4 keys to a more productive, less stressful college search process

4 keys to a more productive, less stressful college search process

The college search process can be fun and exciting. It can teach you a lot about yourself and what’s important to you. But for many high-school students, the college search process feels scary and intimidating.

I love helping high-school students discover great college options. I love helping a student to discover a school they never knew existed that turns out to be a potentially great fit for them.

College Search Process Get StartedIn more than ten years as a college planner, I’ve helped thousands of high-school students and families find their best-fit college options and earn merit aid that makes college more affordable.

Here are 4 keys to making your college search process more productive, less stressful and more fun.

Use your college search process to expand college options and delay making college decisions.

The biggest college search process mistake I see students and families make is waiting too long to start their college search and then rushing to make college decisions. That’s a bad combination, but it happens all the time.

Delay decisions for as long as you can. Most students don’t need to finalize their college choice until late in the spring of their senior year. However, start exploring college options now. When you start your college search process as a freshman, sophomore or early junior year, you build your college knowledge base over time. Students often freeze up and have trouble gaining momentum on their college search process. They think, “I have no idea which college is right for me, and I don’t even know what I want to major in.”

Well, of course not! You haven’t done your homework yet. Take the pressure off. This isn’t about making decisions. It’s about expanding options. Focus less on finding the perfect college and more on finding colleges to which you want to apply. This makes it easier to get started on your college search process and build momentum.

College Search Process OnlineStart your college search process online in just five minutes.

You can start your college search now from wherever you are. Visiting one college website for five minutes is a powerful way to build momentum. Clicking on that first college website takes a dose of courage. Remember, you’re not going to break anything or commit to anything or make a final decision.

Visiting one college website, any college website, is the best place to start because it’s easy and you can do it right now from wherever you are. Type in the name of a college — any college — and spend five minutes looking around. Five minutes is an eternity on the Internet. If you don’t know which college to choose, type in “B-e-m-i-d-j-i-S-t-a-t-e” and check out my alma mater. I’ll give five bucks to the first person who emails or texts me and tells me something about BSU.

By the way, this was the first step to finding college options pre-Covid, and it’s still the first step.

College Search Process Stress FreeMake sure your college search process includes schools that weren’t already on your short list.

Another common misstep I see in the college search process is that students think they need to come up with a list of schools first and then go research them. This is backwards. It often leads to overlooking college options that could be a great fit for you, simply because you aren’t already familiar with them.

Here’s something I love to hear from the students we work with: “I had no idea that College XYZ even existed, but I’m so glad I found it, because it would be a great college fit for me.”

There are literally thousands of college options in the US alone, which I realize may be daunting. Don’t worry. I’m not asking you to look into ALL of them or even MOST of them. The point is, with so many options and since college is an investment of six figures and ffour years of your life, why wouldn’t you expand your college search process beyond what’s already familiar to you? Imagine the fun you can have imagining different possibilities while making your final college decision more complete and well-informed!

There are many ways to find great college options you’ve never heard of. Here are a few:

  • Talk to people you know, like older friends, cousins, your parents, aunts, uncles, or their friends. Ask them where they went to school and why, what they liked about it and what they studied. You might find a gold nugget or two that are worth exploring.
  • Use Google to search things like, “best colleges for nursing” or “colleges near mountains” or “best colleges for business majors”
  • Visit free college resource websites, like College Data and start poking around
  • Engage the help of a college planning expert. We specialize in helping students unearth great college options. Schedule a free consult to learn more about our college search process.

College Search Process College Planning ExpertsVisit colleges early and often during your college search process.

The campus visit is the most powerful tool in your college search, even as the availability of onsite campus visits has decreased. This is where we need to push harder to not let Covid derail our plans.

One of the biggest hurdles families face right now is the relative lack of in-person campus visits. “I really need to see the campus to know if it’s right.” No, you don’t, at least not initially. You can get 83% of what you think you need from the myriad virtual visit options campuses now offer:

  • Virtual tours in real-time where you can ask questions.
  • Info sessions hosted by current students in your potential major.
  • Live chat features staffed by salaried admissions officers, not bots.
  • Phone calls and email exchanges with admissions reps, faculty and students.

Virtual college visits are incredibly helpful. Learn how to do them well in this video tutorial which only takes 20 minutes to watch. When you want to learn more and become a campus visit pro like me, download my Campus Visit How-To-Handbook.

Engage the help of a professional college planner.

I hope these four keys to your college search process help you get started and gain momentum, but you don’t have to go it alone. Every year, we help hundreds of high-school students and families navigate an easy, low-stress path to the college options that are best for them. To learn more, schedule a free consult online today.

