4 Critical Questions To Help Your Child Choose the Right College
I cringe when I think about how I got to college. I was ill-informed and didn’t weigh my options.
In Philadelphia, our main thoroughfare is Broad Street. It stretches almost 13 miles and connects the neighborhoods in the northern part of the city to those in the center and southern most sections of Philly.
Along Broad Street is Temple University. The only college I saw on those rides from my quiet working-class neighborhood at the top of the city to my grandmother’s house in South Philly.
By the time I reached my senior year of high school I had visited one other major university and decided it was too far, too cold, and too white to be the school for me. I applied to one school — Temple University — not only because I was familiar with it, but because when I mentioned my interest most adults would say, “Oh. Temple. That’s a good school.”
That was it. I saw a college. I applied. I got in.
I had no anxiety-filled nights, no stress over writing the perfect college essay, and no concept of how much money I would be on the hook for. I also had no idea how competitive college admissions were, where I actually stood in comparison to other students, or that colleges award scholarships to students they really want to woo.
