When Your First-born Picks a College

From picking out bed sheets to picking out a college, it’s all about color!

by Anne Nelson

Lately our mailbox has been flooded with marketing materials from universities and colleges. If you think fast food has maximized the “super-size it” strategy, you should see what colleges and universities are doing with marketing today. When I was in high school a letter or a tri-fold brochure was typical and if you were really interested, you requested a catalog.

Not now.

There are flashy, colorful, enticing marketing materials and not just one or two from a school, but super-sized to six or seven pieces from several of the schools in all kinds of shapes and sizes with fold outs and inserts. It’s no wonder college tuition is so high. The flood of mail started last February. Now it’s October, and our daughter is a junior in high school. This week starts the first of many college recruiters at school to visit with, and then city-wide college fairs, and travel days to colleges. She is actually given two days excused absence from school to visit college campuses. We are encouraged by school counselors and other parents to tour 8 – 10 universities, get a feeling for them, then revisit the 2 or 3 she’s most interested in. Wow! We can’t even seem to skip town for a weekend get-a-way for the two of us.

Did you go to college? How did you pick the school you attended? This was the topic of discussion at lunch with a group of moms. I listened to a couple moms share how their daughters picked their colleges based on the school colors. I’m flabbergasted – no way do bright, intelligent girls of this generation with unlimited career options, pick colleges by school colors!

How did we parents pick a university? We requested catalogs from everywhere that sounded like we’d be moving up and out, colleges with prestige and ranking. Then in the end, we went where the money was, if scholarships were there, that’s where we went. When Dad said “I’ll pay for a state university” I said thank you and just went. Done deal.

Not now.

After another talk at school about preparing for college our daughter came home to start investigating them online (Oh did I mention, we get non-stop emails from all these colleges too. Tip: set up a new email address just for schools to use when your student reaches this stage in life!) She started telling my husband and me what schools she was looking at. I asked her “How are you deciding on these schools? What criteria are you using?”

Her response, “First I look at states where we have family or close friends living in case I need a home-base to go to. Then I look up the schools in those states.” (Okay, she does need a sense of security. This is fair criteria to start with.)

“So why did you pick Aurora, IL?”

“Oh, because the Nabs live in IL (I’m thinking this is wise.) and Aurora is one of the Disney princesses I liked. (Oh no, you can’t be serious!) I like their colors royal blue, white, and gold.” At this response my husband tuned in to the conversation. With a tone of utter disbelief he chokes, “You picked a school based on a princess? And school colors?”

“Yah I don’t look good in orange or black, so I can’t go to a school with those colors and I can’t wear gold and maroon because those are our big rivals.”

This can’t be happening. My bright, intelligent, level-headed teenage daughter is choosing her college the way a young child chooses bed sheets; based on a princess and pretty colors. I took a deep breath at this point. My husband grabbed his laptop and started surfing the net for universities, with a completely different set of criteria. I grabbed my laptop and suggested we make a list of criteria so we could sort out schools. Let’s think about majors, advanced degree options, tuition, campus size, location…

This is the phase of life we’re in. It’s fun, entertaining, eye-opening, and even gut-wrenching at times. But I’ll thank God every day that this kid, this bright, intelligent kid is mine. And one day, because of the education she gets at a campus with good school colors, she’ll make a difference in the world, in her own way.

Are you at this stage too? I’ll soon be posting a link to a great tracking form to help you keep it all straight so make it a point to check back soon!


© 2007 Anne Nelson, Joy Zone, LLC