It’s All About the Fit, or, Small Colleges for Some Large University for Others

“Truer words were never spoken,” is a line from a very old comic strip entitled “Pogo.” It may seem really crazy to those parents who want their sons and daughters to attend small colleges to get the personal attention they may need or want, to discover that lots and lots of students truly thrive in large universities.

Have you ever interviewed for a new job and everything on paper was just perfect? The salary was good, the location was great, and the responsibilities were just enough of a stretch to challenge you yet still be familiar. On paper, it’s the perfect place. But when you go for the interview, you find that you just don’t connect with any of the people you talked to. Sometimes, we ignore that feeling inside us that says “not the right place for you, Dude.” And usually when we ignore that feeling, we find that we’re wrong and that the feeling was right. The same can be applied to colleges and universities.,

A former Maryland legislator I know is a graduate of the University of Maryland, as is his wife, and two older sons. So when his third and last son was looking at universities, he focused first on the University of Maryland, and really liked it. Still, he followed through with this planned visit to Virginia Tech, and according to my friend, the minute his son walked on campus, he said “This is where I want to go to school.” His son just “knew” this was the school for him, and four years later, he had a degree from Virginia Tech and a big smile on his face.

So to the best of your ability, allow your sons and daughters to make their college or university choice, keeping in mind all the things parents need to think about. There certainly isn’t anything wrong with telling your students that you have a maximum outlay of money each year that you’re willing to contribute. After all, what really matters is the degree your son or daughter earns, not the prestige of the school’s name. (More on that in another post) And there’s nothing so wonderful about going to a school where you and your student have to take on massive amounts to debt just to attend.

No, your student needs to feel that the college or university they are attending was tailor made for them. It’s as though someone took every one of their ideas about a perfect school, such as size, the right major, atmosphere, and campus “feel” and created it just for them. That’s what the campus should feel like.

How do they find that? By doing the basic research on the internet first. It doesn’t take much to search all kinds of databases of colleges and universities to find some that might fit the bill even if you don’t know large versus small. For example, if your son or daughter really wants to pursue forensic science, that already narrows the field considerably. Whereas if they plan to study Biology or Psychology, the field is still pretty much wide open. In addition, most students have an internal sense of how far away from home they want to go, and that distance is usually less than 100 miles, and almost three fourths of college students attend college in their home states. So, that gives you a somewhat defined list of universities your student is likely to choose.

One of the things you can do as a parent is to help your student make responsible decisions about their college or university of choice. If for example, it seems clear to you that one of the reasons they’re looking at a particularly university has more to do with the great campus parties than academics, gently ask them what the four-year graduation rate is. You can even ask that point blank to the admissions officer you’re talking to, or to current students.

If your student really likes a school that doesn’t have their intended major, an Admissions Counselor might tell them that students can “design their own major” at that college or university. Fair enough. The question you might want to ask now is “how many students actually do that in a year?” There’s nothing necessarily wrong with a student-designed major. Most colleges and universities that allow student-designed majors have pretty stringent rules on how that can be done, so the students will have a viable major. On the other hand, many students are simply discouraged by the process itself and just settle for another major that is really second best in their mind.

When your student walks on campus, could they see themselves going to school there? It should fit like a glove. Feel free to ask them the “1 to 10” question. “On a scale of 1 to 10, ten being it was created just for me and 1 being let’s go home now and skip the tour, how does this school feel to you?

Ultimately, when you’ve helped them with the reality check of finances, major, etc., don’t be surprised when one day you walk with them onto a campus, and your son or daughter says immediately: “this is the one.” It’s happened to most of us.