Top 10 Questions High Schoolers Have about College
As the BG team gears up for a series of college-minded presentations at Granada High School Oct. 19-20, we’ve been collecting your questions to get a better feel for the top things high schoolers want to know about college. With over 300 responses so far, we’ve compiled the top 10 most commonly-asked questions. With the answers, of course. This ain’t no test.
10. How do you survive? Aside from remembering to breathe on a regular basis, it’s not all that hard, really. While “surviving” is a legitimate concern, you’re likely not in danger of “not surviving,” so to speak. But, for a literal take on this question, here are some cold, hard answers:
a) Don’t stress. Cramming for midterms, social drama and worrying about your broke, starving-student-ness can stress your sleeping patterns and eating habits. However, as long as you establish some good connections at your new school (friends, teachers, R.A.s) and find a few quiet, private spots where you can go to rest, study and veg-out, you’ll set the stage for a healthy college experience. Stress is everywhere, but finding the things that make you feel GOOD are more important. College is no exception.
b) Don’t binge-drink. Excessive alcohol intake for young college students is the number one cause of injury, hospitalization and death at college. While drinking is legal for college students over the age of 21, drinking like an adult means acting like one (which means, stay out of the hospital)..
c) Eat well, drink lots of water and sleep. You’re on your own for nutrition, health and in many cases, psychological well-being, so use the basic skills you learned from your parents and take care of yourself. Exhaustion is a very real condition caused by lack of sleep, proper nutrition and care, which can easily be avoided by checking in with your internal well-being-o-meter every few days or so. Make sure you know where your campus’s health center is located, in case you catch a cold or the flu during the semester.
Basically, use your head, and you’ll be fine. But don’t use it to like, break into your dorm room if you get locked out.
9. How many colleges should I apply for?
Enough.
Okay, let’s spend a little more time on this one. Considering that the college application season starts during the fall of senior year, deciding where to begin your new life, nearly a year in the future, can be daunting. Our advice? Give yourself some wiggle room, and apply to 2 or 3 “fallback” or “safety” schools that you’re pretty sure you’ll get into, but may not be your first choice. On the other hand, put your best foot forward for your top-choice schools, as you’ll want to have them as options.
In the end, you should apply for more schools than you think you’ll get into, if you can afford the application fees, which range from $50-$200, on average. As the acceptance/rejection letters roll in during the spring semester, you’ll be happy you gave yourself some choices for one of your first big, adult decisions.
8. What do colleges look at besides SAT scores, extra-curricular activities and GPA? That’s a good question! Here’s an off-the-cuff answer, and please provide your comments to this blog post if you’d like to add to the answer.
For schools that do NOT require an essay or letters of recommendation, SATs, extra-curriculars and GPA mean everything. What else do the admissions counselors have to consider? However, these schools may tend to have wider admissions guidelines, so you don’t need a perfect SAT and a 4.0 to get in.
For schools that DO require an essay and letters of recommendation, your numbers will surely matter, but there’s another factor that the school’s admissions office will consider: YOU. If you have to write a personal statement, let your personality show. Now, don’t start cursing like a sailor if that’s the way you tend to text message your friends, but do not, I repeat, DO NOT, write a generic, overly-general,I’m-so-perfect essay that could be tacked onto anyone else’s application. Be specific, be yourself, and tell them what you want to achieve out of their college. If you can read it to your parents and convince THEM, then you’re probably in good standing. They know you better than… well, better than I do.
7. What’s the homework like? Not much different than high school. Wait, I take that back. Of course it’s different from high school, but for the most part, the homework genres are the same: essays, reading and studying. The first two years of college tend to be filled with general education classes, similar (yet, hopefully, more interesting) to your high school classes. When you begin taking classes for your major, your homework will reflect the field you’ve chosen. English and history majors, be prepared for a lot of reading and writing, but probably, not a whole lot of cramming. Math, engineering and science majors, be prepared for fact-based homework and a ton of studying for midterms, but probably not a whole lot of essay-writing. Music, art and creative studies majors, be prepared for a lot of deadlines, midterm/final projects and perhaps regular critical essays about your craft. You get the idea.
6. Which classes should I take? While some of this was answered above, I’ll delve into the “class requirements” component of this section, which many college students fail to consider when choosing classes. All too often, college students will enroll in classes without looking at their school’s bulletin to see which requirement it fulfills. Without careful planning, you may enroll for two awesome classes, but they both fulfill the same requirement, meaning you’re taking an extra class. The best and ONLY advice to avoid this problem is to get a copy of your college’s bulletin (also may be available online) and study it! Study it hard! It may save you many classes-worth of extra studying. College advisors may help, but the printed, published, up-to-date bulletin has the final word.
5. What’s the purpose of college? This is one of the most legitimate questions we received. Here are a few answers.
“College gives you the skills, resources and professional network to succeed in a future career.” – Okay, this is the standard, brochure-esque definition, but it’s true. For example, my communication studies major taught me a lot about group communication, which I now use at my post-college job, and conflict resolution skills, which I used on a daily basis when I worked at an elementary summer camp. Third graders graders fight over everything, seriously.
