More On Getting Ready For College
Still looking for more information related to college admissions? Accredited Schools Online provides a wide-ranging library of resources to help students feel educated and confident about their college journey.
Did the standard application deadline slip past you? While not all schools provide extended admissions deadlines, this guide provides advice and resources for students who are concerned theyll have to wait an extra year to begin college because of missing an application deadline.
Degree-seekers hoping to avoid the competition and stress associated with typical college admissions often feel drawn to nonselective schools that admit students regardless of prior academic performance. If this sounds like a fit for you, check out this guide.
Resources And Support Systems
To foster long-term success, you should consider your needs and wants as a whole person, not just as a student.
Make sure the school can accommodate any medical conditions you may have.
Before choosing a college, make sure the school can accommodate your spiritual life and any medical conditions or special learning requirements you may have. Many students experience homesickness and other emotional challenges when starting college, so it’s a good idea to check the availability of counseling services and health and wellness programs ahead of time.
While writing and tutoring are ubiquitous among higher education institutions, be sure you can conveniently access these resources should you end up needing them.
Finally, your college of choice should offer an array of career services to help you obtain internships, network with potential employers, and create engaging resumes and cover letters.
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Think About Your Employment Options
While being passionate about your subject is important, passion alone does not pay the bills. There has to be a modicum of practicality involved when you make the decision.
If your preferred major does not provide you gainful employment in a relevant field, it doesnt make sense to spend money on a program and end up unemployed or in a job that has no correlation to your major. You are better off choosing a field which can at least give you a decent chance of getting employed.
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How Many Schools Should I Apply To
We recommend starting with 6 schools:
You can adjust this number up or down as needed, but you should send college applications to a few schools from each category. Applying to a range of schools will ensure that you set ambitious goals and give yourself some back-up
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How Do I Choose Between Very Different Majors
You may have a few ideas of what you want to academically pursue in college, but how do you make a choice between them all? Our experts have some advice.
Originally Posted: Jun 25, 2012
Klaar College Consulting LLCI would not be concerned about choosing a major before you enter college. Most colleges require that you take general education or core requirements that will expose you to a variety of disciplines. You will find one or two that excite you, I promise. While you’re in high school, you should give serious thought to what you like and dont like to do, what you are good at, and what you are not so good at. Try out part-time jobs in the settings that incorporate what you are good at and like to do. See if the people you meet and the settings in which you work give you some insight into the possible career options you have. You can also go to the college career center early in your freshman year and have them do some career assessments with you to help you choose your courses and your major.
Looking for more quick advice to your college academic questions? Check out our Majors and AcademicsAsk The Experts section.
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Do Some Research On Your Opportunities
Does this college offer study abroad in over 50 countries? Does that one guarantee paid internships or a chance to work with leading professors? Maybe a certain school isnt your first choice, but it boasts an excellent Agricultural or Engineering program . Decide what you prioritize in an education and choose the option that will enable you to fulfill your goals to the fullest extent.
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In Your It Position Money Isnt Everything
If you did your homework before starting the interviewing process, both opportunities will be within realistic salary parameters for your level of skills and experience, so its unlikely that youre looking at a huge salary differential. And remember, while $10,000/year sounds like a lot, it can actually amount to less than $500/month once taxes and deductions are factored in and $500/month isnt enough to compensate, on a daily basis, for a job that you hate going to every morning.
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Make A List Of College Options
Take all the schools you have found that have peaked your interest and make a list. It may be easiest to make it on a Word or Google Doc and start to add links for their websites, and clubs that youre interested in joining. Start researching them more.
Do they have the major you want?
Are you like me and need a school with sports teams to cheer on?
Do they have extracurricular activities?
What about the options for scholarships, grants, or work study opportunities?
Start making the list of schools youre interested in and pick your top two or three schools to highlight.
University And College Sizes And Course Offerings
In general, colleges tend to have a smaller student body and faculty than universities. This is a natural result of the limited degree programs they offer. Because universities include graduate studies, more students attend these schools at one time and more staff is required to handle the students’ needs.
Universities also tend to offer a greater variety of degrees and classes than a college. This leads to a more diverse student population with a wider array of interests and studies.
Likewise, students will find smaller classes within the college system than they would in a university. While universities may have courses with 100 or more students in a lecture hall, a college may offer the same course subject in a room with only 20 or 50 students. This offers more individual attention to each student.
