Know Yourself...

Why is self-assessment so important?

So now that you know what to do, it's time for you to take action: get to know yourself! Don't forget that you will be spending the next 4 years of your life in a university. You will want to enjoy those 4 years, not spend them moaning every day, wishing you had found out before hand what you needed to know. You may want to ask your guidance counselor to help you with this task.

Think about what you want out of a college education. Don't feel pressured to answer this question right away because your choice will likely dictate the shape of the college search. But there are certain myths and mistakes that you may want to avoid.

First of all, don't get so fixated on the notion that the more prestigious a school is, the better quality of education it provides. “If I've never heard of a college before, it can't be good, right?”

—Wrong—

In fact, this is one of the worst assumptions you can ever make in the admissions process. This mistake alone will cause you to disregard some of the best schools in the United States without even looking at those schools. Only because you haven't heard of them.

True, a lot of “branded” schools give excellent academic opportunities, but there are also many other smaller less-known schools that produce graduates who end up in promising careers. Kalamazoo and Wabash are probably among the lesser known, or ‘unknown’ schools, yet they are great liberal arts colleges.

Bottom line:

Don't discount a school just because you have never heard of it. I think that the most important thing in sizing yourself up is to keep an open mind. A lot of students are too obsessed with practicality—the thinking that they must go to colleges and study subjects where the jobs are—that they lose the once-in-a-lifetime chance to get a proper education. Going to college is to discover what you really like, not what your parents or society wants you to like.

So that’s it. Be open to ideas when you search for colleges and think about your priorities.