Question: Are so-called “jock” schools less strong in academics?

First, let’s define what a “jock” school is for the benefit of those who may not know. A jock school is a college or university that has a reputation for being highly competitive in intercollegiate sports. These schools are known also for aggressively recruiting athletes to keep their sports program strong.

There is no necessary correlation between a strong athletic program and weak academics. There any number of examples of schools that have good sports programs and excellent academics. Back in 1997, Princeton University won a record number of NCAA Division I and Ivy League sports championships. They won the NCAA lacrosse title and the Ivy League football championship. I don’t think anyone questions Princeton’s academic credentials. Dartmouth College is another Ivy
League example. They have a reputation for both sports and academic excellence.

Penn State University, one of the nation’s more selective public universities, is known, of course, as a national football power. They also have very competitive teams in a number of other areas. I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture here.

The term “jock school” is a stereotype. We know how misleading stereotypes can be. My only advice to anyone trying to judge the relative academic strength of schools that have a strong sports program is to check graduation rates. Princeton and Dartmouth graduate almost every incoming freshman. Their graduation percentage is in the 95-97 percent range. Some schools, however, may be graduating only 40 percent of their freshman.

In cases where a high number of freshmen graduate, you can be assured that the academics at that school are strong and that qualified applicants are admitted regardless of how strong their jock image may be.

Question: Does a high price tag mean that a college is good?

Higher education is a lot like any other consumer product. In general, you get what you pay for. There are exceptions, though. Sometimes a surprising value can be had.

Let’s take a look at the situation. This coming fall, the nation’s most expensive schools will have student budgets (tuition, room and board, fees, books, and travel) hovering in the mid-thirty- thousand dollar range. That’s right–$35,000 or so. That’s more than a lot of families make in one year before taxes.

Other situations, such as two-year commuter schools, can be as inexpensive as $5,000 or less per year. That’s about 85% less. What’s the difference? Can one school be seven times better than another?

My answer to your question, then, is: It depends on what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for the least-expensive route to a professional or technical credential that might very well move you into a skilled area of employment, then the live-at-home-and-commute option may be best for you. If you’re looking for a broader, more diversified approach to education, then some variation of the live-away-from-home-on-campus choice makes sense, even though it’s more expensive.

Another way to look at expensive schools is that they may well have the financial aid available to bring their net cost much closer to the lower-priced schools than you might imagine. You’ve heard me say here many times: Get into the best and most expensive school you can. Financial aid is the reason. The more expensive schools usually have more money to give in financial aid, thus making their true cost much lower for families who really need the help.

Try to look at potential colleges without be blinded by their costs. Once you find the right match, the financial details can be, in most cases, worked out.

Question: What are the best sources of college information?

There is a ton of college information out there. The best source of information about a college does not always come from the college itself.

The problem with information that comes from a college is obvious. It tends to have a natural positive bias toward the institution. That makes sense, doesn’t it? If a school has a problem with its housing facilities, you won’t find any mention of the problem in literature that comes from the school. You may find a statement that mentions the fact of a new dorm in the works, but you’ll never see a college or university come right out and say their housing (or whatever) is a problem.

Undoubtedly, the ultimate source of information about a particular school is the student body of that school. I have always recommended that high schoolers visit the campuses of the schools to which they are applying. Perhaps the most important point of that visit, next to the subjective gut-level feeling that always presents itself, is the opportunity to ask questions of students on campus.

Most college students will respect your need for knowledge about their school. They won’t pull any punches. Be certain, though, to ask a sufficient number of students for their opinions so that your sampling rate is not too low and, therefore, skewed.

The next-best source of college information comes from the so-called guidebooks. These are the ones published by The Princeton Review (America’s Best 331 Colleges), the Yale Daily News, (The Insider’s Guide to the Colleges), and other authors like Robert Fiske (The Fiske Guide). These are good because they compile student survey data. The next-best way to get a student’s opinion is to read what they wrote, instead of asking them in person.

And there’s always the Internet. You can find news groups on the World-Wide Web that deal with college life. This might be almost as good as talking to students. The only disadvantage is that you won’t be on campus to see the physical sights yourself.

Question: Should I stay overnight as part of my visits to candidate colleges?

That’s a great idea. Believe it or not, some high-school seniors enroll at colleges whose grounds they’ve never seen. I think that’s risky business.

We all have the ability to react to places we visit at the “gut” level. That’s especially important when you go to visit your candidate schools. Before you go for a visit, you’ll probably read about the schools in their standard marketing materials–viewbooks, course catalogs, and specialty publications.

These are a good way to see, through pictures and words, what the schools are like. But, as the song title says, there ain’t nothin’ like the real thing.

As far as overnight stays are concerned, most colleges and universities have hosting programs where a student (frequently a freshman or sophomore) is your host for a day and night. You take your sleeping bag and toothbrush and stay in your host’s room overnight.

Overnight stays have a number of advantages over day visits. First of all, you’ll get to experience dorm life for a night. Depending on the character of the school you’re visiting, you might discover that nights are dead, or at least boring. On the other hand, you may find yourself in the middle of a long-term party, with all the usual wild behavior and loud noises. Most likely, though, it will probably be somewhere in between.

