 |
|
| Excerpts
from: College Match: A Blueprint for Choosing the Best School for You! 9th Edition Myths About Choosing a College For some reason the college admission process seems to be a breeding ground for inaccurate perceptions and faulty statements. Students and families often hear comments that are made with the best intentions but which often totally lack any basis in fact. Here are ten myths about the college selection process: 1. "Colleges are either bad or good". Nonsense. Academic quality is not easily assessed and, while it is true that some colleges are better known than others, it is not true that a small few are good and the rest are bad. 2. "Future employers and graduate schools give an edge to those who have degrees from prestigious universities." Not necessarily. Students who have matched themselves to colleges within which they have the potential to make good grades and contribute to campus life are highly sought by company recruiters, graduate schools and professional schools upon graduation. 3. "Colleges always choose the 'best' students." Nope, it's not true. The decisions of Admission counselors are human and, hence, open to interpretation. 4. "Schools that cost more are of a higher quality." Why would this be true? That one college costs double or triple what another school costs says a lot about the size of its state subsidies and its endowment, very little about quality and nothing about whether it fits you! 5. "The more rigorous the admission standards, the higher the quality of education." The relationship is tenuous at best. The quality of education is often not directly related to admission standards. Many superior colleges do not have particularly difficult admission standards. 6. "Cost is really important in determining where I go to college, so I will have to attend a local school." Again, not necessarily. Millions of dollars are given to students and families annually to help defray-or in some cases completely pay for-a college education. 7. "Test scores are the most important criterion in college admission." Not true. Colleges, now more than ever, are using a wide variety of criteria in choosing students, and these are discussed in Chapter 7. 8. "There is only one perfect college for me." Perfect colleges rarely exist. All colleges have good and bad points, and vary in their attractiveness for any individual student. 9. "I'm a failure if I don't get in to College X." It is hard to convince students that this way of thinking is not accurate, but it is not. There are many reasons why students are not accepted to a particular college. 10. "Some secret strategy can get me admitted to college." No way. No strategy-secret or open-automatically unlocks the admission door. Read College Match and come
out a winner in the college selection game.
Site design by: Michelangelo.COM |
|
