What Universities should one never apply to?

You should NEVER apply to the following universities:

• For-profit schools - these types of colleges don’t care whether or not you graduate or even if you are cut out for college. They just want your money. Stay away!!!

• Colleges that have no accreditation or are at risk of losing their accreditation - if you are applying to a college that is not nationally known, run a quick Google search to ensure they are accredited and that they’re not at risk of losing it in the near future. A degree from an unaccredited institution may give you trouble in the future, particularly if you are thinking of going to grad or professional school afterwards.

• Colleges that are at risk of closing - the LAST thing you want is, after all your searching, to enroll in a college that ends up closing on you. It means you end up getting stuck going to whatever college they might merge with (and you may not like that college) or worse, end up with a bunch of credits, perhaps a bunch of debt, and no degree.

• A college that doesn’t offer your intended major - SURE you may change your mind, but why would you choose a college that won’t give you a chance to study what you are most passionate about, at least at the time of admissions? This is the silliest thing and for the life of me, I still don’t understand why people continue to apply to colleges without paying attention to the majors. My daughter would LOVE to apply to Top 25 colleges, but none of them carry her major. In fact, most Top 50 don’t. SO she won’t waste her time applying - just for the sake of getting into a “top school” - if they won’t give her the opportunity to study in her field.

• A college in a geographic location that will make you miserable - for example, if you HATE the cold, DON’T apply to a school in the Northeast, or in Minnesota, or in Canada, or Alaska, for that matter! If you hate the heat, DO NOT apply to schools in Arizona or New Mexico, or Texas, etc. If you are going to go absolutely bonkers in the middle of nowhere, DON’T apply to a school in the middle of nowhere Upstate New York or in the middle of the midwest, or northern PA, etc. And if you are afraid of your own shadow, for Pete’s sake, DO NOT apply to a school in Chicago or NYC.

• A college too far from home if you are someone who struggles with anxiety or homesickness, or a college too close to home if you need distance from family. I know a student whose dream school was only 1 1/2 hours away from home. She dreamed of going to this college since middle school and got in with a great scholarship! But she ended up driving home nearly every weekend, so by halfway through the first semester, she was miserable, missed home, and was ready to transfer. She ended up transferring to a school literally across the country and has never been happier! Bottom line, ask yourself how far from home you need to be - both my kids want to be close enough to home that we can drive back and forth, but far enough that they won’t be tempted to come home all the time.

• A university that is not a good academic fit for you - either a school that will not challenge you whatsoever or a school where you will be in constant struggle to keep up. This is a tricky one that you may not get a chance to find out unless you actually visit and shadow classes. But a good benchmark is where you fall in the average test scores and GPA with the rest of admitted students. If you fall in the middle, you’ll be fine. If you fall well below and happen to get in or way above and choose to go there, you will find that you will not be well matched with the school. I hear this often from students who only get in because they’re recruited or are admitted because of their demographics and not their scores, where they constantly feel like they can’t keep up or catch up with their peers in class. And on the other end of the spectrum, my son shadowed at a college that he actually REALLY liked but that he was way above their GPA/SAT range, and he ended up finding out that he would not have been challenged at that school, even in the Honors program. You might think that’s what you want, but trust me, you want to be at a college that helps you LEARN and that challenges you to grow, not a place where you can just breeze your way to an A average. But you also don’t want to be in a place where you will spend twice or three times as much time trying to do the work, because you WILL fall too far behind and you risk flunking out.

• Colleges that aren’t the right social fit for you - don’t apply to a “party” school if you hate parties, don’t apply to a strict religious school if you want to party or if it’s not consistent with your lifestyle. Don’t apply to a college that values high levels of social interaction if you hate to be around people, and don’t apply to a college where students are aggressively competitive against each other if you are someone who values collaboration and cooperation. I know of two students who got into two different elite universities, both of which are known for a high level of competitiveness, and they both ended up dropping out before the second semester. They both were students who needed collaboration, and at these schools, people constantly competed against each other, were unwilling to share notes with each other or be parts of study groups, etc. They needed a support system that just wasn’t there.

I’m sure there are more I’m forgetting, but the moral of the story is DO YOUR RESEARCH! Know what schools you are applying to and pay CLOSE attention to the things I mentioned above. They are ALL key in helping you avoid a situation that may end up resulting in misery, frustration, or a bunch of debt and no degree. Granted, sometimes it’s difficult to gauge certain aspects of fit if you cannot visit in person. But in this day and age of Google, there are dozens upon dozens of ways you can research and find out what you need to know!