Marcus Fragier

MNGT 361-005
3/5/12
Assignment #1 Assessment of Critical and Creative Thinking
Dear Elizabeth A.
First off I would like to congratulate you on the acceptance of the four colleges
that you applied for. You asked me via email in helping you choose which college
you want to decide to go to as well as your major. In my opinion I believe you should
attend Towson University with elementary education as your major. Attached are
some tables showing some numbers as to support my decision. You are probably
wondering what these tables mean so I will take some time to explain it.
The first step we must consider is acknowledging the problem which is your
issue of deciding the colleges. After we got that out the way our next step is to
consider the relevant information you must consider in deciding which college you
want to go to. The five topics I chose for evaluating your options are distance,
tuition, diversity, classroom, and location. Distance is referring to how far these
colleges are from the Baltimore county area. In my opinion, going to college close to
home is beneficial. You can go home whenever you like as well receive aid from your
parents such as money or doing laundry. Some say that they enjoy the freedom of
going away for college, but Im sure your parents will give you all the space that you
need. Next is and most important is tuition. Tuition usually is the number one
deciding factor of going to college because your parents and financial aid will have
to cover your college debt. Unless your receive scholarships I recommend staying
in-state as to compared to out of state. On average, tuition for Towson University is
around $8,500 dollars which is about the same at University of Maryland. Since you

would be out of state, if you were to go to University of Delaware or Penn State

University you would face tuition is about $19,500 dollars. As you can see the cost
of tuition is doubled if youre out of state. Next category is diversity. For an example,
me being an African American I would like to know the percent of African Americans
that go to the college I want to go to and also look for what kind of clubs that the
university has to offer. University of Maryland is a good number of diversity at its
college and Towson is improving. At Towson, 4% of the population of undergraduates
is Asian, 5% are Latino, 11% or Black, and 73% are White. Next category I chose to
help your evaluation of colleges is the classrooms. What I mean by classrooms is
how many students on average would usually be in class. University of Maryland as
well as Penn State has a large population of undergraduates. University of Maryland
has over 26,000 students, Penn State has over 38,000, and both Towson and
University of Delaware have about 17,000 students. Having less students mean on
average there would be about 30 students per classroom as compared to Maryland
and Penn State. Those colleges on average would have over 100 students per class
due to large number of students. With the smaller number of students in class,
teachers could give you more attention when you face issues in with the subject
which I mean opinion is always good. Last category is location. There will be time
when you would like to treat yourself and go out and have a good time with your
friends. Each university is pretty much considered a large town with a residential
campus feel to it. Towson is more like a city and with it being close to Baltimore it
has that great night life that attracts the younger generation.
Next step in this decision process is to put weights to the criterion that I
mentioned. With 10 being most important and 1 being less important. Tuition is 10
because cost is the most important to consider. Next is the classroom with 8.

Distance and location I gave them a 6. Whichever college you go to distance should
not be an issue but it is always something to consider as well as location. If you
were to only get accepted to one college these criterion factors are important but it
would not stop you from still going to college. For the same reason I mentioned
earlier, Diversity is a 3 because although Diversity is something to consider it will
not affect you from learning at the university.
After placing a weight on the criterion, the next graph shows how I graded
each of the other colleges. This is also the next step of the decision making process
which is the Analysis of Alternatives. Since youre located in the Baltimore County,
Towson University and University of Maryland scored very high in distance as well as
tuition. Both colleges scored fairly well in Location but the difference is Classroom
and Diversity. Maryland is most diverse college out of the four, but due to the lower
amount of students at Towson, it gets the better score. On this table of Analysis of
Alternatives it would seem as though Towson University and University of Maryland
are tied.
The next table is the deciding factor of choosing out of the four colleges. This
step is the Selection of an Alternative. In this section, I multiplied of the categories
of each college by the weight of the criterion. So for the Distance category I
multiplied those numbers by six, tuition category by 10 and so on. After doing so for
each category and total up the numbers, the ending result shows that Towson
University if the winner.
I hope this helps you out in deciding which college you want to go to. I shown
and explain my reasons as to why I believe you should go to Towson University. With
your experience now with tutoring elementary children you would make a great

elementary school teacher. With the elementary education major this will you help
your success in the near future. If you have any questions feel free to email me and
I would like to know which college you decide to go to when your decision is made.
Sincerely,
Guidance Counselor
Marcus Fragier

Works Cited
CollegeBoard. 4 March, 2012
http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?
match=true&collegeId=685&searchType=college&type=qfs&word=towson
%20university
Penn State University. 4 March, 2012
http://bulletins.psu.edu/bulletins/bluebook/college_campus_details.cfm?id=26
Towson University. 4 March, 2012
http://fusion.towson.edu/www/admissions/academic/majors/index.cfm
University of Delaware. 4 March, 2012
http://www.udel.edu/admissions/majorfinder/?facet_major_code=Elementary
%20Teacher%20Education
University of Maryland. 4 March, 2012
http://www.education.umd.edu/EDCI/info/elementary.htm

Important Criteria and Weights in a College Picking

Decision
Criterion
Weight
Distance
6
Tuition
10
Diversity
3
Classroom
8
Location
6
Analysis of Alternatives

Alternatives
Towson University
University of
Maryland
University of
Delaware
Penn State
University

Distanc
e
9

Tuitio
n
7

Diversit
y
5

Classr
oom
8

Locat
ion
6

Total
35

35

26

18

Diversit
y
15

Classr
oom
64

Locat
ion
36

Total
239

Selection of an Alternative

Alternatives
Towson University
University of
Maryland
University of
Delaware
Penn State
University

Distanc
e
54

Tuitio
n
70

48

70

24

40

42

224

30

30

64

42

175

12

30

12

24

36

114