School Guide 58

{ I N D EPEN D EN T S C H OO L G U I D E }

F rom making the initial list to going to college fairs, from visiting the colleges to doing the interviews, from taking the standardized tests to composing the application, from figuring out the finances to making the final choice—applying to college is a multiyear process fraught with uncertainty, anxiety, and opacity. Professors Lynn F. Jacobs and Jeremy S. Hyman have teamed up with Jeffrey Durso-Finley, former admissions officer at Brown and now head of college counseling at the prestigious Lawrenceville (NJ) School, to offer parents and college-bound students The Secrets of Picking a College (and Getting In!): Over 600 Tips, Techniques, and Strategies Revealed. Available at www.bit.ly/tsopac (or wherever books are sold.) Download a free chapter at www.tsopac.com/download. All materials © 2016 Professors’ Guide LLC. All rights reserved. 10 TIPS FOR MAKING YOUR INITIAL LIST With over 4,000 colleges to choose from, many students feel pressure to settle on a few choices as soon as possible. The sooner I get this list down to three or four , they think , the better. But, in truth, this isn’t the best strategy. At this stage in the process (which for many students is at the beginning of their junior year) it’s APPLYING to COLLEGE

#1 Cast the net widely . Don’t assume that there necessarily is only one type of college that will satisfy your needs and interests. Someone interested in music might do just fine not just at a music conservatory, but also at a liberal arts college with a good music program, a big state university with a famous marching band, or even a college with a limited music

much better to assemble a pretty good-sized list (ten to twenty entries wouldn’t be too many), and then refine the list as you get more data. How the final list of colleges you apply to turns out depends in no small measure on which colleges “inhabit” the initial list. Follow our ten best tips and you’ll have an excellent list to build on:

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