College Series: Picking the 'One'

The search for the one, that specific institution of higher learning that fits you like a glove is a journey. I know how it feels to trying to complete this challenge, as a student, as takes a lot of time, effort, and money. Individual time and thought needs to be dedicated to in order to find and get into that "dream" school. I will share with you how I was able to make my decision to go to Penn State Harrisburg.

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Photo Credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/17/Penn_State_Harrisburg_identity_mark.svg/1200px-Penn_State_Harrisburg_identity_mark.svg.png

Everyone has different preferences on what qualifications their choice college entails. That is why making a list of the characteristics you would like in a college is essential to figure out what you like and what you don't. For me, I had created a list of my 'dream school' qualifications which is included in order of to importance to me:

1. High ethic diversity- No more being the 'solo black kid', but not having only black kids (sorry HBCU schools)

2. The major I want - civil/environmental engineering

3. In the East Coast- I wanted to stay close by for undergrad

4. Urban - Point blank: I love being in city

5. Large size - I did not want to have a extremely small school with only a few other students

Based on this starter list of what I wanted in a school, I used the Cappex and College Board website quizzes to find what schools I would like to visit. I started visiting colleges in the summer before junior year, which I highly recommend because it gave me time to find other essentials that I wanted in a college. The colleges that I visited 1st was mainly the top trier schools (which I only recommending going to if you have the grades, which I did not). This included:

1. MITT (which was my original 'dream' college, I was rejected but now I pretty happy with it)

2. University of Pennsylvania (rejected)

2. Princeton (rejected)

3. John Hopkins (rejected)

After visiting a couple of more schools during junior and during the very beginning of senior year I added and adapted to my list of qualifications for my dream school which included:

1. Not a commuter school - I want to have the college experience by living on campus which cancelled out UMBU, and Widener University

2. Mid size- I realized that I still wanted some connection to my professors so I could have the opportunity to have research opportunities along with good recommendations for medical school. This cancelled out University of Maryland

3. Urban/Suburban- I loved the city, but I believe it would be a landslide from being in a quite/ quaint suburban environment to the nosey and busy urban environment (even though I still LOVE cities I still like peace). This cancelled out NYU.

In the end the choice rested on how much money each school cost and Penn State Harrisburg was the cheapest. This was based on the fact that I do not want to take out loans especially since this is only undergraduate and I still have medical school ahead of me.

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If you guys have any questions feel free to email me at theafroqueens@gmail.com

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