The Best Sources for College Information

I wanted to provide some insight into how I process the wealth of information about each particular college to make it manageable, accurate, and most importantly, relevant to my application process.

1. Website - When I first hear about a college by word of mouth or maybe a glace through a ranking or viewbook, my first step is to stop at the college's website. This seems like the logical step, but college websites are often unbelievably convoluted and generally uninformative. Liberal arts colleges especially end up advertising the benefits of a liberal arts education, rather than an education from a particular college. The website visit thus allows for a general gist of what the school has to offer you academically and socially. One thing to take note of is what the colleges choose to occupy the space on their websites. Pay attention to what the college is really advertising - this is what the school prioritizes, even though they will all claim a "holistic undergraduate experience". Such categories to take note of are school spirit, academic rigor, and most popularly a great residential environment (most ivy league schools).

2. View Book - I must first confess, I am a complete sucker for flattery mail sent out by colleges. As soon as I have established a serious interest in a college, I fill out the form on their website to request information. This serves two purposes. First, the content of view books is some of the best information you will get about a school, from student perspectives to admissions preferences, this is the colleges time and place to brag about what makes them unique. Look at a view book the same way as you view a website. Interact with it, read the entire thing, and note what the college chooses to emphasize to see if those things are fitting with your priorities in a college. Second, you will also be added to that school's list of applicants who have "demonstrated interest". This is seen as a way of expressing interest (and thus likelihood to enroll if admitted) a little under the influence of a campus visit, but still seen as a positive initiation of communication between applicant and college.

3. Look the school up in a comprehensive guide - I have used a variety of guide books, but I keep coming back to the same few books because they have truly outstanding and experienced perspectives on schools that parents and students couldn't possibly have gleaned from a view book or even a campus visit or information session. The guide to start with is undoubtedly "Fiske's Guide to the Colleges", a very comprehensive and easy to read guide book that really emphasizes the intangibles of a school, what you might call a school's personality. This is a great opportunity to cross reference what the guidebook says from professional experience with what you thought about the school from exposure to their marketing - perhaps you were sucked in by those autumn campus still shots in the view book. A College Prowler is also a must to capture the overall experience of a college. Skipping the insignificant sections like safety, security, on and off campus housing, computers, etc. and focusing on the meaty sections like academics, local atmosphere, and guys and girls, they take a maximum of twenty minutes to read - an efficient use of time.

4. After you have been interested for a school for a few weeks or months, it's time to get serious about comparing your top choices. Check out the college's yearly course handbook from your guidance office and compare the types of classes offered for the program of interest to you. The types of courses offered speak boldly about what a college values. As a prospective anthropology major myself, I see a lot of schools offering only traditional courses such as Social Anthropology, Urban Anthropology, Social Theory of the Individual, which reflects upon that school valuing a more traditional liberal arts education. More progressive schools might offer courses like The Anthropology of Star Wars, Consumerism in Society, or even The Anthropology of Tattoos. Such specialization is key in selecting both an academic program and a comprehensive atmosphere that is fitting with your interests. To further your understanding of a school's academic reputation and offerings, begin to look at the specific department that houses your prospective majors (always more than one program - you will probably change your mind between the time you apply and enroll)and decide what they emphasize through major requirements. The guide book "Choosing the Right College" published biannually by the ISI organization, though terribly elitist and demanding of schools (upholding that a school is essentially worthless if it doesn't require a core curriculum), offers a lot of insight into how the school is doing financially, what resources it has to offer, what departments emphasize, how responsive the administration is, and the general campus atmosphere encompassing the political views and student awareness on campus.

Always remember - it is a process and your opinion of a school at a given time is completely relative to which source you have seen last or what mood you are in. I keep a journal of my interest in schools so that I can compare how I feel currently with how I felt a few months ago. This method has kept me from "obsessing" over certain schools for short periods of time, and has allowed me to find the schools that I consistently recognize as top choices to help establish what I really value in a college for the long term.