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avatar Anonymous

How to get into best college?

I'd like my daughter to go to Vassar College.

Question applies to ages: 15

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avatarElizabeth.Johns
# of Thumbs Up Received (76)
Top 5 in: Choosing College, Discipline, Families and Relationships, Family Activities, Growth and Development, Health and Wellness, Learning Disabilities and Special Needs, Learning Styles, Parents and Schools, Safety, School Policy and Education Issues, Study Skills and Academics, Summer Learning and Camps, Teens and Jobs, Transitions and Readiness, Motivating StudentsTop 5 in 16 Topics		 You say that you would like your daughter to go to Vassar College. Where does your daughter want to go? If she's not interested in Vassar, then it isn't the best college for her.

I think it's a mistake to think that "best college" and Ivy League/Seven Sisters are synonymous. The best college is the one that offers the program your child wants to study, has the kind of setting in which she learns best, and can meet her emotional and psychological needs as well as her academic ones. Also, studies have shown that "name" schools and Ivy League degrees don't necessarily translate into higher paychecks, especially when you factor in the cost of the degree versus how much you make once you graduate.

Does your daughter thrive in a pressure-cooker environment? Is she competitive? Does she like a small college? Is she looking for a student body that is diverse in race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation? Then Vassar may be the right place for her. If she's looking for a large, bustling campus with tens of thousands of students, Vassar won't be the place for her.

If she does want to go to Vassar, I recommend exploring their web site. It goes into a great deal of detail about what they look for in a college applicant. They would like students to have taken four years each of the core subjects of math, English, science, social studies and foreign language; to be in the top 10-20 percent of their class; to have an unweighted A or A- average; to be involved in a variety of extracurricular activities and leadership positions. They put a lot of weight on the student's senior year class schedule, so there's no slacking off senior year if Vassar is her goal.

If Vassar is your child's goal (not yours) then she has her work cut out for her. Your support and encouragement will be essential to her meeting that goal.

References:
could have attended an Ivy, but didn't
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avatarPatrick OConnor
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Top 5 in: Choosing College, SafetyTop 5 in 2 Topics		 I can see why Vassar would be of interest to you-- with its smaller class size and rich campus life, it offers many wonderful opportunities for students.

The students I've worked with who have gone to Vassar have found these same qualities in many other schools, including some large public institutions. That surprises many people, but there are many ways to make a big school small, and many ways to make a small school big.

As your daughter begins to focus on college, she'll want to look at the qualities of each college and what they have to offer. Using Vassar as a starting point is great, but since Vassar is a highly selective school, there's a chance she may not be admitted even if she qualifies academically, since Vassar doesn't have room to admit all of the students who apply.

Focusing on the qualities of a college will allow your daughter to develop a strong list of colleges that all offer something she likes, and as she learns more about colleges, she can find out more about what Vassar has to offer. For now, you'll want to show her a number of different college campuses, just so she'll be able to understand what makes one college different from another; that way, if Vassar has what she's interested in, she'll be even more confident in her decision to apply there.
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