Choosing a College: advice from a student who did it

Can you introduce yourself in a few quick sentences?

Hi, my name is Jack Friedman (he/him) and I’m 19 years old. I’m a current sophomore at Pitzer College about to declare a Media Studies Major with a concentration in Film. I attended HSAS at Lehman for high school. 

What was the process of applying to college like for you?

Applying to college was fairly stressful, I spent a lot of time looking around and trying to figure out what I wanted, considering I had really no clue. I had a lot of guidance and support from my parents, but a bit in the sense that they were always pushing me to make sure I was making the right decisions and that I considered all of my options. When it came to applying to schools the most important factor to me was “would I actually go here.” Applying to college is a pain in the ass and it’s not cheap either so if I was applying to a school I had to live with the fact that I would go there if that happened to be the only school that I got into. I had a vague sense of what I was looking for in a school, I generally didn’t want a huge school but I also didn’t want one too small. I didn’t want one that didn’t have a campus but I also didn’t want to be in the middle of nowhere. It was difficult to find a school that actually fit those complicated criteria so I ended up applying to a bit of a range and being flexible on that front. 

When you got your decisions, what were the biggest factors in choosing a school?
When I was choosing a school I think the biggest factors were my happiness and comfort, the educational fit, and then the financial factor was big too. My ultimate decision was between two larger, but cheaper, universities where I felt that I would struggle a bit more socially versus a smaller private liberal arts college where I thought I’d be happier but I would be paying for it. It was honestly a really tough decision to evaluate these factors and consider what I was doing. Another factor was distance. Both of the big universities are on the East Coast while the liberal arts college is as far as possible, in southern California. That factor ended up being bigger than anticipated because I sort of pulled the “I need to get as far away from home as possible” card. My family and I tried to be as thorough as possible in our decision making so it didn’t feel like there were many unexpected factors. Obviously Covid-19 shutting down my school for a whole year was an unexpected factor but there was zero way to predict that at the time when I was making my decision. 

If you could summarize the reason that you chose your school into a few sentences, what would they say.

I ultimately chose my current college because I decided that my general happiness for 4 years (now 3) and the relationships that I would establish at a smaller school were more important than sacrificing those things for a cheaper college. I thought that the physical location would be a great change of scenery, and that being at a liberal arts school would put me in a position to explore my options, considering I really didn’t know what I wanted to study in school. These things mostly rang true. I only got about 3/4 of a year on campus before Covid-19 hit, but in that time I thoroughly enjoyed the campus culture, in my opinion it’s one of the best in the country, and I made some incredible friends. I also figured out what I wanted to study, Media Studies with a film concentration, which is totally not what I thought I was going to study originally so being flexible helped with that. With Covid-19 I like to say that had I gone back to do it all again I probably would’ve chosen one of the cheap schools. The biggest reason for choosing my college was the atmosphere and right now I’ve still been paying the private college prices but getting none of the atmosphere. However, I don’t have a time machine and I’m super excited to go back to campus in the fall, so I also wouldn’t change anything about my decision.  

Lastly, what would your biggest piece of advice be for students going through the process of choosing a school?

I’m going to be corny here so apologies in advance. The biggest piece of advice I can give is; remember who you are. Sure what school you choose is important and can be a factor but 100000 times more important than that is what you make of your choice. If you put in an effort to be happy and to make the most of wherever you end up, you will flourish. There were things about my high school that I hated and there are certainly things about my college that I hate. But I focus on improving those things whenever I can, and focusing on the aspects that I love, trying to do everything I can to get my money’s worth and at the end of the day I’m much happier for it. I don’t know how different my life would be had I chosen other schools but I certainly hope that I would’ve taken that experience and run with it just as much as I have with the choices that I made.