Skokie Mom: Determining the Best College for My Son

Where did the time go?

I've been asking myself this lately because my second oldest son is considering his college options. He’s a senior at.  He’s good student with many interests.

Does he stay in state? Does he follow his older brother?  How do we choose?  Luckily, I had some good tools at my disposal.

Initially, we started by doing some online research using Naviance, a secure, web-based college research tool provided by Niles West.  Naviance helps analyze college application trends and information.  You log on with your student e-mail and password or as a guest.  If you log on with your student email, you can program your top college choices and ask for more information.  This was an excellent resource for my son and me.

Niles West High School also has an excellent college and career resource center.  In the fall, I made sure my son made an appointment with the guidance counselor. The counselor asked my son good questions like what he wanted to major in, his interests and what type of environment he would like to live in.  In talking to each other, my son was able to narrow his choices.

I appreciated the help from the counselor being that this is one of the most important and expensive decisions that we’ve had to make with him.

We applied online to five colleges that carried his major.  All of the schools he picked were out West.  I was fine with him going out of state since I already experienced the same situation with my oldest son. We requested his school transcripts and ACT scores, and then paid online.  The anticipation was hard on us.  Would he be going to a school near the beach or by the mountains?  I crossed my fingers for the mountains.

Within a month, we started getting responses from the colleges. My son was accepted at four out of the five colleges he applied to! Now what do we do? In a way, choosing from among the acceptances is like choosing which colleges to apply to. The difference is that, during the pre-application period, we gathered information about each college, but now we already know more about them.

The decision really comes down to where he will be most successful.  Yes, tuition is another big factor, but I want him to go where he feels most comfortable.  Luckily, his first choice has a modest tuition.  So, the next step is just visiting the campus.  I thought about visiting all the colleges before he applied, but that would have cost us a fortune. So I figured we would only tour those that sent acceptance letters.

In the end, my son really has his heart set on one in particular school, and if all goes well, we’ll only be touring one.

Traci Larson-Lee has six children: five of her own and one foreign exchange student from Italy who is attending Niles West High School. In the past, she served on the referendum committee for District 72. Traci is the director of development for District 219's Education Foundation for Excellence, works with the SKOMOR Soccer Club and is getting her master's from North Park University in Chicago. She also works as a community developer and travels often.