How should I go about choosing the college I want to commit to?
I originally wrote this for Quora and Reddit, but I ended up writing a somewhat long answer, so I decided to share it here on Medium too.
Tips and tools to help you decide which University you should commit to
Hey all! First of all, congrats to all students for getting your university admissions! On to the topic, I’ve getting several messages from many grade 12 (and transfer) students asking me to help them evaluate which University they should commit to, and they’ve found my tips quite useful, so I thought I’d share it with you.
There’s three things I’d recommend doing in order to choose which university you should commit to.
1. Come up with the criteria that you care most about for college and rank your university options accordingly
Sit down with your parents and try to think of 5 factors that are really important to you when it comes to your university.
When I had to choose my university, I made paper flashcards with the name of all the universities I got into and I wrote down 0–3 stars for the following criteria: 1) startups (i.e. does it help me advance in my career?), 2) prestige, 3) International Relations major program, 4) safe location and nice location, and 5) Spark joy? (do I see myself living in that university and telling people I graduated from X?).
Once I scored your universities, I ranked my options from top to bottom and it helped me narrow down my top choices to 3 universities: 1) UC Berkeley, 2) UBC B+MM programme, and 3) UC San Diego.
2. Use AI to compare how much of a good fit are each of your university options with your personality
Link https://fit-bot.streamlit.app
I built the Best-fit Bot a while ago to help students check if a particular university is a good fit for them based on the way they write and talk, and the grade 12 students I’ve been talking to have found it useful for this use case as well, so I’d recommend using it to test out your university options and compare the results.
For optimal results, try to write out a detailed paragraph of 50–100 words and make sure to use personal keywords/slangs that are unique to the way you talk in real life. The more specific you answer the question, the higher the model’s accuracy.
Once you’ve gotten all your results, compare the fit percentage, but more importantly compare the explanations for why each university is a good fit and check how much each college resonates with you.
3. Read student reviews to get a feel for what’s it like to attend that college
Link https://reachbest.co
Validate what you found out in the first 2 steps by reading individual student reviews from each school to make sure your perception matches the real campus experience and also to ensure there are no surprises. Niche and the specific college subreddits great sources of student reviews. If you wanted student reviews categorized by topic (like dating, weather, dorm experience, safety, party scene, etc), then I’d recommend using the database I put together in the Reach Best app.
When reading student reviews, pay particular attention to 1) what’s said multiple times in an individual review, 2) what’s not being said (e.g. some students choose not to talk about the social scene because clubs are toxic and competitive and in other cases because students there are very focused on themselves and there isn’t a lot of social life).
Putting everything together should help you make a confident decision on your university selection.
Hopefully that’s helpful! And, I’m sure you will have a great time whichever university you end up attending. After all,
Thanks for reading this far!
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