Does It Matter Where You Go to College?

My son has not shown great preference for one college over another. Where he has expressed a mild like or dislike, it has been for things that are icing on the college cake like proximity to a large city or a pretty campus. His contention is that it doesn’t really matter which college he attends. He believes that he would be fine at any college.

My wife and I have been trying to convince him to look more critically at his choices, but he doesn't know what he wants. Are we asking him to make choices before he is ready? How does he become ready? What if he is correct, and it doesn’t matter where he ends up at college? 

Part of me screams that picking the right college is critical. So much of our college process is predicated on the assumption that matching student and college is a key factor in fostering future success. 

Is it? 

When I am presenting on college writing, I have sometimes asked audiences if they know their physicians' undergraduate schools. They don't. People trust their doctors with their lives, but they don't care where s/he went to school. Most people don't even know what medical school their doctor attended. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

My choice of college mattered. I picked a university where I could study the subjects that most interested me. I found professors and students who helped me figure out both my passions and myself. I gained mentors and friends who continue to shape my life more than thirty years later. 

Is that a function of me or of the school? Would that have occurred no matter where I went? I can't answer that question. I tell kids that the most important variable that affects college success is the student - and that is not a function of a college choice. 

Or is it? We are different people in different settings. We see ourselves differently depending on the mirrors into which we look. One of the most important things I learned from helping my elder child select a college was the importance of the academic match. I am baffled by parents who do all they can to push their children into “stretch” schools. I would never want my child to be the student with the lowest test scores and worst academic record in the classroom. Is the prestige worth putting your child in such a difficult position?

Malcolm Gladwell has even said that it may be detrimental in the long run for high achieving students to go to these prestige schools. The New Republic published an article entitled, “Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League: The nation’s top colleges are turning our kids into zombies.” While one may disagree with the conclusions of the two authors, both clearly believe that colleges have long-term effects on students.

There most certainly is a difference in how students experience college. I don't want my child to spend time in a large lecture hall listening to someone drone on and on, or feel he has to binge drink to have a social life. I want a college that will nurture him and help him find and develop his passions. Rather than an impersonal institution or a party school, I hope he will go to a university that will facilitate his discovery of who he wants to become and what he wants to contribute to this world.  

Just any college will not suffice. There are probably many colleges that would be a good match for our child – and some that would be poor selections. The challenge is finding them.