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High School Seniors Should Consider These Questions Before Choosing A School Especially If Theyre In The Fortunate Position Of Deciding Between Colleges
My friends and I like to joke about how the food in our colleges dining halls just happens to taste better on the days when prospective students come to see the school. Except its not really a joke. The food is remarkably better.
What gives?
After spending most of your senior year doing everything you can to prove to various colleges that youre worthy of being there, sometimes its easy to forget that colleges are businesses and they want you to buy in. So it makes sense that when you go to visit campus as a potential student the dining hall food tastes fantastic. Thats why it also makes sense that youll undoubtedly see the brand new buildings and the most up to date dorm rooms.
It can be easy to focus on the things that colleges want you to see. And sure, maybe the food quality doesnt decline dramatically once the school year starts, and maybe you end up in the best dorm on campus, but theres more to a college decision than the big things like food, dorms, academics. These are important factors in any college decision. I also know that location, price, scholarships, and overall prestige of the school play a huge part in a students choice.
I want to offer a few other considerations that might be helpful in making a college decision. Admittedly, theyre not quite as crucial as some other factors, but theyre worth thinking over and might be helpful if youre stuck deciding between colleges when you have several options.
3. How big is the campus?
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Visualize Yourself In That Career
Do you see yourself enjoying a role that involves working one-on-one with people every day or would you prefer to work behind the scenes with minimum interactions with others?
Can you imagine working in your chosen field 8 hours a day, 5 days or more a week, 365 days a year? Sure, you can change careers any time if it is not working out for you but ideally, you want to start off doing something you love.
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How Do I Pick Between Colleges
Congratulations! If youre reading this blog, its likely because your hard work has paid off, and youve been accepted to more than one of the schools you applied to! We know that choosing between the schools to which youve been accepted can feel a bit overwhelming, especially if you do not have one clear favorite among your acceptances. Choosing where to go to college is, after all, a very important decision, so giving yourself some time to think about where you will spend your next four years is crucial. Fortunately, weve got you covered with the ten most important factors to consider in your college conundrum!
Consider Your Learning Style
Class size can have a big impact on the overall learning experience. Traditional universities tend to have very large classes, especially in the first couple years of an undergraduate program. You could find yourself sitting in a cavernous lecture hall with hundreds of other students. By contrast, classes at liberal arts colleges typically have 20 students or less classes at community colleges generally range from 25 to 35 students. Career colleges also tend to have some of the lowest student-to-instructor ratios you can find. If one-on-one attention from teachers is important to you, look for a school with smaller class sizes.
On the other hand, smaller institutions typically offer much less in the way of research opportunities and facilities than large universities. If you’re an independent learner who is comfortable with self-directed study, or if you relish the idea of being exposed to world-class experts and having access to cutting-edge research facilities, then a large research university might be the best fit for you.
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Help 7 Questions To Ask Yourself When Choosing Between Two Job Offers
Having to choose between two offers is certainly a good problem to have. Here are a few questions to ask yourself when weighing multiple offers from employers.
Will I be able to move forward professionally here? 7 questions to help you make the right choiceChoosing between job offers is certainly a good problem to have. Even with the insecurity surrounding the job application process, it can be a problem, nonetheless. To help you choose between job offers, you should ask yourself the following seven questions. What do I remember from the interview?Monster career expert Vicki Salemi told the site about clues to think about when deciding between offers. Weigh any red flags that emerged during the interview. Was the boss checking emails while you were speaking? Or did the interview last until 7 p. m. and was the office was still full of people working?Candidates often overlook one of the most important and intangible factorstheir boss. How well did you get along with that prospective manager? Did you like him or her? Salemi told Monster. Also think about if youll want to be associated with this employer and its culture for the rest of your career, no matter where you go. Will this job help me get what I want in work and life?
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Which Subject Have You Got The Best Grades In
Your grades and predicted grades should be a consideration in so far as this will affect your chances of a successful university application. Of course, if it turns out that you dont actually have the required grades for one of your subject choices, thats your decision made for you. But if, say, you adore English and History in equal measure, but your GCSE and AS-level grades are better in one than the other, the chances are that youll be more successful in the one youve done better at. Its hard to draw conclusions from grades, but if your English grade is better than your History grade, this could suggest that youre more suited to studying English and that this is where your natural talent lies. This isnt only a question of which course youre more likely to be accepted onto on the basis of your grades it may also mean that youd find it easier to study English at university than you would History, which may then also affect the final degree classification you come out with.
