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| |    Choosing the Right College by Robert Needlman, M.D., F.A.A.P. reviewed by Robert Needlman, M.D., F.A.A.P. Deciding on where to attend college may not be rocket science, but it can sure feel that way. One reason for this is because there is so much information available. The library has shelves of guidebooks, there are websites galore, and there is a growing number of for-hire consultants--not to mention school guidance counselors. Not only do teenagers and their parents have to choose a college, they have to choose between competing sources of information about colleges! And it can be stressful because it's such a big decision to make. As a parent, you care about the end result: You want your child to go to a good school, one where she'll be happy as well as successful. But the process of decision making is also important. Much as you might like to, you can't make this decision for your child. On the other hand, she doesn't have to do it entirely on her own, either. How much help can you give without taking over or getting drawn into useless battles? How can you encourage your teen to take the process seriously, but not so seriously that she becomes overwhelmed by anxiety? Help with organization Start by helping your teen get organized. The first step is to obtain a calendar of application deadlines. That way, your teen can visualize the available time and plot what tasks to do when. The best place to get this is probably from the school guidance office. Many websites offer this useful information, too. Access to information It's actually very easy to find out almost anything you want about nearly any college in the U.S. The standard college guidebooks provide basic descriptions; information about courses, students, and faculty; and financial aid options for more than 2,000 institutions. These guides should be available in any public library and in many high school guidance offices. (There's little point in buying them, by the way, as they quickly become outdated.) One intriguing book, titled Insider's Guide to Colleges, included candid assessments of some 300 colleges from former and present students. It can be useful to know other students' opinions about a prospective college, but don't give them too much weight--your child's own experiences may be very different from those of the students who wrote their assessments. Meanwhile, virtually every college and university has a website. It's easy enough to find them using any search engine, and many of the online resources we list also have links. Help your teen ask the right questions You'll soon find that learning about your options is the easy part. The harder part--at least for some teens--is self-knowledge: Your child needs to figure out his needs, interests, and priorities. While some guidance professionals use various questionnaires and so-called personality tests to help students clarify what they want from college (and in the future), these methods all depend on a certain level of introspection in the first place. Our list of questions to guide college choice may be helpful; you can find similar lists in most books and on many websites. Learning from mistakes Although choosing the right school is important in that it can make for a smoother, happier college experience, making mistakes can be a learning experience as well. In fact, many students start at one school, find that it does not meet their needs, and complete their degrees at another institution. If certain credits don't transfer, it may simply mean that it will take longer to complete college. Changing colleges is inconvenient, but it's not the end of the world. Knowing this should take some of the pressure off your teen and you. Talk about:
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