Choosing a college can be a period of great stress. Many young people think their entire future depends on this one decision. You may think – it’s your entire future career, not just the next four years of your life, and a lot of money depends on this decision. Parents, relatives, and friends give advice on which school to choose. Lots of books and magazines publish college rankings and try to convince you that you should choose the one at the top of the list.
In order to reduce the stress of choosing a college, try to adopt the motto, “College is a choice to be made, not a prize to be won.” Finding what’s right for you will take time and thought. The fact that your friends go there, or that an institution has a high ranking, has nothing to do with who you are or what you will be. The most important factor in choosing an institution is whether or not you will be able to learn and grow successfully in it.
TYPES OF INSTITUTIONS
The types of universities in the United States are almost endless, but a brief description of the most common ones may help you choose the one that best suits your needs.
Elite
Public
Humanities
Two-year
Humanities colleges operate on the principle that a college education is about students and faculty working together in an atmosphere of openness and collaboration. Humanities colleges consider it essential to develop the essential skills you need to learn and to nurture your curiosity. If the thought of a lecture hall with 400 students mechanically memorizing material terrifies you, perhaps a liberal arts major is right for you. Some liberal arts colleges have no major, no grades, and no course requirements. Even the more traditional institutions focus on innovation.
Most liberal arts colleges are private institutions, and they tend to be small enough that students and professors know each other by name. For example, the prestigious College of Wooster in Ohio has about 2,000 seats for enrollment. You can expect it to have small classes, a high graduation rate, a representative faculty, and a challenging but interesting and rewarding curriculum.
PUBLIC LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES (LIBERAL ARTS)
Private institutions do not have a monopoly on liberal arts colleges providing a quality education. Institutions such as Sonoma State University in California, Truman State University in Missouri, and St. Ramapo College in New Jersey offer liberal arts education at public school prices. Some public liberal arts institutions, such as St. Mary’s College of Maryland and the College of Charleston, are priced so highly that they attract students from other states willing to pay for their education.
Other liberal arts colleges exist at public universities. This arrangement gives students the benefit of university resources combined with the advantages of smaller liberal arts colleges. A good example of this is, as mentioned, Rutgers College. Students who apply for admission to Rutgers College have access to the same resources as other students at Rutgers University, including student housing, library facilities, and college athletic facilities, but they also have the advantage of smaller groups and greater interaction with faculty and other students. Another good example is Fairhaven College, an interdisciplinary liberal arts college at Western Washington University. In addition to small groups, Fairhaven provides descriptive grades instead of letter grades.