Can he rank those characteristics in order of importance. Then also put a check by the ones that are non-negotiable. Like if he absolutely needs to be “close” to home- what does that mean and then he can eliminate those that are not within those distance parameters. Also, regarding “well-regarded”, is he getting hung up on prestige/ratings? I suggest looking up the schools on different ranking lists to show him how different each ranking system is. We did this using USNWR, Forbes, WSJ and Niche for all 10 of S24’s schools and he was shocked how they are ranked so differently depending on who is doing the ranking. I think there are def ways to narrow down the list doing the above. Ultimately picking “The One” may be hard. I am dealing with this with my own S24 who is on a plane as I type this on his way back to his current top 2 for a second look.
I really don’t know how S24 is going to make the decision in the end. I am personally OK with that because he has acknowledged he has been evolving his thinking during the process, and giving him room to do more is fine with me.
But between us, I also don’t see this as super high stakes. I think he can have a great experience at any of his colleges, and whatever he guesses now will be the absolute best might not really have been, but fortunately we will never know.
So I really just want him to be excited about where he is going. And whatever process gets him there is fine with me.
One thing we did with D23 was map out what a possible course progression would look like. She discovered that she really didn’t want to take a bunch of Gen Eds and actually looking at the requirements helped her realize that the flexible curriculum and the location of the school were the two things that mattered most to her.
DH & I relate SO MUCH to this! My DH is a mega-J, while I am more of a P. DH has been chomping at the bit since OCTOBER dying to have D24 make a decision on where she’s going to attend.
I think that you should consider the following:
- Have your kid group the decision criteria into 2 main categories: must have’s and nice-to-have’s.
- OR group the criteria/factors into 2 categories: high importance, medium, and low, where a ‘high’ is equal to “It HAS to have this or I won’t attend there” and a “low” would be equal to “It would be GREAT if it had this, but there’s a work-around for that or I could get by without it.”
- You could then ask your kid to put them in a priority order with most important at the top.
- Another option is to ask Kid to grade each of the criteria with a score of 1-5, where 5 = highest and 1 = lowest score. Do this plus categorize the factors into high, medium, and low importance. And then give a weight to high, medium, and low. Multiply the grade of each criteria with the weight factor. For example, if 1 criteria is “small,” and College A got a score of 5 out of 5, AND it’s a ‘high’ priority AND let’s say the “high” priority criteria have a weight of 3 (medium weighting could be 2, low weighting could be a 1, or whatever you want)…then the combined score/grade for the “small” criteria would be equal to “5 x weighting”, which would then be 5 x 5 = 25. do that for all of the criteria. And then do that for each school. It will then give you a final master score for each school. (they teach some of this in business school and this is sometimes how corporations decide whether or not to pursue a particular project or business venture). Adjust or redo the scoring if Kid decides part-way through the process that his scoring values should change.
This is the hang up, and I guess the place I’m going to have to be patient and give him space to work through on his own. He really doesn’t know what is most important to him. Some days being close to home feels most important. Some days he says the $25,000+/year lower cost of the far away schools is worth the distance. Some days he feels like a smaller school should be his priority, and so on with almost all of the characteristics. Like you said, he does have three more months to figure something out…
Better for him to face that question now than have regrets later about over/under-spending. If money is a consideration in the decision, then the alternatives (keep any leftover money for yourselves or only tell him later on that he will receive the balance) both seem worse.
I was just telling D24 last night how much it is driving me crazy that I cannot “see” where she is going to end up. Normally I can predict pretty well based on things she says and things I know about her (even if she hasn’t committed in her own mind yet).
Every place seems to have its pros and cons, and I don’t think she has quite decided the weight to place on various characteristics. I know she was looking up rankings for the major specifically the other day, so that is some kind of factor. She has been applying for tons of outside scholarships, so $ is a consideration.
I encouraged her to only apply to places she could see herself at, but I think that makes it a little more difficult right now because she is going to keep her options open until the end.
All I can do is try to help her get the information she needs. She will have all the practical information percolating in her head along with the other considerations, and if she cannot precisely articulate how it all comes together to create the best “vibe”, I am OK with that.
For my D24 her most important factor in picking a school, as she has expressed to me many times, is cost. She is definite in her plans for grad school (needs a master’s to be an SLP) and wants to limit as much debt as possible. Plus, we did not have the foresight to set up any college savings as we didn’t expect any of our children to be interested in going to college. Unfortunately that puts a lot of added stress on her, as she’s applying to so many scholarships and running the NPC’s for schools. Second metric would be, of course, a school that has her major. She would gladly go to the local state school (which would definitely save her money) but they don’t have her major. Best wishes to all the kids making these hard decisions. For most of them this is the first “big decision” they will have to make in their lives so far.
