It’s easy to understand the appeal of early decision or early action college applications: many high school students love the idea of knowing where they’ll be going to college early in their senior year. An early acceptance often means a welcome end to college anxiety and a more enjoyable last year of high school. But students who apply early can get accepted, rejected or deferred, a limbo-like third option that basically keeps you wondering about your status until the spring. Deferred students find out if they’ve been accepted at the same time as students who applied for regular decision.

Being deferred can be a frustrating outcome: you’ve demonstrated a significant interest in a school, hustled to make the earlier deadline, and still have nothing concrete to show for it. But the thing to remember if you get this news is that you haven’t been rejected, which probably means your application is in the ballpark of what the school is looking for.

If you do get deferred from your first choice school, here’s what you should be doing right now:

• Understand that excellent first semester grades will do more than anything else to enhance your chances of acceptance. This is not the time to sulk or embrace defeat – step up your studying efforts and do extra-credit work if possible.
• Tell your guidance counselor you’ve been deferred, since he or she won’t be informed by the college until well after you are.
• Read the deferral letter from the college thoroughly. The letter will often give you suggestions about how to improve your chances. Follow the school’s instructions very carefully – if they say not to submit additional recommendations, don’t do it!
You may also find this information on the school’s website.
• If the college encourages you to submit additional information, you should write a letter reaffirming your strong interest in the school. This is also your chance to update the admissions committee on anything that might be relevant to your application. But don’t waste the committee’s time by telling them what they already know – notify them only if you’ve received any awards or honors, attained a leadership position in a club or extracurricular activity, or increased your SAT or ACT scores.
• Additional letters of recommendation are usually not necessary or helpful. Again, these letters should only be sent if they provide new information that other writers have not presented.

• If you are feeling some anger toward the college, put it aside. Make sure your correspondence with the school is polite and respectful. Writing “I can’t believe I didn’t get accepted” will be perceived as whiny and arrogant. And don’t try to convince the college they made a mistake by deferring you – just explain as best you can why the school is a great fit for you.

• All the contact you have with the college should be between you and the admissions committee – do not let your parents call or write to the school!

Remember that there is still time to apply elsewhere and there are other colleges out there that will be a good fit for you. Meet with your guidance counselor and review your options. And try to stay positive – a deferral may not be the best news, but it’s also not the worst!

Have you ever seen one of those massive college guidebooks – the ones that list hundreds of colleges and universities throught the country? If so, you can probably understand why picking the right school can seem like an overwhelming choice. And you may have wondered, given all those choices, how you would ever find the school that was the best fit for you.

An enjoyable and successsful college experience depends on finding the right school – and focusing on the following three factors will help you figure out which school is right for you.

Location

The first criteria to consider in college selection is location – which region of the country do you want to live in for the next four years of your life? Climate is certainly part of this consideration – you’ll need to think about how you’d feel if you lived someplace without four distinct seasons. Are you interested in a school that lets you pursue your love of snow boarding, or are you happier spending time at the beach?

But you shouldn’t choose a school simply because you’ll be able to wear flip flops all year long. Think about how far you want to be from home and whether or not you’ll want to deal with flying back and forth for visits home. The cost of transportation to and from school will probably be a factor in this decision.

More than you might imagine, the location of a school also determines the pace of life, the cuisine and the local culture. These elements are a big part of college life.

Type of College or University

The next factor to be considered is the type of school you’re looking for. The college experience you’ll have at a large state university will be very different from the one you’d have at a small private college. And military school is another experience altogether!

Large universities have graduate and undergraduate programs and an enrollment of 10,000 students or more. If you would feel lost or overwhelmed on a campus of that size, you should probably consider a smaller university or a liberal arts college. This type of college has between several hundred to a few thousand students and is focused on undergraduate studies.

Other types of schools you may want to consider are colleges with special characteristics, such as schools with a religious affiliation, women’s colleges, and historically black colleges and universities. There are also a number of schools geared to a particular carreer path, such as business colleges, engineering or architectural schools, or colleges that focus on the performing arts.

Community colleges are another type of school you might consider – these schools generally offer two-year programs for local students commuting from home, and they can be an excellent starting point for students who then transfer to four-year colleges.

Competetive Level

The final consideration in picking the right school is its selectivity: how tough are admissions? Some schools accept 70% of their applicants, while others admit less than 20%. Which level of school you should aim for will depend on your high school grade point average, and your SAT/ACT scores. You should also think about whether you want to be at the top, middle or near the bottom of your college freshman class.

The most selective schools are hardest to get into, and will generally only admit students with high standardized test scores and mostly A’s on their transcripts.

Very selective schools accept students with very competitive test scores and a mixture of A’s and B’s in their high school classes.

Selective schools are not too difficult to get into but still require competitive test scores and mostly B’s and C’s in high school course work.

Less selective schools are the least competitive – they accept a large percentage of their applicants, and do not require particularly high grades or test scores.

While evaluating the selectivity of a college you should also pay attention to its retention rates – how many students stay on to graduate? A highly selective school that doesn’t do a good job of supporting and keeping its students may be a poorer choice than a less selective school.

Keeping these three selection factors in mind will help you narrow down your possible college choices to a manageable list. Schools that meet your needs and preferences in all three categories are the schools you’ll want to research further.

What has your experience with selecting a college been like so far? We’d love to hear from you!