How to select the right college or university

This video tutorial gives tips and general advice for selecting the right college or university. Discover the art of selecting the right school and helpful tips to choose, such as visiting the campus of your choice. This video also demonstrates general ways of how not to pick a college, such as blindly selecting a school based on national rankings and following a significant other.

How to Select the Right School Video Overview

1. The Right Fit

There are probably many colleges that are right for you, so don't obsess about finding the perfect one out of the 3,000 institutes of higher learning in the United States.

Visit as many colleges that accept you as possible.

2. Tools to Help

Don't choose the college you will attend based on its U.S. News and World Reports ranking.

There are many other guidebooks that can help you select a good college that might be a better fit for you other than being highly ranked.

One good book on this subject is Colleges that Change Lives by Loren Pope, which tells the story of 40 colleges that impacted students' lives.

3. Advice

George S. Bridges, President of Whitman College, said that what matters most in the college selection process is your feeling about a school regarding your interests, passions and awareness of self.

It is the interior makeup of students that will determine in large measure the quality of their educational experiences.

Former President of NYU, L. Jay Oliva, said that parents often ask him how their sons or daughters should pick the right college. He told them he had no idea, but he did know how not to choose a college. He said not to pick a school by blindly following a high school boyfriend or girlfriend to the college he or she is attending because, more likely than not, that relationship will end before the first semester of college is over.