9 Things to Ignore on College Visits

Hey, guys! It’s Eric at Solution Prep and today I want to talk to you about things that really don’t matter on a college visit. I have visited hundreds of colleges, and there are things I hear all the time, and I just kind of roll my eyes because I understand the context and I want to give that to you as well.

One thing I never care about is the percent of students getting financial aid, and the reason for that is that colleges consider loans to be financial aid. Everyone who fills out the FAFSA gets offered loans. So when they say a percent of students are getting aid, they just mean a percent of students are getting some combination of maybe some scholarships, but in very many cases loans as well. Which really doesn’t help.

Secondly, in the same breath as they tell you that percent they then shift the terminology to “and we spend this many millions of dollars on creating scholarships”, and that number doesn’t matter to me either; because when I take it and divide it by the total number of students at their college it winds up being pretty small and the fact is that some students get a lot of money and some students get nothing. And how many dollars they give out is not any idea of how many dollars you’re going to get. For more information on that, you can look at things like collegescorecard.ed.gov where you can compare how many dollars the average student pays at this college versus other colleges on your list. That’s a lot more telling.

Another, is the percentage of students who are employed within 6 or 12 months of graduating from college. There are so many asterisks on that statistic — they say employed, or enrolled in graduate studies, or volunteering, or enlisted in the military, or involved in research — there’s so many ors on there and what they don’t even tell you is that they hire a lot those graduating students to juice that number. So it’s always going to be high and you should not be impressed by it.

They will also try to tell you here are some employers who’ve employed our students. I mean, yeah, in the history of ever I’m sure they have. And when folks say, “hey, our students want to work at Amazon!”; anybody who wants to work in a warehouse can work at Amazon. That is not an impressive thing. Likewise, when they try to give you some anecdote about one student, one time who made some amazing contribution or connected with some alumnus who gave him a job. I mean, if it was all the time they would have a lot more than just that one story.

Another thing I want to talk about is when you see the safety on campus. Safety is very important on campus, and it is good to know what they have to offer. But they all brag about their blue light system which is great but, hey, nothing different from any other college. Every tour I’ve ever been on, the tour guide said, “I’ve never felt unsafe on campus.” Well, they all say the same thing, and we know that in some campuses students are more and less safe. So do that research for yourself and don’t just rely on them saying, “It’s great here!”

Another thing that’s important to consider and contextualize is study abroad. So many schools want to say we can study abroad — we have this many options, we have that many options . If a college says if you’re in this program you’re required to study abroad — okay, that’s an important thing to know. But do they have 5 or 100 — I mean you’re only going to go on one. I’m sure if they have five, one of them is going to be up your alley anyway. The point of going to that college is not to go somewhere else — it’s to go there. Certainly, If you want to study abroad, do it. But don’t be impressed by how many study abroad options there necessarily are unless they’re specific to your major.

Another thing I hear so much about — they will say we have over 100, 200, 450 student clubs. Whatever that number is, they make it sound so big and they even give you an example of some wacky club that almost always involves cheese for some reason. Like, bad movies and good cheese, or whatever the heck they want to call it. They’ll always add the caveat, and if we don’t have a club for you, you can create it. Of course. Every college offers this, this does not differentiate one college from the next.

Another thing that’s important to kind of ignore is when they tell you we have students from this many states, students from that many countries; and yes, you do want to have a diverse student body, and yes, you do want to step out of your comfort zone, and meet students from all walks of life, from all backgrounds. A more telling statistic is the percent of students who come from instate or the most commonly represented states versus come from out of state. I don’t care that there’s one student at this college from South Dakota. I care that 70% of all students come from within a 50 mile radius, and I’m basically going to get a towny experience. That’s the kind of stuff that I really want to understand.

One more thing I want to talk to you guys about is about the chains. Yes, they’ve got a Starbucks, or a Dunkin’, or a Chick-fil-A, or a Taco Bell, or whatever you’re used to seeing around home but didn’t you go to college to go somewhere else, to experience something else? And not just to get the same chain you can get anywhere in the country.

So yes, visit colleges; yes, learn about them; yes, take great notes, but don’t be impressed by things that don’t differentiate colleges, or can skew your perception based on statistics.

If you have questions, call us at 732-556-8220. We are here to help.