Teens Can Use LinkedIn To Find Careers and Colleges

Teens Can Use LinkedIn To Find Careers and Colleges

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Keep reading if you want to learn how high school students can use LinkedIn for career and college research. If you’re a video/visual learner, get our free training video. We created an entire 30-minute training video that hows you how to unlock the power of LinkedIn for your college and career research, and we’d LOVE to send it to you. Click here to download this FREE training video!

Hey high-school students! Did you know that the minimum age for having a LinkedIn account is just 16? Many high schools now teach students how to use of LinkedIn for networking. I think that’s brilliant. LinkedIn offers tips for high-school students wanting to set up a LinkedIn account for networking. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/linkedin-tips-high-school-students-judy-schramm/ It’s pretty helpful. Check it out.

However, what’s incredibly cool is how LinkedIn can be a high-school student’s powerful research tool to find colleges and careers. Teens can tap into the power of LinkedIn to find potential careers and colleges that may interest you.

Teens Linked In College Career Research ToolToday, I’m talking to the high-school student (or parent of a student) who has no earthly clue what they want to major in at college. What’s worse is the fact that this cluelessness is holding up their entire college search. Many teens think that before they start looking at schools, they have to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives. False! (Thank you, Dwight Schrute).

You do NOT need to choose a major before you go to college. Many students head to college believing that they’ll figure it out along the way, and most of them do. Even your friends who sound incredibly sure of themselves about what they want to do with the rest of their lives will likely change their mind.

Use LinkedIn as a research tool to find interesting careers and colleges.

First step for high school students is to set up a LinkedIn account.

Linked In For Teens College and Career ResearchHead on over to LinkedIn and follow the steps to create your account. You can choose to add information to your profile right away, or stick to the bare minimum for now. You can always update your profile later.

Next, teens can tap into LinkedIn for career research.

LinkedIn is a gigantic search engine you can use to research companies, jobs they offer, the people who work for those companies and even the career paths of those employees! Imagine how powerful this insight could be when considering your own career and educational path.

As one example, I used the Search tool at the top of the LinkedIn homepage to search a company I’ve always admired: Adidas. Once I landed on Adidas’ company profile page, I scrolled down and took note of what I could learn there:

  • Holy cow! Is that gorgeous, super cool building their office?
  • Wow, they just launched a new Brand Center in Beijing!
  • Hey, cool article about the legendary Stan Smith
  • Under their About section, I learned that they have 60K employees worldwide and could view their company locations on a global map.

LinkedIn For High School Students SearchHigh school students can learn what types of jobs exist by using the Jobs section of LinkedIn.

Sticking with my Adidas search, I clicked on the Jobs tab of their company profile. I found some really interesting titles, like this. At this point, I have no idea what some of these words even mean, but if there’s one that piqued my interest, I clicked on the job and could read the job description, which gave me a really good sense of whether or not that’s a job I’d enjoy.

For example, I clicked on a job posting for a “Copywriter Digital Creative” because I like writing, and I like being creative. I had to wade through a bunch of words I barely understood, but I did learn some things that this job would entail, the types of titles a copywriter would work with, AND I learned under “Requirements” that they’d be looking for someone who’d majored in something related to Writing, Creative Writing, Communications or “Other Media”. Hmmmmm….super helpful.

Narrow your job search by using keywords to zero in on topics of interest.

LinkedIn For High School Students JobsMaybe it sounds too time-consuming to navigate to job postings by starting with a company search. No problem! You can access the Jobs section of LinkedIn from the homepage and narrow your search by entering keywords into the search tool. Maybe you have a family friend who has a career in Marketing, and you think that sounds interesting. Type “marketing” into the search tool and choose any location that sounds intriguing. You’ll be amazed how much you’ll learn about the types of jobs, titles and careers that exist within your broad field of interest.

Dig deeper by looking at People profiles.

Once you find a job title that really interests you, go back to the homepage. Use the search tool to type in the title you’d like to know more about. I typed in VP Marketing to see what people have that job title. I then clicked on a profile for someone who is a VP of Marketing at a company I think is super cool: Google.

Once I was on his profile page, I could scroll down and see not only information about the job he currently has, but also what he’d done before that. This is called his “career path”. This is important because while my goal may be to one day be a Vice President of Marketing, I need to understand the jobs and steps that come before that. I was even able to see where this person attended college and what he majored in!

High-school students keep digging, keep exploring to find potential careers and colleges using LinkedIn.

LinkedIn For High School Students PeopleOne profile won’t tell you everything you need to know. You’ll need to keep exploring to confirm your findings, expand your understanding and identify options for both colleges and careers that you should check out.

