that open mindedness as we explore schools. Some of you will spend time this summer going out and visiting schools; a great idea if you can. For those who are not able to visit schools; what I've recommended in the past is, try and find analogous schools. So if you are interested in a large school somewhere, go to your local state school and visit and see "oh, hey, this is what a big school feels like", right? And hopefully you're within a couple hour drive. You can make a weekend of it. Maybe go with some friends, maybe go with your parents. Go see what a large school looks like. Go look at a smaller school. Try and sit in on some classes if those are available, because that's going to give you a sense of, maybe not of that specific school, but it gives you an idea of what is it like to be surrounded by buildings and buildings and a large sprawling campus or what is a more intimate campus? What does that feel like? So do your homework. Start to build your school list. Understand that it should be flexible and you will adjust it and move schools up and down in your preference list as the year goes on, as you begin the application process this summer and then as you head into the fall. I wish you good luck on this and look forward to hearing from you about how you're building your school list and questions you may have. Thank you.
