How to Find the Right College

By Sean Minkel, Librarian | October 25, 2009

Where should you get an education? Alternatively, where should your children? If it’s time to start thinking about where you can send the kiddo for the next four (or if you’re like me, five) years of their life or where you want to spend your evening and weekend hours getting an online education, there’s a very good place to start. And with the almost innumerable supply of colleges, technical schools and universities from which to choose, making the right decision the first time is worth a little time.

I recall my own frantic search for graduate schools. Without a comprehensive database to focus my search I was stuck with random searches online for possible colleges. While I was able to get most of the information I needed to make an informed decision. Most of the time was spent learning how to navigate different college websites rather than learning about the school and the programs they have. Thankfully, there’s an online resource that combines a lot of the information you’ll need to make an informed choice and does most of that “footwork” for you. The information that took me weeks to gather and organize can be gathered in one evening using CollegeSource Online.

To help you start your search here are a few tips on what to focus on when looking for a college.

Size of Student Body and School – The size and population of the school can vastly affect you or your child’s experience. A large school will have a greater range of academic majors offered and more extracurricular possibilities. But at the same time you can’t beat the sense of community and amount of personal attention that you will receive from a smaller institution.
Location - Does your child want to visit home frequently, or does she want to experience a new part of the country? Perhaps he or she would like an urban environment with access to museums, ethnic food or major league ball games. Or maybe he or she hopes for easy access to the outdoors or the serenity of a small town. Look past the college campus and see what the town/city has to offer as well.
Student Satisfaction - One of the best ways to measure a school's quality is to talk to some of the students that attend the college. Often the college will have students available to contact for information but you may only be seeing to bright side. Find students that are interested in the same programs or majors that you are interested in and contact them. You will get to hear some of the good as well as the negative about your college of choice.

Before you start talking to people though, CollegeSource Online can help you narrow your search down. CollegeSource Online is an online library representing over 48,904 college catalogs in their original page format. The site includes 2-year, 4-year, graduate, professional and international schools. If that sounds like a lot of colleges to search through to find the institution that works for you, then you’re not alone. Luckily, CollegeSource provides for a number of ways to find the perfect match. Only interested in colleges located near your hometown? Try the geographic search to look for schools within a specific radius of any U.S. city. Looking for a specific degree or need to limit your budget? Use the advanced criteria search feature to limit by tuition, enrollment, major, degrees and more. If you’re extremely patient, you could also browse through a complete alphabetical index of all the colleges on the site.

Once you’ve found a specific college, this online resource has so much more to offer than just the link to an online and printable college catalog. For example, there’s a brief profile of each college which includes information such as institution type, accreditation, tuition, fees, admission considerations and financial aid programs. Also of interest are links to the college’s website, maps of the area and career information. In short, CollegeSource Online is an excellent place to get educated about education.

My personal reason for enjoying this resource is that you can access it online from your own home. CollegeSource Online and other sources of information for your educational needs can be found by visiting the Rapid City Public Library’s online resources page. Go to www.rapidcitypubliclibrary.org, click on Resources and then Students Grades 6th Thru College.

If you have any questions concerning your search then please feel free to contact the Rapid City Public Library at 394-4171 (Downtown) or 716-4098 (RCPL-North). You can also contact a librarian from our website using our Meebo Librarian online chat service and get a quick walk-though of the service.