College Guide: Getting started and building your college list
Welcome back to the Essential Guide to College in New York. It’s Week 2 of our eight-week newsletter course that teaches families what they need to know about the college search.
Let’s get right into it.
My own teenagers aren’t always eager to hear my advice about applying to college, even though offering tips on exactly that topic is a big part of my job right now. And I get it — they want to make their own way in the world, learn their own lessons. As they should!
But their peers? That’s a different story.
That’s what makes Angelina Livigni’s Newsday story so valuable for families getting ready for college applications. She talked to five Long Island college students about what they wish they’d known when they were in high school.
There’s a lot of wisdom in their words and I won’t share all of it here, but one Long Island teen advised high schoolers to ask themselves lots of questions about what they actually want from their college experience, rather than letting themselves be pressured by others’ expectations.
GET STARTED 📋
A Princeton Review survey found that 73% of teens feel high or very high stress about college. Parents can lower the temperature by offering encouragement and guidance rather than pressure.
It helps to get an early start on college planning, as my colleague Darwin Yanes reports in a story packed with helpful tips from counselors who work with students one-on-one. As soon as ninth grade, students should be taking the most advanced coursework they can handle and joining clubs where they can explore their interests and eventually take on leadership roles.
Colleges care more about depth and leadership than the number of activities on students’ applications, counselors say. So the goal is to dive deep into subjects that are meaningful to students.
Also, start keeping a list of activities and accomplishments! By senior year, it will be hard to remember the details.
Next, it might seem like 10th grade is too early for college tours. But getting a head start on visiting local schools can help students narrow down their list.
For more distant schools, find out if you'll be eligible for free transportation. If traveling isn’t an option, there are plenty of informative videos on schools’ websites and on social media and YouTube.
Many schools consider "demonstrated interest" as an admissions factor, so sign up for email lists, open every message and click on the links — in some cases, schools are watching.
Meanwhile, parents should think ahead about financial aid. (More on this in Week 4. And in Week 6, we'll have advice about 11th and 12th grades.)
FINDING THE RIGHT FIT 🎓
As students start narrowing down their list of colleges, they might be pleased to find New York State offers a variety of options, as my colleague Anastasia Valeeva reports. On one end of the spectrum there's New York University’s sprawling population of more than 28,000 undergraduates, and on the other there is Long Island’s tiny Webb Institute, where 100 students study naval architecture and marine engineering on full-tuition scholarships.
So whether they're looking for a huge university with a wide range of majors, research opportunities, sports teams and social activities or a small school where it’s easy to get to know most of their classmates and professors, New York has it all.
Newsday’s college search tool helps you create your list of New York schools, whether you’re looking for the biggest or the smallest schools in the state, or something in between. You can also narrow down your list by tuition cost, selectivity and more. Check it out.
TRY THIS 🗓️
Let your teen know you’d like to schedule regular check-ins about how school and the college search are going.
Putting it on the calendar keeps it from being a constant topic of conversation. When questions or concerns arise, if they don’t need immediate attention, you can set a reminder for yourself to raise them at the next check-in.
Give your teen a stake in the process — have a conversation about when would be the best time to meet, and how often.
SEND US YOUR QUESTIONS 💬
What’s on your mind? What questions do you have for Newsday’s staff and our network of experts? We are taking questions and comments about selecting schools, seeking financial aid, increasing your odds of admissions and many other topics. You can contact us by email at collegeguide@newsday.com.
NEXT WEEK ✅
It’s all about the State University of New York, the network of public colleges and universities that charge annual tuition of $7,070 or less for in-state students.
The SUNY flagships, Long Island’s Stony Brook University and the University at Buffalo, offer more than 700 degree programs, and one SUNY school is increasingly known as a “public Ivy.”
You’ll learn about all of it in Week 3.
Maura McDermott covers education. Since joining Newsday in 2012, she also has worked on the investigations team and covered real estate and the business of health care.