I guarantee that reallocating some of your scroll time to LinkedIn from Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube will help you identify some outstanding options for career categories and colleges that should be on your list for consideration.

Get our free LinkedIn Training Video!

We created an entire 30-minute training video that goes into detail about how you can unlock the power of LinkedIn for your college and career research, and we’d LOVE to send it to you. Email us to let us know you’re interested, and we’ll send it your way!

6 Great (and Free!) College Websites Plus Tips for Better College Research

6 Great (and Free!) College Websites Plus Tips for Better College Research

When it comes to researching colleges online, a word of caution. Much of what you find when you start typing words into Google is going to be junk, which isn’t exactly news to you. Instead of Googling “best colleges for future doctors” or “occupational therapy majors,” start with the best resources for information on colleges. These are the tools I use as a professional college planner for my first-step, basic research. Some are better than others for specific search functions, so plug in some criteria and test them out. Use the tools that you like best.

College Search Better College Research6 Great College Information Websites

  1. http://www.petersons.com
  2. https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org
  3. http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/
  4. http://nces.ed.gov
  5. http://www.collegedata.com
  6. http://www.ucan-network.org

Whenever I turn to a website such as these, I always take the results with a grain of salt and use them only as a starting point. If you find that College X has biochemical engineering, go directly to their website and do more digging to confirm the initial results, and then make contact with someone at the school who can tell you more and answer some questions.

Get Better College Information By Going Beyond Online Research

After you’ve done your research online, including spending significant amounts of time on the college websites for the schools that interest you most, you need to make contact with the schools that interest you. Yes, this means picking up that 50-pound phone and calling someone you don’t know who is probably older than 30 and asking good questions. This is the first step in an ongoing dialogue between you, the prospective student and family, and the college.

Better College Search PhoneBefore you pick up the phone or fire off an email, consider these guidelines for effective college search dialogue.

  1. Find the right person to ask.
    If you have questions about the college in general, ask admissions. If your questions are specifically about majors or programs, find a professor or administrative professional within the department, such as program coordinators. When applying to grad programs in the early 1990′s (read: largely pre-internet) I found myself communicating much more frequently and with greater success with administrative assistants than professors. They were easy to reach because they sit next to a phone, and they knew all the details about how to apply, deadlines, requirements, etc.
  2. Don’t ask for answers that are readily available on the website.
    If what you’re looking for doesn’t jump out at you, ask another family member to search for it, or use the search box that is usually in the upper right-hand corner of each page. It’s a sign of laziness to ask, “How many students do you have at your college?” It also sends the message that you can’t find answers on your own. If you legitimately can’t find basic data, then by all means ask.
  3. Keep your queries brief and professional.
    Whether you’re 17 or 47, a well-written email with a succinct introductory sentence and closing statement works best. A variation on the email template here always works well.
    Hello [salutation if available]
    My name is _____ and I’m a sophomore/junior at [high school] in [town and state]. I’m very interested in [name of college] and specifically in your [major or department]. I have three questions I’d like to ask:

    1. How many of the students in your [academic program] enter the workforce immediately vs. going on to graduate school?
    2. What sets [college]’s [major] apart?
    3. What new classes or facilities could I expect to see if I enroll?

Thank you for your time and attention to these questions. Sincerely,

You may not get an immediate response, but you will get a response. If you don’t try someone else, or call to see if that person is traveling or on leave from the university.

4. Treat this as the first step in a larger conversation.
My rule of thumb is to never ask more than three questions in a single email. Don’t deluge the person with so many questions that she can’t respond in a timely manner. When you receive a response, it’s likely to include a “please let me know if you have more questions”, and while you don’t want to take advantage of that person’s time, you should take her at her word. Thank her for her time and send a follow-up question if you have one.

College Search Better College Research 2Between diligent online and offline research, you’ll be well on your way to identifying some colleges that could be great fits for you. For help defining the University of You and exploring great college options based on your unique needs, goals and passions, email me about our College Search services or schedule a free consult here. This is my life and my passion to help students find their best college fit!

Surprising Sophomore Lessons on the Power of College Campus Visits

Surprising Sophomore Lessons on the Power of College Campus Visits

Visit college campuses often. And visit early. If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it 1000 times. Freshmen and sophomores? Do you think it’s too early to visit college campuses? Surprise! It’s not! But don’t take our word for it.

Minnesota sophomore Claire Ficek can tell you all about the benefit of visiting college campuses early. Even before Claire decided to spend her sophomore spring break touring college campuses with her family, we knew she was smart. Claire lives in a suburb of the Twin Cities where she loves riding horses, attending and watching sports events and serving others through mission trips and local service efforts.