I’m not making any judgments about noisy or sleepy campuses. I’m just emphasizing the point that colleges and universities all have their own personalities. It’s up to you to decide whether or not the school you’re visiting “feels” good to you. Remember, you’ll be spending the better part of four years of your life at college. That’s a long time to be somewhere that bores you.

The overnight stay is one of the best ways I know to find out what a college is like. Take advantage of the opportunity to do so.

Further Reading:
Visiting College Campuses (5th Edition) by Janet Spencer, Sandra Maleson, et al. Combines both general information on how to make the most of college visits as well as specific information on hundreds of the most frequently visited campuses. Check our review.

Question: When should I really start planning for college?

You can start to plan for college very early. In some families, planning begins before the prospective collegian is born. Grandparents, relatives, or Mom and Dad begin to provide for the financial needs by setting up college funds.

The majority of families, however, wait until the last moment to start college preparations. By “last minute” I mean right after the senior high-school year has begun. This manages to compress the whole college selection and admission process into about three-to-four months. Those weeks just fly by during the senior year. There are so many activities going on during the fall that most students have difficulty keeping up with class work, let alone the stressful college process.

My best answer to your question is to start thinking about college in your sophomore year. This includes approaching the topic with your parents too. In thinking about college, try to get a feel for where you’d like to go. You don’t have to know what field in which to major, just some kind of subjective preferences that can narrow the list of possible candidates.

During your junior year, try to be more specific about your preferences. I like to see juniors develop a list of five or six candidate colleges by the end of the regular school year. Then, over the summer, before the beginning of the senior year, those schools can be visited to get an initial feel for what they offer and how they fit.

The fall of the senior high-school year should be a fine-tuning of the selection and application process, not the beginning of the process. Ideally, a senior’s Fall should be devoted to putting together applications and concentrating on academics, not beginning to wade into the unexplored waters of an as-yet untried college process. Preparation is a big part of college success.

Question: Why should I consider visiting those colleges on my candidate list?

You may have heard the saying, “Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing.” That’s why you have to visit the campuses where you’re considering spending four years of your life.

You can read all the viewbooks and watch all the marketing videos produced by your candidates. Nothing, though, can match walking down a shady, tree-lined walkway on a fresh, sunny morning on a college campus that could become your temporary home.

You’ll get a sense of the college’s vibrancy, character, and facilities. If you can do so, by all means visit the campuses while the students are there. And, to put a further condition on your visit, try to visit in the fall or late spring, when the full beauty of the campus is showing.

This means that if you’re a junior, you could plan some visits in May and September. If you’re a senior, September and October are your choices. That’s why it pays to develop your candidate list in the junior year. You have more flexibility in developing your visit options.

When you finally arrive on campus, take the standard tour as soon as possible. This will give you the highlights of the physical facility. Also attend any admissions department question and answer sessions to get answers from the source about your application. Then move to the next level of information: the student body.

Don’t be afraid to ask real live students what they think of their school. I recommend four quick questions. How do like this place? What do like most about it? What don’t you like? Any tips for an applicant? These questions can inspire longer discussions. You may even make a friend for the future, if you join the student body next school year.

Your final step in the campus-visit process should be to discuss your impressions with your family and make some notes to which you can refer later. Remember, the more up-front research you do, the less likely it will be that you select the wrong college.

Further Reading:
Visiting College Campuses (5th Edition) by Janet Spencer, Sandra Maleson, et al. Combines both general information on how to make the most of college visits as well as specific information on hundreds of the most frequently visited campuses. Check our review.

What are some of the aspects of a quality college? With thousands of colleges, it gets kind of confusing. They all look so good in their brochures!

There are many quality colleges and universities in America. The problem for high schoolers is not to find one, but rather to select one from among so many worthy candidates.

My personal list of college quality points begins with faculty quality and access. The relative prestige of an institution will do an undergraduate little good if the senior faculty is not available in full force. If freshmen are not taught by senior, tenured professors, then I feel something is lacking.

The emphasis on research today has led to a significant number of senior professors migrating to the graduate level in universities. Relatively inexperienced Teaching Assistants (TAs) are too often given responsibility for instructing full-priced undergraduate courses. Accordingly, you should ask the TA situation at the schools on your candidate list before investing a lot of time and consideration in them.

Physical resources are also important. Remember, you’ll be spending the better part of four years of your life at your undergraduate institution. Find out how new the equipment is in the area that you’re interested in–lab equipment, computer clusters, and related hardware.

What about the library? Is it substantial enough to support serious research, or will you have to use interlibrary loans all the time? How about housing? Are the living accommodations acceptable? Don’t use a viewbook to judge a school’s physical plant. Go there, and investigate the facilities that don’t have their pictures published.

In addition to the quality of the faculty and the resources, the quality of the students should be examined also. What is the profile of the undergraduates who attend the schools on your list of candidates? A quality student body should have a high graduation rate. Some of the very best schools graduate 90-some percent of their freshmen in four years. There should also be a strong percentage of freshmen who ranked in the top tenth of their high school classes. Forty-to-50 percent is a good benchmark. And, of course, there’s always the average SAT score for incoming freshmen (if you consider that to be a reliable index). Scores averaging in a range starting with 1050-to-1100 indicate a competitive student body.

These are just a few quality criteria. There are many colleges who meet or exceed these three. Your job is to find the one that is right for you.