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Forbes
29-04-2025
- General
- Forbes
College Decision Day 2025: 4 Keys To Making Your Best Choice
young woman student wearing cap in front of question marks written blackboard and thinking about her ... More future May 1st, 2025, marks a pivotal moment for millions of high school seniors across America. As National College Decision Day approaches, the Class of 2025—approximately 3.9 million strong—stands at a crossroads with acceptance letters in hand and important choices to make. According to KD College Prep, degree availability, academic reputation, cost, and location are key factors to consider as you make your choice. With deposits due and futures waiting to be shaped, how do you cut through information overload to make the right call? The National Association for College Admission Counseling reports that academic factors remain paramount in admissions decisions. When choosing among your acceptances, flip this perspective—evaluate which school's academic approach best serves your goals: A study of 30,000 college graduates by Gallup found feeling supported and having meaningful experiences during college were stronger predictors of post-graduation success than where they attended. The right academic environment doesn't just impart knowledge—it ignites intellectual curiosity, fosters mentorship connections, and builds the confidence to pursue your most ambitious goals. The American College Health Association identifies financial concerns as top stressors for students. Your decision strategy should include: Graduating with minimal debt provides flexibility for life choices that excessive loans don't allow. Financial freedom opens doors to career exploration, entrepreneurship, and calculated risks that can accelerate professional growth. What you accomplish during college—internships, projects, relationships, leadership roles—ultimately shapes your future more profoundly than the school name on your diploma. Research from the Challenge Success survey by the Stanford University Graduate School of Education shows that campus fit strongly predicts student satisfaction. One of the study's outcomes revealed that regardless of whether a student attended a college ranked in the top 5% or one ranked much lower, engagement in college, how a student spends his or her time, matters much more in the long run than the college a student attends. Assess where you'll thrive by: Multiple studies on factors affecting college decisions have found that proximity to family and friends matters for many students, particularly those who value visiting home periodically or need a strong support network. Forward-thinking students should always evaluate how each school prepares them for what comes after graduation: Examine each school's career services center by asking about job placement rates, average starting salaries, and on-campus recruitment activities specific to your field. Request information about alumni mentorship programs, which can provide invaluable connections and insider perspectives in your target industry. Pay particular attention to schools with established pipelines to companies or organizations where you hope to work, as these existing relationships often translate to smoother transitions from classroom to career. I have worked with high school students for over 15 years through WIT - Whatever It Takes. When it comes to advising our seniors who are facing this important college decision, we recommend three practical tools that have consistently helped students gain clarity when numbers, research, and rankings alone won't provide the answer: Visualize yourself at each campus. Picture walking to class, studying in the library, and participating in campus activities. Your emotional response reveals valuable data about which environment feels right. Try this structured approach: Set aside 10 minutes of quiet time for each school you are considering. Close your eyes and mentally walk through a typical day—from waking up in your dorm to attending classes, eating meals, studying, and socializing. Note which visualization feels most natural and exciting. Students often report that this exercise reveals preferences they hadn't consciously acknowledged. Business journalist and bestselling author Suzy Welch developed the 10-10-10 decision-making framework to help people make choices aligned with their true values. The method asks you to consider each decision through three time horizons: How will this choice impact you in 10 minutes? In 10 months? In 10 years? At WIT, we teach this 10-10-10 method as a cornerstone of our decision-making curriculum because of its remarkable effectiveness. This approach helps cut through emotional reactions by forcing you to consider short-, medium--, and long-term consequences. For college decisions, apply this by asking: How will this choice feel right after making it (10 minutes)? How will it affect your first-year experience (10 months)? How might it shape your career trajectory and life satisfaction (10 years)? Students often discover that options causing immediate anxiety may offer the best long-term outcomes. If you are taking out loans, it's essential to consider the long-term impact. Calculate monthly loan payments under different scenarios and consider how they'll affect your post-graduation plans, from graduate school to entrepreneurship or public service careers. Create a concrete budget worksheet for each school option. Research typical starting salaries in your intended field, then calculate what percentage of your expected income would go toward student loan payments. Most financial advisors recommend keeping these payments below 10-15% of your monthly income. This practical exercise often clarifies which options provide true financial freedom after graduation versus those that might limit your choices. College success comes from finding an environment where you can grow, contribute, and prepare for your future. Your careful analysis of academic alignment, financial realities, community connection, and future launch potential—combined with visualization techniques, the 10-10-10 method, and financial planning—provides a complete framework for confident decision-making. Remember, the power of May 1st lies not in which acceptance you choose but in taking ownership of that choice with clarity and purpose.