Student stories are so important! Claire said it best, “When you hear it from another student, you can really trust what they’re saying.” Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, Claire. Here’s our Q&A with Claire about her college campus visit experience over sophomore spring break this year.

How did college campus visits change your definition of your ideal college experience?

sophomore college campus visits

Stuff gets real when you see your name on the Visitor Tag!

Claire: Before I visited, I thought maybe I wanted a huge, public university. I thought I wanted a really big school with challenging classes, down in the South. I thought I needed a lot of sports and a lot of things happening around campus.

Now my definition of an ideal college experience is more focused, and it’s different than what I thought.

I visited all these big universities, and I don’t think I could call those places home. I learned how important it is to me to choose a Christian school, because that’s really important to me. So now my ideal college experience is that I want a small-medium-sized, private Christian college with hard classes, down in the South. Having a lot of sports still matters, but it’s on my want (not need) list. I love high school activities and sports, but I don’t know if I could do something like a Tennessee. Definitely I saw an example of what I want at Liberty. They’re building a brand new business school, and I think I want to major in something business or marketing-related. And because I’m considering a minor in Spanish and want to study abroad, that’s a big consideration, too.

How did you decide which schools to include in your college campus visits?

Claire: For some, it was word of mouth or watching college sports and getting curious about those schools. A couple were recommended to us once friends heard we were visiting over spring break. Some we added because they were close to schools we’d already chosen. And I have a couple of friends going to a couple of the colleges we visited.

Were you anxious about visiting colleges?

Claire: At first I was kind of nervous, especially as a sophomore. When I was on the college tours, they’d ask, “How many seniors are here? How many juniors are here?” They usually didn’t even ask about freshmen or sophomores. I also got nervous when I started to feel like the college that we were touring wasn’t the right fit. Like, “What am I doing here?” When I got nervous, I just turned to my dad and said, “I’m not sure this is the right fit.” My Dad said, “We’re just here to get information and learn. Just take notes. It’s fine.” It’s not like we were there to make a final decision or commit to anything. When I remembered that, I was fine.

One of the best parts was talking to students. That was great. Adults all pretty much say the same thing, “We’re an awesome school.” But I really believed what the students told me when I talked to them.

What types of questions did you ask the students?

Claire: I asked what they were majoring in. Things they liked about the college. Where they were from. How they chose the college. Where else they applied. I learned that these are just college kids that are figuring it out along the way. And just a few years ago, they were right where I am now. That was a relief. They were really nice, and seemed eager to answer my questions. It’s not until you get to talk to the students that you really have a good idea of what it’s like to go to school there. What you learn from the students helps you differentiate one school from another.

sophomore year college campus visits

Another day, another campus. Duke was beautiful!

When we were visiting Kentucky, we were at a restaurant close to campus. We asked a college sophomore sitting next to us where she was from and what it was like here. Turns out she was from Wisconsin. She admitted that on a big campus, she had trouble finding her way at first, but it wasn’t as bad as she thought it was going to be. It was good to get her input.

At Liberty, students talked about how much they’ve grown in their faith. That’s what I needed to hear, because that’s really important to me. The Liberty students said that their professors are there for them. Liberty is now my first choice, after visiting all the colleges we did.

What about the schools you didn’t like? Were those visits still valuable?

Claire: Yes! Even though I didn’t love every school we saw, it was good to visit both schools I liked and schools I didn’t like. I got to see a mix of large university and small, faith-based colleges.

What type of planning did you do before you started your college campus tours?

college campus visit planningClaire: I’m a planner, so yeah, we had it all planned out. My dad made a spreadsheet of all the colleges on the southeast coast. A couple of them I was dying to look at just for fun. We did online research about things like majors, cost, size and other facts about the schools. I then picked my top eight that I wanted to see on this trip. Then we mapped it out using Google maps and Google docs to plan the trip. Then we called the schools in advance or went online to register for campus tours there. It was actually fun and pretty easy.

What advantage is there to seeing a lot of colleges in a short amount of time?

duke college campus visitsClaire: The good thing was, my focus was on college at that time. We had nothing else going on. No distractions. We could just focus on each school. And then right after that touring the college, we’d write notes and compare it to the last one while we were on the drive. With it all happening in the same week, we could compare them and remember. It’s easy to forget if you don’t take notes.

I used a notebook and made pro/con list of every college while touring. My parents and I would debrief during the drive to the next place. I was able to pick up on things my parents noticed that I didn’t notice. Comparing notes was really important.

