by Leigh Moore
A friend recently asked me to identify the ten most important facts when it comes to choosing a college. The higher ed choice starts and ends with the student’s unique priorities, but I liked the tacit question behind his challenge: What’s most important? Specifically, what data is most important?
As some of you know, we have a senior at our house this year. He’s probably seen about half of the schools to which he’s been admitted. He simply will not be able to visit them all, and we needed a compass of sorts to show us where to travel during his spring break. I reflected on that matter of relative importance, compiled a data set accordingly, and put it in front of both my husband and my son. The exercise was valuable; in terms of objective measures, his best bets became pretty clear once a few metrics were on paper.
In case it’s helpful for you, here’s what I decided are the 10 most important data points to reference when making the college decision:
