Selecting Courses / Colleges / Universities

Senior advisors suggest that it is wise to have a "four-year plan" with proactive planning. Some suggested against lightening the academic load during senior year because this may indicate less real interest in academics.

Selection of Universities/Departments/MS programs - Rankings of Colleges & Universities

Counselors suggest one place to begin a search for MS programs is to consult a ranking guide. Two well-known college and university rankings guides are the U.S. News and World Report and The Washington Monthly's "College Rankings" issue, but there are many different groups that produce rankings of U.S. universities based on different factors and using different methodology. Advisors stress that consulting a ranking list is only a beginning, and that much more research is needed.

The US News ranking generated much controversy when their map showed locations of its assessment of the top 40 universities and colleges in the US in 2007, with many located in the northeast of US.

Rankings have been the subject of much criticism. Since much of the data is provided by colleges themselves, there are opportunities for schools to manipulate the rankings to enhance prestige. There have been instances in which school officials deliberately misreported statistics, such as an admissions dean at Claremont McKenna who falsified average statistics, and a report that Emory University falsely reported student data for "more than a decade," as well as reports of false data from the United States Naval Academy and Baylor University. There is considerable hypocrisy surrounding rankings: some colleges pretend to loathe the guidebooks that rank them, yet if they get a good write-up, they would lap up the opportunity. Media has criticized the "mindless pursuit of better numbers" by universities to boost their rankings as destructive and opined that families place too much emphasis on the rankings as a way to select universities. Further, the US News rankings fail to take a universities' affordability into account or factor in the average student indebtedness after MS programs as well as failing to measure how well universities actually educated their students. The US News algorithm "favors universities that spurn more students." Universities admissions counselors criticized rankings as misleading, and criticized the rankings inputs of peer assessments, student selectivity and alumni giving as being poor predictors of a university's overall quality. The rankings title "America's Best universities ", prompted counselors to ask "best for whom"?

In 2007, members of the Annapolis Group discussed a letter to college presidents asking them not to participate in the US News "reputation survey". A majority of the approximately 80 presidents at the meeting agreed not to participate, although the statements were not binding. Members pledged to develop alternative web-based information formats in conjunction with several collegiate associations. US News responded that their peer assessment survey helps them measure a college's "intangibles" such as the ability of a college's reputation to help a graduate win a first job or get a prestigious internship. An article by Nicholas Thompson in Washington Monthly criticized the U.S. News rankings as "confirming the prejudices of the meritocracy" by tuning their statistical algorithms to entrench the reputations of a handful of universities, while failing to measure how much students learn. Thompson described the algorithms as being "opaque enough that no one outside the magazine can figure out exactly how they work, yet clear enough to imply legitimacy." One effort to systematize the compilation of college admissions data is the Common Data Set initiative.

Choosing MS programs by selectivity

Senior Advisors typically ask students to begin to see potential universities in terms of four types:

• Reach universities provide a slim chance of acceptance, such as a 5% or slimmer chance.
• Possibles (or high matches) have greater chance of rejection than acceptance.
• Probables (or low matches) have greater chance of acceptance than rejection.
• Solid or safety universities seldom reject candidates with similar academic credentials. Counselors recommend that a safety university be one that a student would like to attend if rejected everywhere else. Counselors also advise having at least one financial aid safety university that is affordable even without financial aid. Another classification is "unlikelies" (5% chance of acceptance), "reach " (25% chance), "possibles" (50% chance) and "likelies" (80% chance).

Typically, counselors will suggest an applicant apply to a mix of the different types of universities, usually having at least two safety universities, but the numbers of the others are up to students and families. Some recommend that a student apply to a minimum of two "solid" universities and two "probable" universities.

Better fit or prestige

Prestige of colleges correlates with age, such that the oldest east-coast universities tend to have accumulated the most prestige by virtue of their longevity. There is widespread consensus that the fit between a student and a college is an important factor. Several reports suggest that "fit should trump prestige every single time," and that it is better for a college to match a student in terms of social, cultural, and academic qualities and not be chosen simply because of a school's prestige. Others see college admissions as essentially a choice between "price and prestige". Elite colleges have been compared to designer labels, a valuable credential in the job market, and an entryway into top career positions. Some advisors specialize in helping students find a good fit—a suitable list of colleges—which helps students in the long run. They help students to explore their values and needs, and provide counseling to help both students and parents find a college or university program that helps students meet long term goals. Questions include thinking about life goals, which activities a person likes best, and what style of learning works best for the student. Evaluating personal preferences is important and can take time. One advisor suggests it is important for a student to think through what is best, and choose on this basis, and "do not listen to your friends" since they have different needs and wants. "One of the worst ways to make a decision about where to go to college is to follow a friend because he or she is having a good time at that school,". Since "barely half" of students entering college as freshmen ever graduate from college later in their lives, getting the right fit is important for parents and students to avoid wasting money.

So, what is a good fit:

The college that fits you best is one that will:

(1) Offer a program of study to match your interests and needs

(2) Provide a style of instruction to match the way you like to learn

(3) Provide a level of academic rigor to match your aptitude and preparation

(4) Offer a community that feels like home to you and

(5) Value you for what you do well.

(6) Helps you to challenge and improve yourself

A private admissions counselor elaborates: A school has to fit – academically, socially, and economically ... Ask whether a college feels right ... rather than is it best ...

One admissions dean likens "fit" to a friendship:

I draw the analogy of friends to explain why fit is so important in considering a college. You like your good friends for some reason. It may not be an objective reason. It's often subjective. There's some sense of compatibility, a kind of intuition, a match, a common sense of values, what you like to do, how you think – those are the things that really bind people together. It's similar with college. You don't want to spend four years with a college who isn't really your friend.

In addition, counselors can help less academically astute students find good colleges to help them pursue careers, and can point out colleges that are "gems" but relatively unknown. In some cases, choosing a college in a different part of the country can improve chances for admission, particularly if the college is seeking "geographical diversity." One study suggests that the overall prestige of a person's college is less important, overall, in predicting how they would fare in later life, and that personal characteristics, such as aptitude, are more important.

Selecting colleges by type

Different types of schools offer different educations: including engineering-oriented colleges such as the Rochester Institute of Technology, which emphasizes teaching, internships, and technical education.

Although most educational institutions in the U.S. are non-profit, some are for-profit. Colleges and universities in the U.S. vary in terms of goals: some may emphasize a vocational, business, engineering or technical curriculum while others may emphasize a liberal arts curriculum. Many combine some or all of the above. Another consideration is the male-female ratio; overall, 56% of enrolled college students are women, but the male-female ratio varies by college and year and program. Admissions guidance counselors can offer views about whether a public or private school is best, and give a sense of the tradeoffs.