Forbes
05-04-2025
- General
- Forbes
AI Can Help You Choose A College
getty College admission decisions have landed. Over the last few months, schools have chosen between applicants, and now the decision-making process is back in the students' hands. Along with their supporters, newly admitted applicants have until May 1, the National Candidate Reply Date, to choose and submit an enrollment deposit at one school. Choice is a privilege but it can be layered with uncertainty, doubt, and emotion. For many young people, this will be the most significant decision they have made to date, and it can feel overwhelming. A 2023 survey from the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) found that 76% of students felt that applying to college was a decisive moment in their lives. Now that they know where they have been admitted, information will be coming at them from many sources—admission marketing, classmates, family, etc.—and it can be challenging to make sense of it all. In that same survey, 61% of respondents reported being overwhelmed by the advice they had been given. This is a highly personal decision that cannot be outsourced, but one that can certainly be supported by the power of artificial intelligence (AI). After all, one thing AI is good at is processing a lot of information. I have written about the decision-making process before with advice from admission leaders, a look at the paradox of choice, and a discussion of belonging. I continue to believe that there is no substitute for identifying your key criteria, stepping onto campus, and asking good questions of many different people. AI, however, can help you up your game, filter out distractions, and dig deeper into what matters. Get Personal Emily Pacheco is an associate director of undergraduate admissions at Case Western Reserve University and founder of the NACAC special interest group on AI. She agrees that 'AI can be especially valuable in helping students make sense of the overwhelming amount of information involved in the college decision process.' She says, 'Rather than researching each school individually and drawing their own conclusions, students can use AI tools to compare institutions based on highly personalized criteria. For instance, a student might ask an AI tool to compare two universities in terms of how well they support introverted students who are passionate about music and plan to major in STEM.' Pacheco adds, 'These tools can synthesize large amounts of data and present insights in a way that is tailored, digestible, and easy to act on. By cutting through the noise of countless websites and brochures, AI offers students a focused, more nuanced perspective on what matters most to them.' As you attempt to choose a college home for the next four (or more) years, what will be most important to you? Use this knowledge to generate prompts for AI tools to explore. Here are some potential questions/prompts you might use with a Large Language Model (LLM) like ChatGPT or Gemini: 'Compare the mission statements of (names of two or more colleges). What are the key differences?' 'What is the return on investment for a degree from (college name) and what is the alumni network like?' 'Please review the last two years of articles from the (college name) student newspaper and give the 10 most frequently written about issues and areas of concern for students.' 'Review all social media feeds from (college name) in the last year. What are common themes and highlights?' 'I plan to study (major) in college. What are special opportunities or challenges at (college name) in this major?' Make a Matrix Jeff Neill is the director of college counseling at Graded, The American School of São Paulo. He writes a weekly newsletter, Tech-Neill-ogy, on 'leveraging technology in college counseling.' He suggests that students take comparisons to the next level by having AI tools develop dynamic outputs. He shares this prompt: 'Transform my difficult decision between [specific college/university options] into a clear decision matrix. Reveal hidden risk, long-term consequences, and psychological factors influencing my decision that I am completely blind to.' Try it with two or more colleges and you will be amazed by what it delivers. Neill compared Boston College and the University of Notre Dame and here is an example of what it generated. Go Deep Ben Neely is the chief academic officer for Revolution Prep and has been researching and presenting on AI. He says, 'While AI platforms can't replace school visits when it comes to getting the feel of a prospective college choice, some of the newest tools can be used effectively to research and compare.' In particular, he recommends the Deep Research tools available in OpenAI's ChatGPT ($20/month) and Google Gemini (free with a Google account) which provide the means to dive deeper, and effectively compare different aspects of schools a student is choosing between. He cautions, 'The key is to avoid using standard LLMs like GPT-4o, which will primarily produce responses based on training data that may be out of date.' Neely says, 'When using Deep Research, students should take their list of questions and priorities – such as climate, culture, cuisine, or curricula – and ask the AI tool to provide