“College gives you a degree (a B.A., a B.S., etc.), which is required for a good career.” – This is true in many regards. While professional actors and musicians may not have college degrees, many successful people in their industry do. A college degree is a prestigious honor and (with college resources like BetterGrads and the many financial resources available today) is a possibility for almost anyone.
“College is a great experience.” – As simple as it sounds, it’s true. For many, college is the first time students live away from their parents, begin to make adult decisions (such as with money, housing, etc.) and start to shape their future. It’s nothing like going to work full-time straight out of high school, where you likely wouldn’t get the advantage to further your knowledge and studies in a particular field.
4. What are the dorms like? While most college freshmen haven’t crash-landed straight from boarding school, living away from home in a building with hundreds of other college freshmen just like you is definitely an experience to write home about. Which, you probably would, because you wouldn’t be living at home. While living in the dorms can be a year-long or even college-long experience, it’s impossible to explain what it’s like in a nutshell. So here’s a snapshot.
a) Friends – You gotta make ‘em, because dorms are built for community life, not solo-life. You will quickly find ways for privacy and solitude, but opening up to the idea of shared bathrooms, hallways and even bedrooms is a must.
b) Food – Many dorms have meals associated with the local dining center, but beware: while “gourmet food” and “fresh-cooked meals” are often staples of marketing your prepaid meals when you sign up for the dorms, no matter how good the food is, it gets old. Keep your meal plan, but invest in a microwave AND fridge. Leftovers, popcorn and Ramen will save your life (See Question #10 on “surviving college”.).
c) Frats – Okay, so this point isn’t all about fraternities (a.k.a. “frats”), but let’s stick with the “f” words. The nice ones. Dorms are notorious for parties, which tend to revolve around the campus fraternities and sororities (a.k.a. organized social organizations) found at many colleges. Regardless of the party’s origin, dorms are a breeding ground for recruiting party-goers, especially at the beginning of the year, when everyone’s new and looking to have fun. Some words of advice: safety in numbers, stick with your friends, and realize that just as you no longer have to ask permission to go out, you have, in turn, gained sole responsibility over your well-being. Have a blast! But do it wisely.
3. What’s the best college for… [architecture, medicine, history, becoming a rock star, etc.]
Yes, becoming a rock star was one of our standout submitted questions, and I will answer that one first. Yes and no. Yes, you can major in music, join an on-campus band and gain professional music industry contacts through internships and your professors. No, you won’t network with underground roadies in your Music 101 class.
Overall, different colleges have reputations for different things. The best ways to find out are word of mouth, online research and your high school career center. (Online research pointing you to BetterGrads, of course. Follow us on Twitter!)
2. Is it expensive? Considering most of American high schoolers receive a public education, this is clearly a big contender in college-questiondom.
The quick answer: All colleges and universities (the ones who have their act together, at least) have a financial aid page (or some equivalent) detailing the costs of tuition, books and estimated living expenses. Pick a school, and find that page.
The ballpark answer: Generally, public, in-state schools will run you anywhere from $2-5,000 per year, depending on the school, the state, if you’re a full-time student and a bunch of other factors. Private schools? Many of them begin at $20-30,000 per year, and up, depending on the exclusivity of the school, location, etc. Again, these are ballpark estimates.
The best advice? Register for FAFSA at https://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ and get yourself approved for a student and/or parent loan, and apply for any scholarship for which you think you might qualify.
And by a long shot, the absolute most-frequently asked, pressing question on high schoolers’ minds…
1. Is it hard? Only slightly lagging begin “Will it be fun?” and a variation of my favorite: “Is it going to be fun, or hard?” (as if it’s one, or the other), this is by far, the most relevant question. Is it not? We spend 12 years of elementary, junior and high school trudging through increasingly hard homework to finally graduate, only to… do it all over again, but this time, HARDER? But wait! Worry not, because while, from a high schooler’s perspective, college-level essays, midterms and research projects may seem oh-so-hard and daunting, remember this: college schoolwork is made for a college mentality, not a high school one. If you pick a school you like, are excited about the wide variety of new subjects and the appeal of an adult environment, then college schoolwork will fall in line with your mindset. However, if you enter college with a haphazard, I-still-have-senioritis, too-cool-for-school ‘tude, then, yeah, college WILL be hard. In fact, it will probably suck.
In short, hard can be fun, if it interests you. And with an endless possibility of majors available, many of which can be custom-designed by you and your college advisor, you’re bound to find something you like.
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Thanks to everyone who’s submitted their responses and questions about college so far!
If you haven’t taken the survey yet, please take a minute or two and fill it out here: https://bettergrads.org/granada/pre2.html. Or, leave us a blog comment with your questions, and we can respond personally.
Granada High School students… We’ll see you soon!
Note: Survey was conducted primarily among students from Granada High School in Livermore, California. Future surveys will gather responses from larger demographics.
