You have heard all the big names: Tulane, UW-Madison, UIUC, the UCs, and so on. Many people know these institutions as prestigious, well-rounded, and academically rigorous; however, changing attitudes regarding college has pushed the honorable perception of these schools to new heights, leading high schoolers in the application process to believe that attending a big-name establishment is the only way to be successful. Due to this over-the-top obsession with reputability, students applying to college have lost sight of what is actually a good fit for them as individuals, instead favoring the idea of attending an institution that sounds academically superior.
Every parent and high school student has seen those college ranking lists, from US News to Niche. Though these indexes can offer an easy-to-digest map of America’s colleges, they can hardly be considered reliable due to a plethora of factors. The most prevalent issue is that schools are not evaluated holistically; in fact, they are only really measured by test scores, graduation/retention statistics, and acceptance rates. It is natural that those three components correlate with prestige, but unfortunately there is no mention of quality of student life, extracurriculars, student to faculty ratio, major-specialization, or environment. The limited view of these institutions leaves smaller liberal arts colleges in the dust while larger state/private schools settle at the top year after year.
In my experience as a Jones senior, it was not a rare occurrence that my peers would obsess over these highly-debatable lists during the intense application process. The vast majority of my classmates honed in on the same few colleges, such as the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Tulane University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Michigan, New York University, Boston University, Northeastern University, and a few more. Here’s the problem: if so many Jones students are applying to the exact same places, then naturally each school will become more selective, especially towards JCP. The best example would be UIUC, which somewhere down the line became every Jones student’s “safety” due to the high numbers of people from previous graduating classes being accepted and oftentimes attending. Unfortunately, JCP’s class of 2025 featured a shocking contrast, with mountains of students opening their emails to a surprising deferral or even denial letter. We have been a feeder school to the University of Illinois for years, so what’s different now? Think of it this way: if so many of the 486 people in our class saw UIUC as a sure-thing, then there was likely an excessive number of applicants from Jones to Urbana-Champaign growing every application season, and this was the year it finally got out of hand. People got rejected and deferred left and right, therefore ending the university’s reputation as the “Jones safety.” Another example would be the United States’ generally most applied-to universities, including NYU, some UCs, UMich, etc. which have seen remarkable drops in acceptance rates over the past few years. In the broadest sense, these situations show that if everyone applies to the same “trending” schools, then acceptance rates will drop, so it should not be a shock when we open that rejection letter.
Finally, I would like to offer anecdotal evidence that looking a little deeper than rankings and prestige will result in a more personalized college. I dreamed of attending Tulane University since I was fifteen– I mean, what was there to dislike? The work-hard, play-hard attitude, a serene campus amidst bustling New Orleans, and of course an inflation of my academic ego. Tulane is objectively an amazing university, leading to my eager submission of an Early Decision application. Disappointed could not begin to describe how I felt opening that deferral letter in December, but I held out hope that I would be able to attend UIUC or UW-Madison so I could still impress my competitive peers and more importantly feel good about myself. In the turmoil of this waiting period, my one application to a little liberal arts college completely slipped my mind, and upon my Early Action acceptance to Sewanee: The University of the South, I began to question if I even wanted to attend a big school like Tulane, UIUC, or UW-Madison. I had only applied to Sewanee because my mom had mentioned it to me, but the more I researched the college and compared it to the larger, more “prestigious” universities, the more I realized that a smaller liberal arts institution was the better fit for me academically, socially, and economically. I had only obsessed over my other three applications for so long because those schools were well-known, notably simultaneously rigorous and fun, and famously esteemed, but I had never bothered to consider the culture, environment, or student-teacher dynamics. If you told seventeen year old me that I committed to Sewanee, she’d only respond with, “what’s that?” Tying my story into the purpose of this article, I would like to emphasize to the classes below mine that doing research beyond word-of-mouth and reputability as well as keeping your options broad, possibly by applying to smaller overshadowed schools, is essential in choosing a college.
To conclude, personalize your higher education experience and do research to find what will actually suit you the best. Never be afraid to look deeper and branch off from applying to all the well-known and renowned universities because your future is more nuanced than you may think.
