Helping Your Child Choose The Right College

Some parents make the mistake of choosing a college or university for their children – without involving them and, needless to say (I hope), this is not a wise move, because it can lead to:

• Disappointments such as, your child not enjoying their college life
• Depression
• Feeling lost
• Frustration
• Performing poorly
• Resentment (at you)

The good thing is that all of this can be easily avoided simply by ensuring your child is thoroughly engaged in the college selection process.

This article offers a few tips to bear in mind that will help you help your child make the best decision possible.

The Final Decision Is Your Child’s

Whether you like it or not, your child should have the final say in making this decision – because it’s their future at stake, not yours.

While it’s good that you want to help them choose the best college, and they may benefit greatly from your advice, experience, guidance, input, etc., because it demonstrates that you care about them, don’t forget that they are the one who will have to attend that college for several years, so it needs to be a choice they’re happy with.

Hopefully, of course, you and your child will both be content with the selection – but it’s how they feel about it that really matters here.

You May Not Know Your Child Well Enough

Yes, this may be a tough one to accept for many parents, because you have likely known your child their entire life and consider that nobody else knows them as well as you do (which is likely the case) – but that doesn’t necessarily mean you know them well enough to determine which college will be the right one for them.

As stated above, the final decision is not yours, so resist the temptation to try to coerce them into attending the same college that you did.

I know there are cases where children might hear something like, “But all of our family have always gone to XXX college“, but that’s not a good enough reason for forcing that choice on them if it’s not right for your child.

You may want to speak platitudes to them, such as “You’ll love it there” or “It will be good for you“, but you don’t honestly know that.

Just because you enjoyed your time there, or it did you good (however you choose to measure that), does not mean they will have the same experience.

For example, if you attended a college that was big on sports but your child is more of the academic type, they may end up hating it.

Conversely, sending a child to a college that is more academically focused may frustrate a child who loves playing sports.

Remember, many teenagers are in that rebellious stage and they may not tell you everything – about what they do, who their friends are, and how they feel.

Children can change a lot during their teenage years, which is one reason why you may not be as well placed as you think you are to make this choice for them.

All of this means, therefore, that they may have their own reasons for not wanting to go to the college you think is best for them that you are completely unaware of.

Understand The Courses

Since most people attend college with a view to obtaining further education in a subject they either love or think they will find useful (e.g. in a career), it’s crucial that you evaluate the courses and programs offered by the colleges being considered.

This may depend on your child’s true passions (not passing interests).

Some children know from a very early age that they want to do a certain thing, although I suspect this is relatively rare. Others may have a broad range of interests.

Whatever the situation, this will be a key part of choosing the best college – if your child desperately wants to be a marine biologist and has been fascinated (or obsessed, even) with marine life since they were young, then choosing a college that includes one module on sealife probably isn’t going to be the best option.

And at the very least, they will have a good idea about the subjects they did and did not enjoy at school (but remember to separate, if you can, the subject from the teacher, because some subjects may be a lot more enjoyable with a teacher who is better suited to your child’s personality).

This may involve your child creating a comparison chart (with your help if necessary) so that they can see how different colleges stack up.

The first step is clearly to list the factors that matter – subjects, teaching styles, other facilities (e.g. science or language labs, equipment), the professors, religion – and then coming up with a scoring system so that each potential college can be assessed against each of the criteria, thus arriving at an overall score.

And don’t forget that some factors may carry more weight than others, so you need to bear that in mind too. It may be that the choice of subjects (majors and minors) is more important than the professors who will teach those subjects, in which case the former scores might need to be higher than the latter.

Consider Location

The location of the college may be one of the most significant factors in your child’s decision-making process (together with the courses offered, of course).

Some people (both parents and children) prefer that the college is not too far away, making it easier to return home frequently, while others prefer it to be farther away, in order to avoid the temptation to run back home whenever they want or feel the need (since going to college is a vital step in teaching children how to be more self-sufficient).

There is, naturally, no single correct answer to this one – what works well for one family may be entirely wrong for another.

And even within this location question, there are sub-factors, including the cost of getting there and back. For example, is it drivable (at all times of year, because you need to take weather into account too), would it mean your child having to buy their own car (or other vehicle), what would it cost to travel by train or plane.

Another valid concern might be related to the weather – is the college under consideration in an earthquake or hurricane / tornado zone, and if so, are you OK with that?

Discuss Your Child’s Concerns

Choosing a college is a huge decision – probably the biggest one they will have had to make in their young lives – so it’s natural that they will have concerns.

They may or may not voice them, which is why it’s crucial that you try to elicit those concerns from them – in a non-judgemental way, of course.

Common concerns include:

• Having to leave their friends behind (including their boyfriend / girlfriend).
• Worries about being able to make new friends.
• Being too far away from home.
• Being too close to home.
• Not knowing what they want to do with their lives (so how can they choose the most appropriate course / college).

You therefore need to ensure that they consider everything when making their decision, and that you do so in a constructive way.

Doing this will require you to be able to ask questions effectively, so you might like to check out these articles.

The type of questions you might need to ask your child include:

• “Why are you interested in that particular course?“
• “What is it about that college that most excites you?“
• “Why do you prefer this course to that course?“

Why Go To College?

This one may come as a surprise, because in countries such as the USA, it is often simply assumed that all people leaving high school will go on to college afterward – with little to no thought regarding the why.

But the fact is, college is not right for everybody.

The obvious downside, for most people, is the enormous student loan they will be paying back for years, decades even, but there are other reasons why your child might be better off choosing a different path.

This means they need to be clear on why they want to go to college in the first place.

James Altucher has an interesting take on this subject here (and an archive version exists here if the original article is no longer available).

Conclusion

The two key points from all of the above are, to me:

1. Help them to consider all of the necessary factors.
2. Guide them but do not choose for them.

Additional Resources

These are suggestions for those who wish to delve deeper into any of the above:

1. Guide to Colleges