How to Make Your College Decision (Part 1)
By a Stanford Student Athlete
As a high-schooler, your college decision is likely looming in the shadows of your senior year, representing what is likely the first "big decision" of your life. It can be intimidating and confusing, like many things leading up to college, so my goal with this blog post is to eliminate those feelings of anxiety and indecision and help you land at the college right for you!
This decision is so important that I created two posts for it! This first post surrounds the best tip I can offer anyone selecting a college. In fact, it was how I made my own decision to commit to Stanford! Stay tuned for Part 2!
#1: Objectify It
With all kinds of emotions and opinions surrounding your college decision, the best thing to do is to objectify it. I know they say "Follow your heart," but sometimes the heart is impulsive and irrational. Take your heart out of it, just for 10 minutes, and let your mind reflect upon your choices without the influence of your emotions and stress.
One way to do this is a pros and cons list. This is helpful for deciding between two colleges. It can be easy to over-focus on the positives and miss blatant negatives that you'll have to deal with for the next four years, so seeing the two side by side is a great balance. It's simple and quick, too!
Another way to "Objectify It" is to create a ranking system. Start off by listing qualities that are important to you in a college. These will become your categories for ranking. I had 10 total, but there is no magic number. Some examples include weather, location, team culture, majors, academic or athletic reputation, coaching, and facilities. If there are other things important to you, like greek life or research opportunities, add them to your list! The great thing about the ranking system is that it is all tailored to you and your options.
After you have chosen your categories, you're going to want to organize them somehow. You can use a spreadsheet or just a scratch piece of paper (I used a napkin on an airplane to make my final decision). On the top of your page, create columns with the schools you are deciding between. I did this for my top 5 as well as my top 2. Again, there's no magic number. On the side of your page, create rows for each of the categories you thought of.
Now is when the magic happens! For each category/row, rank your schools. If you have 5 schools/columns, rank them 1-5. #1 is the school that is best in the designated category, #5 is the school that is worst. So, from my experience, Stanford had the best campus out of all of the schools I was considering, so I ranked it #1. Do this for each of your categories/rows. If you have ties, designate half points. For instance, if you have a tie for 3rd and 4th, then give each 3.5 points. Then, add up the totals in each of the columns. The school with the lowest score is, on paper, the best.
This system is amazing for eliminating schools. If one school has 20 points more than another, then it's likely you will toss it out of the mix completely. However, sometimes the results aren't so cut-and-dry. When I narrowed my options down this way, my top two schools were within one point of another.
Plus, some categories have a much greater influence than others. For me, the coach pulled more weight in my decision than the campus did. The ranking system described above does not account for this, so I created another system that did. I would recommend using it with just two or three schools.
Warning: this system does involve some math, but you're a student athlete, you've got this!
Use the same categories from the first system, except this time, assign them percentile weights. In other words, give each of your categories a numerical value out of 100. The higher the number means the more influence in your decision. For example, you can put coach, academic reputation, and location each at 25%, and then fill in the rest of the remaining 25% with the categories of lesser importance to you (campus, major, team culture, etc.). Only you know how important each category is to you, so give it some thought. It will likely take some trial and error. You're inviting the heart back into this system!
After you have designated your categories a percentage weight, go back through each category and rank your schools again. Then, multiply the ranking (1, 2, or 3) by the percentile weight. If you put 25% importance on location, and a school ranked #1 on location, multiply 1x.25. The value for that school and category is .25. Or, if you assigned 25% importance to location, and the school is ranked #3 on location, then multiply .25 by 3 to get .75.
Proceed to do this multiplication for each school and each category. Then, add up your columns. The school with the lowest point total wins!
Of course, there are limitations to deciding out of objectified systems. Sometimes, when you get on a campus, you can just feel it in your gut that it's the perfect fit. Don't underestimate that feeling. This system is meant to help with indecision, doubt, or a desire to be rational in your process, but if you know, you know.
I hope you find this tool helpful! There will be more practical ways to narrow down your choices in Part 2. If you want to be notified when Part 2 comes out, subscribe using the yellow button!
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