As high school students near graduation, some choose that college or trade school is the route that they want to take, but they don’t know exactly what school they should pick. The decision is hard when you have to factor in the major you want to take, how far you have to travel to get to that school, and the cost to attend that school.
When deciding what school you want to go to first, you should think about what you want to go to school for. When putting that into decision, it might be easier to choose a school that’s right for you. Maybe engineering is the major you want to go for, so you look for schools that you’re interested in that have good engineering courses, or maybe you want to go into welding, so you could search for trade schools that have good welding programs. Maybe you haven’t made a decision on what you want to go to school for and want to look for a school that has a wider range of options to choose from.
Another way that could help students pick where they want to go to school is by the distance of the school. If going to school far from home is something that interests you, that could be helpful in finding a school that suits that interest. Some students would rather commute to a local university or trade school to save money on housing and not have to be far from home. Others may be interested in going into a college out of state, though the cost may be more than a college in-state.
There are many other ways students have chosen their schools. Some may have chosen their school due to the academics the school is highly praised for, some may go to a school for its traditions and how life is on the campus. Others may have received a scholarship or apprenticeship at the school of their choice.
Some websites help with the challenges of choosing a school, one example being College Boards BigFuture which finds schools that would be interested in you and provides information about the cost to attend the school, admission requirements, financial aid, and campus life. Another example of a website that helps with the decision of where to go to college is College Scorecard, which uses in-depth information to filter schools that would interest you based on things like graduation rate, annual tuition, and median earnings of graduate students.
The decision of choosing a college or trade school for some can be easy and for others can be difficult. Choosing a college should be something that isn’t rushed, even if you already have a few schools in mind when it comes time to make a decision, make sure those schools fit what you are looking to achieve or learn when seeking higher education. College should be something that should create career opportunities and be something that you can look forward to when enrolling, and something you can look back on when you graduate.
