Advice for college

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Question: I'm about to leave for college, but I'm nervous that maybe I picked the wrong school. How do I know?

Answer: There is no such thing as a "bad school" and the quality of your experience will depend entirely on your expectations and attitude.
Nationally about 50% of college freshmen will not return for their sophomore year. Kids and parents spend so much time worrying about getting in to a "good school" that they forget the more important point, which is finding a school you will want to stay at until you graduate.

In Illinois 75% of high school graduates will go on to some form of post high school education but only 25% will get a bachelors degree. Granted many of these people never intended to get a bachelors degree, they were working toward an associates or certification. None the less we must ask the question why do so many students "fail out" of school?

I think it has a great deal to do with the stories people tell themselves about what college will be like. Two myths: 1.) it is a giant party all the time 2.) it is much harder than high school

The first myth leads kids to try to create the image they have seen in the movies. They party, they skip classes, they procrastinate to pull the stereotypical all nighter, and they fail classes.

The second myth leads back to the first. College is really not that hard. Once you have been accepted to an institution if you show up to every class and turn all your work in on time you will graduate. Outside of community colleges, institutions of higher education do not accept students who do not have the academic potential of doing the work they will see at that school. That would a bad business plan. Once students realize it is not that hard they go back to myth one.

The biggest problem is that most students never stop to ask themselves what they really wanted to get out of their college experience. Many will say "a good job" but they usually do not know how to define that and they fail to realize that even the Ivy League schools cannot guarantee a lucrative job upon graduation.

It always amuses me when students claim they could not go to a small school because they want to meet more people. No matter what size college you attend you only get 24 hours in a day. No person has room in their life for more than a dozen close friends, and even that would be extreme. The smallest colleges usually have at least a couple hundred people. Therefore your social experience is not limited by the size of your school but by the size of your imagination.
There is nothing wrong with transferring schools if you think you find a place that is a better fit, but before you go just be sure you know what you are hoping to get from that place. You cannot get what you want unless you know what you want, and those who fail to ask themselves this question are doomed to be disappointed.

Your school is going to be fantastic if you bring enthusiasm, and you don't wait back for the amazing experiences to find you, but you decide what you want and go after it.