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How To Decide Between Multiple Job Offers
Software engineer and entrepreneur Dalvin Josias Sejour shares tips for choosing a job or internship offer.
At Handshake, we know about the excitement that comes with landing a job or internship offer. But what happens when you end up trying to decide between more than one? If youre lucky enough to find yourself in this position, having more than one offer in-hand has its benefitsbut it can still be tough to decide between multiple job offers. Ahead, check out some tips for how to choose.
- The perks of receiving more than one offer
- How to decide between job offers
- Ask for help
Not Getting Experience Asap
If theres one thing that my actual program of study taught me, it is this:
What you do in the classroom is usually a very poor indicator of what an actual career in your major will be like. | Tweet This
Its very difficult to gauge what youll actually do, day-to-day, from your experiences in the classroom. Academics simply arent like the real world.
When I did my internship after my sophomore year, I didnt really enjoy it. Working for a big corporation, being in a cubicle, changing network settings on a laptop all day it definitely wasnt for me.
However, Im very glad I did it because I then had two years of college left with which to pivot .
While I didnt change my major, I did make sure to work even harder to gain new experience in other areas. I also put more effort into this blog, which eventually became my career.
Had I not done the internship early on, I might have graduated without knowing that I wouldnt enjoy my career path.
Thats why I think its imperative to get experience as soon as you can. Get a relevant part-time job, find an internship ASAP, or do a job shadow however you do it, seek to get a taste of your majors day-to-day work as early as possible.
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Research Universities Vs Teaching Universities
At any university, faculty time is divided between teaching and research. But the balance between those two tasks can vary widely among institutions.
Universities that emphasize research are usually large institutions that offer an enormous variety of programs and majors at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The focus on research means that many of these schools have state-of-the-art facilities and are staffed by faculty members who are distinguished experts in their field.
However, you may not have much access to those experts in many cases, undergraduate classes are led by graduate teaching assistants rather than the professors themselves. And undergraduate classes are typically huge, with sometimes hundreds of students gathered in large lecture halls. That can make it difficult to have any meaningful interaction with course instructors.
Teaching universities, on the other hand, focus primarily on imparting knowledge rather than conducting research. Professors generally have full teaching loadsâtypically four classes per termâand do not face the same publish-or-perish pressure as instructors at research universities. Professors might still conduct research, but their main job is to teach. You might not find as many facilities at these types of institutions, but you may have more face time with your instructors.
Your College Acceptance Questions Answered
College provides an important experience during your most formative years that will shape your personal development, says Jin, explaining that college helps students set themselves up for success in the future, so its worth finding a perfect fit. Weighing options requires students to consider countless factors, ranging from overall cost and location to intended major and housing options. Its really worth your time to consider each carefully as all will affect your life in different ways.
To take the pressure off, some learners content themselves with the knowledge that they can always transfer if they dont like the fit of the first school. And while this is true, students often dont know how much work goes into the process. While transfers are possible during your undergraduate career, they also come with their own set of challenges, warns Jin. These include an interruption to your four-year experience, credit transfers to graduate on time and the competitive transfer application process.
At the end of the day, you cant. No student can walk for the first time onto the campus of the school he or she has chosen and feel fully confident in having made the right decision. But, students can do enough research and ask enough questions to have a much better sense of what to expect.
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Which Can You Pursue More Easily In Your Spare Time
Following on from relevant experience, which of your two possible course subjects is it easier to pursue in your spare time? This is an important consideration, particularly in the run-up to your university application, because as weve seen, you need to be able to show a wide interest in the subject that goes beyond what youre studying at school. Some subjects are much easier to pursue in your spare time than others music, for example, gives you the potential of composing your own music, performing in all manner of different music ensembles and reading extensively about the history of music and different composers. Science, on the other hand, is a bit more limited in the practical things you can do in your spare time, without access to a lab. This arguably makes it more difficult to build up an impressive array of related achievements in support of your application. However, thats not to say you should rule out a subject based on this, if youre passionate enough about it!