Geographical Influences and College Decisions

In last week’s post I suggested that the big college decision facing many high school seniors right now might be blown out of proportion. May 1^st is the usual deadline for most colleges and universities awaiting replies (and deposits) from admitted students, so this can be a critical and somewhat agonizing time for students and their families. While I offered some insight from parents, students, as well as a private college counselor about how important it is not where you go to college, but what you make of your college education, it’s a challenge to keep that in mind if the decision is particularly stressful.

Perhaps most curious to me is the difference in the level of frenzy and hype when you talk with high school seniors in different parts of the country. I know from reading the many blog posts and articles both online and in print that all is crazy for those who applied to the most selective schools in the U.S. They are the focus of most stories flitting around, and such stories tend to sensationalize the tears, the despair, the disbelief over rejection. Almost every student profiled lives on the East or West coast.

Here in the Midwest at my daughter’s high school, only a handful of kids apply to the Ivies each year. In this part of our nation, many families with high school students have never even heard of the small, exclusive, private liberal arts colleges in the  Northeast that accept less than fifteen percent of its applicants. For the most part, my daughter’s classmates are satisfied with their decisions to attend in-state schools or neighboring Big Ten universities. The tone is more relaxed, the stakes don’t feel so high, and kids just seem happy about going off to school and taking the next step.

 Not long ago I had an enlightening conversation with Lloyd Thacker, editor of the book College Unranked. Thacker is also founder and executive director of the Education Conservancy, a non-profit organization committed to affirming educational values in college admission and calming the commercial frenzy often associated with admissions. We discussed how geography, or where you grow up and go to high school, can have a big impact on the college admission craze. Attitudes are different in the Midwest from those in the Northeast and the West Coast, or so it seems…

Thacker acknowledges that the marketing firms hired by wealthy colleges tend to direct their messages to East and West coast kids, and in comparison, it makes the Midwestern students seem almost “organic.” In his mind those Midwesterners represent a group of prospective students that haven’t been so polluted by the commercialization of college admissions.

 “These kids seem more organically connected to their education and their goals, and they seem to have a more wholesome process of learning because in essence they’ve been left alone to decide for themselves,” he said.

I’ve talked with parents and students around the country, and from what I’m hearing, this concept is supported. Of course it’s a generalization – but one that offers some food for thought. The book that I’m writing will delve deeper and hopefully shed some light on regional differences, for what they’re worth. The bottom line is that high school students should decide which school to attend for the right reasons, not because of marketing strategies or concerns about prestige.

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