My D24 is both very interested in social life, and a profoundly artsy, intuitive person as well (she’s done multiple arts her whole life, some just for fun). She looks quite “basic,” but inside she’s a remarkable weirdo! 
So if you guys have wondered why I seem to obsess so much about potential social vibes, this is why. I told her when she first started getting acceptances that she “would just know” once she had visited all the campuses, and I still believe this will happen. She’s grown so much in this process. She tends to be very influenced by her friends saying positive or negative things about specific schools–but I think her current favorite (of the ones she’s heard from) is the one that a couple of friends recently bashed. She’s realizing that a lot of her friends have really different needs from hers! I’m getting more confident that even if she gets into one of those dream “lottery” schools, she’ll have the judgment to say no if she needs to. It’s a good moment for us right now.
as a comparison, I took a stab at this myself based on all of the visit notes I have from D24 and what she’s said are things that are important to her.
Here’s where the 3 LACs she got into stack up:
| Priority (high, medium, or low) | Score (1-5, where 5 = highest) | Weight (High = 5, Med = 3, Low = 1) |
Austin College Final score for each criteria | Score (1-5, where 5 = highest) | Weight (High = 5, Med = 3, Low = 1) |
Southwestern Final score for each criteria | Score (1-5, where 5 = highest) | Weight (High = 5, Med = 3, Low = 1) |
Centre College Final score for each criteria | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | High | 3 | 5 | 15 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 2 | 5 | 10 |
| Small class sizes | High | 5 | 5 | 25 | 5 | 5 | 25 | 5 | 5 | 25 |
| Strong pre-health program | High | 5 | 5 | 25 | 5 | 5 | 25 | 5 | 5 | 25 |
| Classes are all in person | High | 5 | 5 | 25 | 5 | 5 | 25 | 5 | 5 | 25 |
| Ease of getting internships, doing research w/profs | High | 5 | 5 | 25 | 5 | 5 | 25 | 5 | 5 | 25 |
| Not too far away from home | High | 4 | 5 | 20 | 4 | 5 | 20 | 2 | 5 | 10 |
| Not too cold in winter | High | 4 | 5 | 20 | 4 | 5 | 20 | 1 | 5 | 5 |
| Fun stuff to do on & around campus | Medium | 4 | 3 | 12 | 5 | 3 | 15 | 5 | 3 | 15 |
| In or near a large suburban or urban area | Medium | 5 | 3 | 15 | 5 | 3 | 15 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Easy to get to airport to fly home | Medium | 5 | 3 | 15 | 5 | 3 | 15 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Strong PA grad school partnerships | Medium | 5 | 3 | 15 | 4 | 3 | 12 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Campus safety | Medium | 5 | 3 | 15 | 5 | 3 | 15 | 5 | 3 | 15 |
| Choir scholarship available for non-music majors | Low | 5 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 5 |
| Final total score | 232 | 226 | 169 |
And here’s where 3 of the 4 public universities she got accepted to rank (I left out ASU because she said, “I am NOT going there!”):
| Score (1-5, where 5 = highest) | Weight (High = 5, Med = 3, Low = 1) |
U of A Final score for each criteria | Score (1-5, where 5 = highest) | Weight (High = 5, Med = 3, Low = 1) |
NMSU Final score for each criteria | Score (1-5, where 5 = highest) | Weight (High = 5, Med = 3, Low = 1) |
UNM Final score for each criteria | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | 5 | 5 | 25 | 5 | 5 | 25 | 5 | 5 | 25 |
| Small class sizes | 1 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 5 |
| Strong pre-health program | 2 | 5 | 10 | 2 | 5 | 10 | 2 | 5 | 10 |
| Classes are all in person | 1 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 5 |
| Ease of getting internships, doing research w/profs | 2 | 5 | 10 | 3 | 5 | 15 | 2 | 5 | 10 |
| Not too far away from home | 5 | 5 | 25 | 3 | 5 | 15 | 3 | 5 | 15 |
| Not too cold in winter | 5 | 5 | 25 | 5 | 5 | 25 | 4 | 5 | 20 |
| Fun stuff to do on & around campus | 5 | 3 | 15 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| In or near a large suburban or urban area | 5 | 3 | 15 | 4 | 3 | 12 | 4 | 3 | 12 |
| Easy to get to airport to fly home | 5 | 3 | 15 | 5 | 3 | 15 | 5 | 3 | 15 |
| Strong PA grad school partnerships | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Campus safety | 4 | 3 | 12 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Choir scholarship available for non-music majors | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Final total score | 166 | 143 | 127 |
Keep in mind that we don’t have financial aid packages back from any of these schools. The “cost” score is my guess based on NO financial aid other than the merit scholarships she’s already been awarded. Cost scores would change, of course, once financial aid packages come in later this spring.
