As the school year
winds down, high school seniors are going through an important rite of passage –
what to do after high school? May 1st is the typical deadline for high school
seniors to make their college decision, which makes the month of April a
30-day stretch of stress and anxiety in many households across the country. The
high school graduation parties and summer family reunions will soon be here,
and students need a story to tell when relatives ask, “so what are you going to
do in the fall?” Sorting through the various aspects of a decision that has a
significant effect on the trajectory of one's life can be overwhelming. Fully
understanding the variables and the choices in play is a critical component to
making the right decision that can help ease that natural anxiety.
Twenty years ago, I
took a class called the Psychology of Student Success as part of my doctoral
program. One of the topics covered was the psychology of college choice –
why do students choose the colleges they do? The research was one of the
most scattered, inconclusive bodies of knowledge I ever encountered in my
studies. It uncovered variables such as familiarity (parents or sibling
attended); academic program (when most students change their major multiple
times); social reasons (high school friends are attending); and several other factors
that held great influence over choosing a college but have little to do with
the eventual satisfaction with the overall college experience.
At 18 years old, it
seems unrealistic to think that we know exactly what we want in a college when
the college experience is typically an unknown frontier in great contrast to
high school. Sorting through the information is particularly
hard when colleges seem to blend all too easily into an indistinguishable
array of pretty buildings, smiling tour guides, and piles of information that
can easily morph into a hodgepodge of ambiguity – leaving a prospective student
to sort through marginal differences when trying to decide between colleges.
Our Vice President
for Learning & Academic Affairs, Dr. Maryrose Eannace, always speaks about how
a successful college decision is comprised of a triangle of choice in which all
three points need to be satisfied – the head, the heart, and the wallet. If
all three aren't accounted for, students run the risk of making a choice that
may limit their immediate and long-term success. The head component is
comprised of all the quantitative factors – location, enrollment size,
academic program choices, campus life, housing options, and other specific
things students might be looking for in a college. The heart component is
comprised of the qualitative factors – emotional reaction to the idea of the
college, the feeling when you walk around campus, first impressions when
meeting faculty, staff, and students, walking through the buildings and visualizing
spending the next few years there. And finally, the wallet component is as
straight forward as can be – is the college affordable and how much debt may be
a part of the future after graduation? Satisfying any two and not the third will
create risk for success. If the wallet is satisfied (graduate with no
debt) and the head is satisfied (all logical criteria are satisfied), but the
heart isn't there (it just doesn't feel right and there isn't a connection),
the likelihood of the student being engaged and committed is not good. Likewise,
if the head and heart are satisfied but a student graduates with a mountain of
crushing debt, it's not likely to have been worth it in the long run.
It's very difficult
to tell an 18-year-old facing one of the most significant decisions in their
life to this point that it will all work out eventually. Phrases like, “It's
not so much where you start as it is where you finish” hold little weight when
all that seems to matter at 18 is where you start. It might be difficult for 18-year-olds
to tune out peer pressure, but in reality, the opinions of their high school
friends probably won't matter as much a year from now. The important part is
that they make that college choice and get themselves excited about wherever
they go, because it's not so much the college that will make them successful as
much as their own personal attitude and motivation to engage, connect, and
finish that will.
I haven't seen the most
recent research, but I have my own theory about the psychology of student
success – we all have the choice to make the best decision we can with the
information we have and make the most of whatever experience those decisions
provide us.
If you have any
comments or questions, please contact me directly at presblog@mvcc.edu.
