How You Go to College Matters More Than Where
What Really Matters in the College Decision Process
by Rob Mooring
Not long into my early years of working at St. Agnes, I saw a link to an article in Inside Higher Ed, one of my favorite news sources. In it was a link to the list of Rhodes Scholars for that particular year.
And the contents of that article changed everything for me.
To be clear, I work at a school that is high pressure in almost every way. The academics are challenging, and the expectations for where kids go to college are sky high. And so it was easy to buy into that narrative, to think that selectivity equaled value.
Then I looked at the results from that year’s class of Rhodes Scholars. There were 32 of them. And I was fascinated to see where they were coming from, to see which school had prepared them to enter arguably the most prestigious postgraduate program on planet earth.
This was back in 2015, although the outcomes have stayed relatively the same for the years that followed (because I am the nerd that keeps looking).
Out of the 32, 14 came from Ivy League schools, and another 10 came from Ivy “Like” schools, colleges with acceptance rates in the teens or lower.
But a quarter of those scholars came from schools well outside of those selectivity brackets. Eight of the scholars came from the following schools:
University of Alabama Birmingham
Santa Clara
University of Maryland
Wabash College
University of Tennessee
University of Texas, Austin
University of Wisconsin, Eau-Clare
University of Puget Sound
Once I saw those kinds of outcomes from those kinds of schools, many of them people couldn’t place on a map, everything about how I viewed the college application process changed.
Fit, Fit, Fit
When it comes to real estate, three things are the most important: location, location, location
The same is true for college, except those factors are fit, fit, and fit.
Three things are vastly more important when choosing a college than the name of it, or it’s rate of acceptance.
Fit: The first most important thing is financial fit. Affordability should be the most important factor in choosing where you go. It could be the “best” school in the world, but if a student and their family has to constantly worry about the next payment they have to make, that’s no way to live. You don’t have to go to the cheapest school you get into, but it has to be the most affordable.
Fit: The school needs to fit you academically as well. That’s a combination of program you want, and level of difficulty too. If a student is only sleeping three hours a night in order to make perfect grades to get into a highly selective school, odds are, they will have to do that to stay there. Choose a school that provides the equal balance of challenge, and fun. Speaking of…
Fit: The student has to like where they are going. So many of my students think that caring about the buildings, or the dorms, or the surrounding city are superficial factors in the decision process, and nothing could be further from the truth. If you aren’t happy and having fun where you go to college, it’s going to be incredibly difficult to get out every positive experience the college has to offer.
It’s hard to believe now, but back when I was working at Pepperdine, Chick-Fil-A wasn’t everywhere, and the closest one to campus was a few hours away. We had an admission event coming up in that part of the area, so the entire office went to that event, mostly so that we could get Chick-Fil-A on the way.
One of my new colleagues, named Susie, ordered a chicken nugget meal. And when she came back to our table, she brought with her 12 different sauces. More sauces than I even knew Chick-Fil-A had. She got her food, and then preceded to dip one nugget into each sauce. By the time she got to sauce five, I asked her what she was doing.
She told me, “Oh the sauce is the important part. The nugget is simply the vehicle for the sauce.”
The things that make our students brilliant, dynamic, and incredible…that’s the sauce. And the college they end up going to is the nugget, merely the vehicle for their brilliance.
Advise kids on fit, not prestige, and both you and them will be happier along the way.
Contigo Ed Resources
Are you looking for additional guidance on Letter of Recommendations for teachers or counselors? Check out these resources by Contigo Ed below.
Our College Match Minicourse will help you make sure your students’ list is balanced.
Our College Fit Minicourse will give you the tools to help students look beyond selectivity rates and prestige, to factors that matter most in the decision making process.
Rob Mooring
Rob Mooring is in his 10th year as a College Counselor at St. Agnes. He spent three years as a College Counselor at YES Prep Public Schools, including one year as Director of College Counseling and Alumni at YES Prep East End. Prior to YES Prep, Rob spent three years as an admissions counselor at Pepperdine University. He and his wife Stephanie have two kids and a dog, all of whom they adore.