From this (assuming my guesses on the scoring is correct), then the end result would be:
- Austin College = 232
- Southwestern = 226
- Centre College = 169
- U of A = 166
- NMSU = 143
- UNM = 127
However, on Mon evening, D24 said that Austin College & U of A are equally at the #1 spot, so this is where one would need to confirm the weighting, scoring, and the high-medium-low priority status w/the kid for each of the criteria/decision factors.
I sort of wonder if U of A is operating on its own scoring criteria. Based on what you’ve said in other posts, it seems like close to home/easy to get to (friends?) might give it a big emotional bonus.
P.S. I love your scoring chart and it’s the kind of thing I used to do for myself. But I would never take into consideration how I felt about things, and one category would end up being a dealbreaker that my logical side refused to acknowledge much to the detriment of my overall happiness. But what kids these days call social emotional intelligence has never been my strong suit.
I have no idea how my kid is going to choose, but it kind of seems like even developing a rubric could be premature for C24, who won’t hear from most of their schools until March.
I will never let C24 know I’m feeling this way, but I’m an over-empathizing weirdo who is already feeling bad about saying “no” to some schools. Intellectually, I know it’s a totally normal, totally necessary part of the process. Emotionally, I feel like it’s rude. It makes no sense at all to feel this way, and yet I do.
He will figure it out when he has to. I think most kids can pick out two or three that they are actually considering. Then go visit, meet some kids in your class, and pick the one that feels right. I think at that point the feel is what you go with.
Wow, that is crazy organized. My hat is off to you.
Just remember - there’s likely “many” schools where he can be happy.
And kids go to the dream school - and transfer out after a miserable year. So there’s not necessarily the “perfect” school. Hopefully many will work.
Is the money his concern or yours? I know what he doesn’t spend can go to grad school - but if mom has a budget, that overrides his concern…an easy way to chop.
Money may not just be cost but also - how much to get to wherever the school is multiple times a year.
Close to home is nice - but on the other hand, not good to use as a - I’m struggling and want to see mom crutch - which also makes things worse - because many will struggle but they need to fight through it.
Yes to this. this is how we did it with my D20.
I think that sometimes (this has definitely been true for my kid) what was ‘most important’ at the start of senior year changes a bit by the time March comes around. And that’s a-ok!
When I look at the factors, I break them down into big picture and day to day. And I think the day to day stuff is where you are for 4 years.
So what jumped out to me on this list was food–if he needs gluten free, thats 3x/day every day. Close to home means maybe once a month? So that is more big picture. Flexible curriculum is day to day because it is which classes are you in 2or 3x a week. Whereas well-regarded is a big picture item. You don’t feel or see well regarded on a day to day.
So if you break these down into day to day vs big picture you may start to see some schools doing really well on the daily details. To me … if every day is a good day (I like my lunch and my class schedule) you are more likely to succeed. And if you do well in the school, the big picture in the future stuff Iike job/grad school options will better.
The interesting part is … that was where I placed big picture and day to day … other people it might be different. Maybe close to home is day-today because he needs to come home more often to visit a sick relative. Maybe AP/DE credits is big picture or maybe it is day to day because it frees up time for electives he would take on a day to day basis. Maybe bathroom is a day to day issue because of germs, or maybe it is not a day-to-day issue because he really likes showering at off peak times anyways.
I guess what I am saying is have your son think about how each factor would affect him on a daily basis. And that will help him feel how big a deal it is.
With my D22 her day to day issues were curricula/classes & classmates/community. And when she was down to the end with 4 or 5 schools, a couple of the final pieces that moved the needle for her were class size (because she learns best in small discussion based classes) and dining hall structure (preferring a single hall for all students and everyone on the same meal plan). These are really small details, but they make up a huge portion of her daily life.
(The slight wrinkle for us was that my daughter was a recruited athlete, so she made these decisions in Septmber and October of senior year, and then did ED at her final choice. So at least your son has an extra 6 months of maturity to be wrestling with these issues in Spring of senior year!)