The Path To College: Creating a College List
By: Rishabh Pandey & Hardik Maheshwari
Creating a college list is no easy task and it can be very daunting especially if you don’t have any siblings or parents who have previously applied, with over 5,300 colleges in the United States alone, there are tons of options to choose from.
Don’t worry though, it’s not as bad as you might initially think of it.
While we personally recommend that knowing your major and what you want to do in college/life is a vital part of creating a college list, you don’t need to fully know what you want to do in life to create one. Simply going off of what interests you or potential fields that you want to pursue will be more than enough to create a suitable college list.
Once you find something that really interests you, you want to pick out a suitable major for the said topic. Not choosing a major can also make it harder to form a college list because you can’t tailor your college list and choose the schools best for your major. Of course, not everyone can make such a big decision so early. After all, we are only teenagers and it can be scary to choose what you want to do for the rest of your life. For example, I really like computer software, but I also like working with computer hardware. Now based on this there’s a variety of options that I could choose for potential majors. I could do anything from hardcore computer science to general engineering. It’s important to know that you don’t have to limit yourself to just one major. While applying to different schools it’s perfectly okay, and even beneficial, to apply to different majors of the same topic. If you’re applying to a school that has a competitive program for one of its majors, it might be a better option to apply to a different major so that you have a higher chance of getting in and you still get to study the topics you’re interested in.
Once you’ve decided what subjects and majors you want to pursue in college and further education, you want to start piling in tens of colleges into a list. I recommend creating a sheet to track all of the different options for your said majors and schools.
Once you have about 20–30 schools on your list it’s time to start dividing them up. 20–30 schools is generally on the higher end which means you will have more work in terms of essays, but you will most likely be accepted into more schools. This technique of applying to an insane amount of schools is informally called “shotgunning”. It can be a decision that can pay off in the long run, but it is better to keep your school list shorter than that. Typically you want to have three categories of colleges: reach schools, target schools, and safety schools.
What are Target, Reach, and Safety Schools?
Typically reach schools will be those with sub 15% acceptance rates, target schools will be from 15–40%, and safety schools will have an acceptance rate greater than 40%.
You want to have about 2–3 schools for each category, so that you have your dream schools at the top, schools that you think you can get into in the middle, and plan B schools at the bottom. However, the admission rate does not always determine if the school will be a safety, match, or reach.Different majors have different acceptance rates so it can vary. For example, computer science will generally have a lower admission rate compared to what a Google search result shows you.
Safety schools are schools in which you are almost guaranteed admission because your GPA/SAT exceeds that of the school’s average.
Match schools are schools for which your GPA/SAT matches that of the average freshman. This means your scores and coursework are on par with the undergrads that are admitted to that school.
The last category is reach schools. For these schools your statistics are lower than the typical undergrad of that school or the school is highly selective. For example, even if you have a perfect SAT (1600) and a 4.0 GPA, you are not guaranteed admission at MIT because most students who apply to MIT have perfect statistics.
Financial Aid
A very overlooked part of the application that is overlooked in the Bay Area is cost. Each application can be around 50 dollars with highly selective schools such as Stanford peaking at 90 dollars.
This can get expensive quickly if you apply to many schools. There are fee waivers and scholarships you can apply but you are not guaranteed to get those waivers and scholarships. It is important to keep track of costs because college debt can ruin your life forever and many students have this debt. There are 44.7 million Americans in student loan debt with about 1.71 trillion dollars of student loan debt. These numbers are not to scare you, but to warn you to make financial decisions carefully While making a college list it is important to see what kind of aid the school offers and how readily it offers financial aid.
Typically, schools give more aid to in-state students and it will be more expensive for out-of-state students. It will be the worst for international students because typically the acceptance rates are lower for them and schools are more stingy with giving out aid to an international students. This varies from school to school so it is important to do the research. Even if you can afford the school, make sure you apply to several scholarships because it can really help ease loans or the financial burden off your parents. This can eat up a major portion of your time so it is important to not apply to so many schools that you overwork yourself. You can get financial aid from the school directly or apply to various outside scholarships. These can require essays, GPA, standardized test scores, and extracurricular profile. Scholarships can range from as little as $500 or a full ride. Just because a scholarship doesn’t offer much money do not shy away from it. Any amount helps. For example, a $1000 scholarship can help cover book costs.
While choosing what colleges to apply to, do consider what is required in the application.
Finalizing Your List
Now there are a variety of factors that go into cutting schools out of your list and finalizing it to about 10–12 schools.
These factors are Majors available + program strength, curriculum design(is it open with fewer core requirements or more structured?), structure + size, selectivity, cost, location and weather, religiosity, demographics, clubs and extracurriculars, campus living situation, social life and “personality” of the school, average annual income/debt of a graduating senior, and job opportunities.
While some of these factors are obvious, others aren’t as such. Location and Weather are important to look over as the north/northeastern parts of the US typically have more extreme + snowy winters and weather compared to their southern/southwestern counterparts. Clubs and extracurriculars are also another vital part of one’s college experience as the connections you form during these clubs can greatly benefit you in the professional world. Typically you want to attend a campus that has a career/professional club, sports at the varsity level, theater/art/music involvements, and other clubs which cover religion, outdoor recreation, community service, ethics, and political ideas. Alongside this, you should check if the living situation at the campus is suitable to live in for 4 years.
Social Life and personality can also play a large factor in your decision, as some campuses have an intense emphasis on academic and intellectual pursuits, with a lesser emphasis on social life. By contrast, some schools have a higher emphasis on social life and life outside the classroom, these schools are often labeled as “party schools”. All of these factors are vital parts to deciding which schools to apply to, and which schools to cut from your list. Whether a school meets these criteria is 100% up to your personal taste and values.
Finally the team at Inspirante Education hope this blog helps clear some doubts to the students entering the college admissions cycle 2021–2022 and future cycles as well, and we wish all of you the best of luck!
