11-30-16

By: Jasmine Lees

As the holidays approach, seniors in high school are starting to hear back from the colleges that they applied for. Some will get accepted to their number one schools and some will get rejected. If someone gets accepted to their top school, hopefully their decision is made for them. However, if someone needs to decide on which school to go to and they have a lot of options, then they have things that they need to consider. They need to consider how strong the academic program is that they want to go into, they need to consider the cost of each school and how much each school is willing to give in a merit scholarship, and they need to decide which activities will make the school their home. This is a very stressful time for the seniors here at MHS. Not only do they have to worry about their high school academics but they are also worrying about if they got everything a college needed for the deadlines they had to meet. Now it’s the waiting game. For the next few weeks every senior in this school will be checking the mailbox as soon as they get home.

When choosing a school, someone doesn’t need to have a select major in mind. If they do, that’s great but they are subject to change as they experience new things that might interest them. But it is important to consider the academic success of the school. When looking at these statistics they would want to see the job percentage of the school. This is how many students move onto a job in the field that they studied in after they graduate. They would also want to look at how many students moved onto graduate school as well as their graduation rate. Just because these percentages might be low doesn’t mean that this particular student won’t succeed. It only means that previous students struggled with either academics or the teacher and both are contributing factors to receiving a degree in their career choice.  

Today, college is so expensive that some people don’t even dream of going. Families don’t have the financial support to send their kids to school and even though there are loans that they can take out, that student will be in debt for a long time. But scholarships and financial aid can help put a student through school without the worry of being buried in debt. Scholarships can come from academics or sports. An academic scholarship comes from the GPA a student earned in high school and they have to keep a certain GPA throughout their four years of college. A sports scholarship can only be given at certain schools, but at the schools that do give them, that student would be more fortunate. Financial aid can help because they are getting a certain amount of money based on their family income. This could help the less fortunate students who don’t have money as a privilege by giving them the education that they need without having to pay back so much money when they graduate.

It’s important that a student feels they are at home when they are in college. The college experience doesn’t just involve the academics and the late night studying. It also includes activities like sports and clubs. Many students in college are student athletes. If they are playing a sport that they love then it will motivate them to do amazing things in the classroom so they can make sure they stay out on the field. Sports will also be able to give that student a great support system by giving them friends through their teammates and a mentor through their coach. Clubs can be just as beneficial. Different programs help with the school and the community that they are located near. Some schools even have mission trips that students can attend so that they can go and help people in need.

When picking the right school, it is important that students consider these factors. It would be heartbreaking to that student and their family if they realized that they didn’t want to stay at the school because they didn’t feel comfortable or welcome. Every school has their own way of welcoming incoming or potential students. But it has to be the school that really speaks to them for a decision to be made.