Making Your Decision After the Colleges Make Theirs: When It Is Your Turn to Decide

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Mid-December, as intense as it may be, is just a dress rehearsal for the spring, when the regular admission cycle results start dribbling in. This time, many more students are waiting for responses from even more schools—and everything is drawn out over a longer period. But now, after waiting for many months to hear their decisions from colleges, students and families once again have a chance to make decisions of their own.

Choices Can Be Tough to Make

The process of making a final decision to attend a college will vary, not surprisingly, from student to student and from family to family. A lot depends not only on personality and decision-making style but also on the specific choices. Students admitted to their top-choice schools with sufficient financial aid or no need for aid have a pretty easy decision to make.

Other students may have several desirable choices, with financial aid sometimes weighing heavily in the final decision. Because many highly selective colleges offer only need-based aid or very little merit aid, less selective colleges can compete for strong students by offering attractive merit aid packages, sometimes even full rides, which go above and beyond calculated need. It can be hard to turn down a good school that offers a free or almost free education in favor of another, no matter how attractive and prestigious, that would cost your family much more. Many students, particularly those with little or no demonstrated financial need, make this choice in the end.

Sometimes students facing a difficult decision find it helpful to make a list of pros and cons for each college. Thinking through what is really important to you is critical, now more than ever. Your priorities may have changed over the past few months. Now that you know your choices, prestige may no longer play such an important role because the high-prestige schools turned you down. Or you may have a better idea of the major you want to pursue because a senior year course has changed your academic direction. Or you may be more willing to go farther from home, or you may feel more comfortable not needing to do this. All of these are valid factors to consider.

I’ve asked people ahead of me in school, “How did you choose?” They all said, “I walked on campus and I just knew.” Well, I need something more concrete. I don’t ever just know about anything. I don’t have gut instincts on major life decisions. - Senior approaching decision time

You may, however, prefer to bypass lists and go with gut instinct. Both approaches can work and, in fact, elements of both may be best of all. The selection priorities will be different for each person, but make sure they are sound. One young man likes to plan ahead. Characteristically, he took a long view in choosing to attend a particular Ivy League college. “Thirty-five percent of legacy applicants get in,” he said. “If I say yes to [Ivy U], I’m saying yes for my children; I’m saying yes for everyone down the line.” Had this been a major factor in his decision (it wasn’t), he would have been on shaky ground. No one knows whether the practice of legacy preference will exist in twenty-five years, let alone whether his children would even want to attend that university.

Colleges ask that students declare their intentions, one way or the other, by May 1, the widely observed candidate reply date. It is courteous to respond as soon as you have made your decision—not only to the college you plan to attend, but to the others as well. All colleges overadmit because they know some students will go elsewhere. Your decision not to attend a college may open up a spot for a student on the wait-list. The earlier a college can determine it has space, the sooner it can send the happy news to this student.

Dealing with Disappointment

While many students are excited by the task of choosing a college in April, many others are disappointed. If you are admitted to only one or two good-bet colleges but denied or wait-listed by the others, you may not be excited by any of your choices. It isn’t fun to be told no by a school you were really enthusiastic about. When several say no, it is even harder. Many factors in the college admissions process are beyond your control and have no bearing on who you are as a person. Realizing how uncertain the outcome can be at highly selective colleges can make it easier to accept each outcome gracefully—whether it is an acceptance or a denial.

Even students with several acceptances may find themselves uncomfortable as they second-guess whether they made the right choices to start with. Having become a reality, none of the colleges look good, and some students start to wonder whether they should have aimed higher.

The scary thing is that no one in our family, adult or child, has the slightest clue which school would be best. They all have pros and cons. Sometimes I think it might be a relief to get rejections from all but one to avoid having to make these incrediblydifficult decisions.  - A parent at decision time

These reactions and others like them are normal. The important thing is to move beyond that first shock of rejection. Dwelling on the negative, as well as on what-ifs and if-onlys, keeps you from moving on. All colleges, no matter how highly rated or well regarded, have faults. And all colleges, even the most humble by most measures, have good points. If you have done your research carefully at the outset, your choice will be a good one no matter what you choose. In fact, it is not the college that makes the difference in your future contentment; it is your degree of commitment to making it work for you. The choice is your first step of that commitment. One young woman was denied by all colleges except her one good bet. Although disappointed, she took a positive approach. Ten weeks into her freshman year, she enthusiastically reported how happy she was with her college, even though she had had no choice. She loved her classes, her new friends, and the college itself. Each year many students have similarly happy endings after a disappointing start.

My parents knew I was nervous, so they sat me down and said, “Look, you’ve done everything you can do.” But when the rejection letters came in, I still felt like every mistake I’d made in the last four years of high school was coming back to haunt me.  - High school senior

Remember also that choosing a college is not an irrevocable act. Students can and do transfer after freshman or sophomore year. Some students transfer from their first-choice schools, even an early decision school, and some from their good bets. Doing well in the last semester of high school and during your freshman year will enhance your transfer options, although some colleges are as selective for transfer students as they are for freshmen. And not all colleges accept transfers. It is not recommended to  choose a college to attend as a springboard to transferring to another one. This is a recipe for being an unhappy freshman. If you try you will find the good points of your college and vow to make the best of it. If it doesn’t work out, then you can think about transferring, but first give your college an honest try.