a thoughtful comparison between the colleges on their shortlist. Unlike typical chatbots, which will immediately start rattling off fairly generic info, these research-oriented programs will ask clarifying questions, and then go and spend several minutes preparing a detailed response with cited sources.' He concludes, 'It's like having a junior research assistant working by your side, which can be super helpful for seniors who are juggling their school and extracurricular priorities. As always, scrutinizing these answers closely with a critical eye for detail is important before coming to any final conclusions. The list of cited sources is a great place to start – you'll be looking for websites hosted by the schools themselves, or other well-reputed authors.' The Student Perspective William Liang is a high school journalist writing about emerging technologies in education. He says, 'I've noticed that while many high school seniors experiment with AI tools—using them to rank schools or compare specific programs—they're ultimately making these decisions on their own.' He adds, 'In my recent conversations with students and counselors, I asked them to dig into their ChatGPT or Claude histories for prompts they'd used while deciding between colleges. They identified five recurring themes: comparing financial aid packages, weighing program strengths for specific majors, brainstorming questions for campus tours, gauging real-world career outcomes, and clarifying factors like location or student life. In most cases, they simply found AI to be a quicker way of aggregating info that might otherwise require multiple Google searches.' Liang points out that 'the consensus remains that these tools don't fundamentally change the decision-making process. Data-driven prompts can help students sift through schools, financial aid packages, and even campus culture, but the final choice invariably comes down to gut feelings, in-person visits, and honest conversations with family. For the time being, the deeply personal nature of choosing a college simply isn't something AI can meaningfully alter. These are decisions that have to be made face to face, and AI doesn't add anything to that discussion (yet).' Facilitate Finances Liang's comment about sifting through financial aid packages is not lost on Michael Kolowich. He is a former Emmy-winning TV news reporter in Boston and partner at Bain and Company. Kolowich also founded or led six companies at the intersection of technology and media and is the creator of the ParentGPS mobile app for College Guidance Network (CGN). As he continues to develop innovative AI products, he has been exploring financial comparison abilities. He suggests this prompt: 'You are an expert financial aid advisor with deep knowledge of college financial aid practices. I have three financial aid offer letters from College A, College B, and College C, and I need to compare them in detail. My goal is to determine which college is most affordable and identify any red flags or opportunities for appeal.' Once the user uploads PDF copies of their award letters or enters the text data, AI tools go to work and within minutes you have a starting point for family discussions about affordability. He suggests this follow-up prompt: 'Please create a side-by-side comparison table of key financial metrics (COA, grants/scholarships total, net price, total loans, estimated out-of-pocket costs). Then provide a detailed narrative comparing the financial aid packages, highlighting important details like loan interest, renewal conditions, or potential annual cost increases. Finally, recommend which offer appears most financially viable, and suggest any next steps for appealing or negotiating additional aid.' Kolowich says 'Large Language Models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude are quite good at cutting through the jargon and complexity of financial aid packages, explaining them in simple, easy-to-understand terms. They can even read and interpret uploaded PDFs of the offer letters themselves.' If you don't qualify for need-based financial aid, you can still employ AI tools. You might, for example, try these prompts: 'I am a New Hampshire resident, please compare the total cost of attendance, including travel expenses and other related fees, for me to attend the University of New Hampshire versus being an out-of-state student at the University of California—San Diego.' 'What are the hidden costs that I might not be aware of to attend (college name)?' These and other questions will allow you to have more informed conversations as a family about paying for college. Keep Control AI should not choose a college for you. If you ask it to and are persistent, it will. Don't cede control. As Liang emphasized, it is not a substitute for 'gut feelings, in-person visits, and honest conversations with family.' You can, however, use these tools to provide background context, research unique features about each college, and free up time to talk to trusted supporters. If you have a choice among colleges, that is an exciting opportunity. Embrace it. While it is a significant decision and investment, it doesn't have to overwhelm you. Use the AI resources available to be an informed consumer, and good luck!
