{"id":1319,"date":"2014-03-18T16:28:56","date_gmt":"2014-03-18T20:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admissions.me.holycross.edu\/?p=1319"},"modified":"2014-03-18T16:28:56","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T20:28:56","slug":"the-college-search-facts-figures-and-feelings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/admissions\/2014\/03\/18\/the-college-search-facts-figures-and-feelings\/","title":{"rendered":"The College Search: Facts, Figures, and Feelings"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kate<\/a>There\u2019s an endless and oftentimes overwhelming supply of resources out there to help you through your college search. You could camp out in the College Guide aisle at Barnes and Noble for two years and never make it through half the books. You could pull all-nighters clicking through Naviance and scouring every ranking posted by US News & World Report and The Princeton Review until your eyes bug out of your head. You could spend so much time on each college\u2019s website that you know exactly where to find obscure information like how many people the dining hall seats.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And don\u2019t get me wrong, statistics are certainly important. You should<\/i> figure out what the academic profile of an admitted student looks like in order to predict whether a college is in your \u201crange.\u201d You should <\/i>calculate a college\u2019s distance from your home and decide how far away you\u2019d be okay moving. You should <\/i>research the size of the student body and the average classroom size and figure out whether those numbers seem comfortable or intimidating to you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But ultimately, your college choice is not formulaic. You can\u2019t plug a set of numbers into a magical College Calculator and expect it to spit out your Perfect College. The facts and figures can provide you with a great starting point and help guide your search in the right direction, but they won\u2019t be what convinces you that you can call a college \u201chome\u201d for the next four years of your life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That\u2019s where the intangibles come in. Nothing beats visiting a campus<\/a> and getting a feel for it by exploring it and soaking it all in. I\u2019m not saying that you need to get \u201cthat special feeling\u201d that a college is \u201cthe one and only\u201d for you as soon as you step foot onto the campus; this is not a fairy tale, after all, and you do need to keep some options open. But as a human being, you will naturally have reactions to being in a new environment, and you should pay attention to those. After all, you know yourself better than anyone else.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go on guided campus tours and attend information sessions, but also find more informal ways to discover the energy, vibe, and identity of a school. Walk through a quad and sense whether students seem excited to go to class. Sit in the campus coffee shop and eavesdrop on students\u2019 conversations with one another (without being too creepy, of course). Take a moment to peek at bulletin boards in the student center to investigate the weekly and weekend goings-on. Take some pictures of the campus to jog your memory later on and maybe even jot down some notes for yourself before all of your many campus visits start to blur together. Finally, consider sharing these thoughts and observations with friends and family who are supporting you through this process. Chances are they\u2019ll be able to either see the sparkle in your eyes or read the lack of enthusiasm in your voice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kate Gimourginas<\/p>\n

Assistant Director of Admissions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s an endless and oftentimes overwhelming supply of resources out there to help you through your college search. You could camp out in the College Guide aisle at Barnes and Noble for two years and never make it through half the books. You could pull all-nighters clicking through Naviance and scouring every ranking posted by … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The College Search: Facts, Figures, and Feelings”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":615,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[57,71,75,117,204,208],"class_list":["post-1319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-admissions-staff","category-kate-stewart","tag-campus","tag-college-search","tag-contact","tag-information-sessions","tag-tours","tag-visit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/615"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.holycross.edu\/admissions\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}