So now that you’ve done some college campus visits, are your next college planning steps clear?

Claire: Definitely. I’m going to contact my friends who’ve already gone to college and interview them. I’m also doing a lot of online research for private Christian colleges in the South.

What’s your advice to freshmen and sophomores about college campus visits?

My brother Charlie and me. He and my sister Kate are great sports!

Claire: Start small. Just jump online and look at some colleges you might want to visit. Brainstorming is actually really fun. You could even just go visit a random college that’s close by. (That’s what we did back in December.) See what you like, what you don’t like. I have heard friends who are seniors this year say they didn’t know where they’re going yet two months before graduation. I don’t want to be in that position. I’m a planner, so not knowing in the middle of my senior year would add way too much stress for me.

Also, if you start early, you’re a freshman or sophomore and you can still change the classes you’re taking based on what you learn on your visits. For instance, I learned some things about college foreign language requirements that I didn’t know before we visited.

And remember that the schools definitely want you there. They want you to come visit. The college wants anyone and everyone there to visit because they want you, they want new people in the door. Don’t be nervous. Take your time. If you start early, then you have time. If you start late, then you’re in a time crunch. If you do the behind the scenes work first, then you’ve got three years to do it all on your timeline.

Great advice, Claire. Thanks for sharing your college campus visit experience!

Freshman and sophomores, you can download our free Campus Visit Bullet Journal here. Or schedule a free consult any time to talk about your next steps for college planning.

Liberal Arts Colleges Explained and Thoughts on College Fit

Liberal Arts Colleges Explained and Thoughts on College Fit

Image of Colorado College, a liberal arts college

Are you conducting your college search to find the right fit? Recently, US News and World Report ran an article by a reporter named Josh Moody with helpful insights on liberal arts colleges. Read the article here. Below, I offer my perspective on the article, liberal arts colleges and types of colleges in general when it comes to your college search and finding the right fit for you.

Moody’s article is honestly one of the best I’ve read regarding liberal arts colleges and what they are, because it doesn’t pit liberal arts colleges (LACs) against big, public research universities in an either/or format. People should think of different types of higher education institutions in terms of a spectrum of choices that offer varying advantages and trade-offs.

I love the quote in the article from Jill Tiefenthaler, president of Colorado College (a liberal arts college), “I strongly believe that a student can get a great education anywhere if they are focused and mature and willing to really put in the effort. In the end, what you get out of your education probably depends more on you than the school that you go to.” In other words, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Let’s never forget the individual responsibility of the student in ultimately determining the quality of their education and what they do with the knowledge they’ve earned once they graduate.

The liberal arts education versus vocational education debate has been hot for the last few years as college costs have gone up, because consumers want to know “Will I get a job? What’s the ROI?” Those are fair questions. Liberal arts colleges point to places like Epic Systems that hire smart kids no matter what the degree, and there’s a lot to be said for that. But if you want to be an engineer or nurse, you can’t do those jobs with a broad understanding of many different subjects. You need technical proficiency. So one type of college versus another isn’t categorically right or wrong. It’s just a better or worse fit based on what you want your college experience to do for you.

Where I believe LACs overplay their hand is by claiming that “we teach you how to THINK CRITICALLY instead of just getting a job.” Implication? You can’t gain those skills elsewhere. Come on. My brother-in-law is a mechanical engineer. Do you honestly think that his mechanical engineering courses at Iowa State University didn’t teach him to think critically?

Why all the defensiveness among institutions of higher education? “This vs. that” debates ignore the uniqueness of one student’s college decisions based on the single, most important college planning factor: To what ends is college a means FOR YOU? As I tell students during my College Search work with them, “Get your #1 thing firmly in your mind, your college non-negotiable, and hold all possibilities up to that lens to find your best fit.” In other words, ask yourself, “If I get nothing else from my college investment of time and money, what’s the one thing I must get out of this?” Answering this question will improve your college search and help you find the right fit more easily.

We have designed a University of You discovery process dedicated to helping students identify their number-one college search criteria, as well as gain clarity about what type of student they are, where their passions lie, what their goals are and where they’ll best thrive. Ultimately, we use our process to assist students and families with their college search and help them find the right fit. To learn more, schedule a free consult anytime to talk about College Search. In fact, we wrote a blog post recently on the topic of what college search help is and how to tell if you need it.

There’s a quote from the article that I love, “This is a process that really starts with self-reflection and self-discovery.” I wholeheartedly agree.

If you’re a high school sophomore or junior embarking on your college planning process, I’d love to talk with you about your college search and how we might be able to help you find your best fit. I invite you to schedule a free consultation to learn more about our College Search services.