Forbes
22-03-2025
- General
- Forbes
Rejected From Dream College? Here's What To Do Next
student girl with eyes closed and head in hands crying As March 27, 2025—commonly known as "Ivy Day"—approaches, high school seniors worldwide await the culmination of their academic journeys. On this Thursday, all eight Ivy League universities will simultaneously release their regular admission decisions, transforming the hopes and plans of countless students. Data from the early admission cycle suggests another year of exceptional selectivity, with many qualified candidates likely to face disappointment. For these students, years of academic excellence, standardized testing, and extracurricular dedication will collide with the harsh reality of limited spots at elite institutions, forcing them to reassess and redirect their carefully constructed futures. Many rejected students initially feel like they've failed the most crucial test of their lives. Yet months later, many report that this redirection pushed them toward better-fitting opportunities. The numbers paint a stark picture. Application rates have surged at selective institutions, driving acceptance percentages to record lows. The National Association for College Admission Counseling reports that today's average student submits 7-10 applications, with some filing over 20. This creates a vicious cycle: more applications lead to lower acceptance rates, triggering even more applications from worried students. This matches what research reveals about student mental health. According to the EAB Mental Health Survey and data from the American College Health Association: The emotional toll for students who are rejected from dream schools is significant. However, what separates successful students from those who are derailed by disappointment is their ability to pivot quickly and strategically. College counselors often recommend a "48-hour rule" for handling rejection. This approach gives students precisely 48 hours to process all emotions—anger, disappointment, and frustration—before proceeding with alternative plans. This strict timeline serves multiple purposes: it acknowledges the genuine emotional impact while preventing an extended spiral that can jeopardize alternative options. During those two days: Education professionals caution that the first 48 hours aren't the time to commit to significant decisions like taking a gap year or abandoning college plans. Before making any decisions, successful pivoters take time to analyze what they want from their dream school. Is it the specific academic program, the location, the prestige, or the social environment? Students who successfully navigate rejection often make three separate lists: This exercise frequently reveals that 80% or more of what attracted students to their dream school is available at other institutions, including honors programs at state universities. After the emotional processing and self-assessment, successful students systematically evaluate their available paths forward: Approximately 20% of waitlisted students at selective colleges eventually gain admission, but this varies widely by institution. If pursuing a waitlist spot: Nearly 38% of college students transfer at least once during their academic careers. To position yourself for a successful transfer: Eva Ostrum, an independent educational consultant with over 15 years of experience, points out a lesser-known advantage: "In many cases, the transfer admit rate far exceeds the admit rate for first-year students. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill provides a case in point. In 2024, it had an overall first-year admit rate of 15.56%—hovering around only 8% for out-of-state students versus 40% for in-state applicants. In comparison, the transfer admit rate of about 40% does not distinguish between in-state and out-of-state candidates." A structured gap year can strengthen future applications while providing valuable experience: Students who apply to a balanced list of schools—including target and likely options—report higher overall satisfaction with their college experience: Many entrepreneurs and business leaders credit college rejection with developing their resilience and problem-solving abilities. This approach reframes rejection as market feedback rather than personal failure—recognizing that demand exceeds supply. The most successful students stop seeing their situation as a rejection and start viewing it as a redirection. This mental shift is more than positive thinking—it's a practical approach that opens doors to unexplored options. When students ask themselves, "Why am I fighting to attend an institution that didn't select me?" they often realize the absurdity of desperately wanting to be somewhere they weren't wanted. This realization can be surprisingly liberating. Consider what rejection signals: a mismatch between the student and the institution. Either the school doesn't have room for every qualified applicant, or they've determined—based on factors largely outside the student's control—that the fit isn't ideal. In either case, the student gains nothing by dwelling on this closed door. College counselors report that students who embrace redirection discover: The reframing method works best when students move beyond asking, "Why not me?" and instead ask, "Where can I truly flourish?" This shift redirects energy from lamenting the past to building the future. This mentality helps students: Many graduate students at top universities report being rejected from elite schools during their undergraduate applications. Their personal statements for graduate school often highlight what they accomplished following initial rejection. This demonstration of resilience frequently strengthens their candidacy the second time around. Students can create compelling narratives by: Admissions consultants note that these resilience narratives can be particularly compelling in transfer applications. Admissions committees look for evidence of students who have proven themselves in challenging circumstances. A growing body of research suggests institutional prestige correlates poorly with later career satisfaction and success. A 2024 Gallup study of 30,000 college graduates found that having a mentor, caring professors, and completing practical internships predicted workplace engagement and well-being far more strongly than where students attended. Research indicates that these positive outcomes were unrelated to institutional selectivity or ranking. Many hiring managers are turning away from Ivy League graduates in favor of students from state schools and small liberal arts colleges. Yet many college applicants persist in their fixation on gaining admission to the most selective schools. There's often an unexpected financial benefit to rejection from highly competitive schools. Less selective institutions frequently offer substantial merit scholarships to attract high-achieving students. This can result in: Most importantly, what initially feels like crushing disappointment often leads to unexpected opportunities. The National Survey of Student Engagement surveyed 5,000 college seniors and found that 72% would choose the same institution again if they could go back in time, with identical satisfaction rates across institutions of varying selectivity. Former admissions officers frequently remind students that college isn't about landing at a specific school. Instead, it's about finding an environment where students can grow, contribute, and prepare for their futures. From this vantage point, rejection sometimes serves as a redirection to where students truly belong.
