It wasn’t great.

From nearly the moment I got to campus I hated it. The largest problem was that I did not fit with the school’s culture. Not at all.

Another problem was I hated how huge this school was. I came from a small high school. There were about 150 people in my graduating class. I hated how far it was from my dorm to some of my classes. I hated how some of my classes had hundreds of people. I hated how I felt basically anonymous in a huge crowd of students. I was miserable nearly the entire time that I was there. I was the most depressed I have ever been in my life. I was counting down the days until I got to leave.

I knew I had to transfer very quickly. There was no way I would last 4 years at this place. When I was trying to decide where I wanted to transfer to, I knew that I wanted the opposite experience of my first college. 

I decided to look at a liberal arts school that I had never really considered when I was still in high school. It was ranked too low and wasn’t prestigious. If you’re not from the state it’s located in, you’ve probably never heard of it. The acceptance rate for my school is 65%. The average ACT score is 20. But despite my reservations, I decided to transfer.

I don’t regret it at all.

I love going to school here. It has everything that I could want a college to offer me as a student. My school is really small – only about 1,200 students, which means you get to know everyone really well. At this point, basically everyone in my classes are people I have had numerous classes with before. I have taken multiple classes with fewer than ten students. The largest one I have ever taken had 30. Also, because it’s so small, everything on campus is close to everything else. You don’t need to take buses to get to classes. Heck, you don’t even need a bike. You can get to anywhere else on campus with plenty of time to spare just by walking.

Initially, when I saw how it was ranked, I was worried about the quality of the academics. As it turns out, that was not something I needed to worry about. I have learned so much here. My professors have all been really knowledgeable and passionate about helping students learn.

Going to a less-selective, obscure school has not stopped me from being successful. After graduation I was constantly getting hit up by recruiters from all sorts of companies, and I interviewed with quite a few places. None of them cared that I went to a less well-known school. It could not have made less of a difference to them. What they cared about was the skills I had and the things I had managed to do while in college.

I’ve had two different internships, one with a Fortune 500 company and another with one of the top firms in their field. Both of them wanted to hire me, but I turned them both down because I got another job offer I liked better.

I am here to tell you that you can be successful no matter where you go to college. What’s most important about your college is what you do while you are there, and it’s so much easier to accomplish a lot when you actually like where you go to school. Not only have I gotten stellar grades, but I have also made great connections both with my professors and my fellow students, gained professional experience through my internships, and I have gotten involved in organizations that I am passionate about and that help make my community better.

So what’s the point of this whole post?

My point is to not get too hung up on the rankings. Stop and think about where you would actually like to attend college. As you weigh your options, think about what it would be like to go to each school that accepted you. That’s something I never did when I was in high school. 

And keep an open mind. Four years ago I never would have expected myself to end up where I am. I had my whole college journey planned out, but then it got upended. That’s life. Don’t beat yourself up if everything doesn’t go according to your plans. You’re still going to do great things.

This post originally appeared in the subreddit ApplyingToCollege by the user w007dchuck. It has been lightly edited, confirmed, and used by permission and with gratitude by Challenge Success. 

The post Don’t Worry About The Rankings appeared first on Challenge Success.

• What are the three most important qualities to your COMMUNITY when looking for a college or university for your child?
• What are the three most important qualities to YOU when looking for a college or university for your child

From data collected between Fall 2019 and Winter 2020:

68% of parents said “Ranking in the US News & World Report” is one of the top three most important qualities to their community while only 33% said this is one of the top three most important qualities to them. 

55% of parents said “Whether a college is in the Ivy League” is one of the top three most important qualities to their community while only 16% said this is one of the top three most important qualities to them. 

So, what does this mean?

Many parents perceive that their community values extrinsic markers like rankings and elite brand names even if they do not. We urge families to deeply consider what matters to them and not allow external competitive pressures to limit the exploration of the ‘right fit’ college. Engage your children in open discussions about what they want out of their college experience and what criteria are important to them. Remember that success is rarely a straight line and embrace the squiggly paths that most students take on their road to self-discovery.

The post Honor Your Family’s Values | What Matters in College Admissions appeared first on Challenge Success.

As a private college counselor, this was not the first time I’d had to answer this question. Nor, of course, would it be the last. 

For increasingly many students, the process of applying to college is one defined by stress, anxiety, and, ultimately, letdown. To chase ever-plummeting college acceptance rates, students must persist in a culture fixated on superficial numbers: the decimal point on a GPA, class ranking, SAT score—and, finally, the acceptance rate of the college they ultimately attend. You don’t have to look very hard to find institutional voices chiming in, echoing this fearful logic: If you don’t get into a “top” school, you’ve somehow failed. 

This is what, in my work as a counselor, I have come to call the “Prestige Trap.” It is the deep, ingrained assumption among students that the prestige of their chosen college is somehow interchangeable with their value as a human being. 

In today’s society, the emphasis is too often on prestige. Students and parents alike treat high school as merely a prelude to college admissions, prioritizing performance over daily wellbeing. A student once commented, “I wish my parents understood how wrong it is that students often have to literally choose between getting all their assignments done and their health, and when they choose the latter, they get penalized.” This mindset leads to an academic culture that, from AP mania to SAT perfectionism, demands levels of achievement from students that lead to sleep deprivation, burnout, and depression. All this is based upon the premise that a prestigious college will bring greater happiness, wellbeing, and life satisfaction. 

But does it? We wanted to know, so we read dozens of articles and studies that discussed the correlations between college choice and income, happiness, and job placement. We collected the testimonies of friends and former classmates, interviewing them about their college experiences, their current job prospects, and about what they would have done differently. 

As it turns out, the happiest students were not necessarily those who attended the most prestigious college. In their recent white paper, “A ‘Fit’ Over Rankings,” the non-profit Challenge Success arrived powerfully at a similar conclusion, complicating the the ostensible equivalence between value and prestige. In fact, when it comes to life after graduation, the happier students were those who had the opportunity in college to take time to spread their roots extracurricularly, engaging in sustained projects with peers outside the classroom; to build strong connections with mentor figures, such as professors and professionals from fields of interest; and to explore interests that would take them beyond the classroom, into jobs often found in the regional setting of their college. 

As we found, the schools that fit this criteria are often the less selective, smaller colleges — the very kind endorsed by organizations such as Challenge Success or Colleges that Change Lives. Offering more flexible and relaxed academic cultures, smaller class sizes, hands-on professors and intimate student communities, these schools provide an ideal climate in which students can thrive. 

The data on graduation outcomes for students who attend smaller, less-selective programs helps to reframe the conversation around high school academics. Rather than piling on as many AP courses as humanly possible in the hope of being accepted to a highly selective school, students could prioritize mental wellbeing in high school while nevertheless fulfilling their goals in college. 

Old habits die hard. Yet given the epidemic prevalence of anxiety, burnout, and depression that attend academics and college choice, we need to shake them. Fast. As a college counselor, I do my part to help families understand the importance of addressing these issues head-on by forming a healthy mentality around the college-selection process. But de-fusing the cultural fixation on prestige is a job that will require many voices from as many corners of our society. 

Sitting in the kitchen with Cara, watching her blink back hot tears, I knew it wouldn’t be the last time that I would console a heartbroken student. For the moment, she would slog through disappointment. But soon after, we’d begin the work of moving forward – of learning that success begins not with an admission letter on a distant horizon, but in knowing that when one door slams shut, a dozen more graciously swing themselves open. 

Learn more about McNeil Admissions and their unique approach to working with high school students to prepare them for college and beyond.

The post For students choosing college, it takes a village to avoid the ‘Prestige Trap’ appeared first on Challenge Success.