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Elizabeth Michie
A3
English 11
Freestone
March, 15 2015
Where Do I Want To Apply To College?
I have no idea where Id like to apply for college. Not knowing
inevitably leads to fear and procrastination. Procrastination leads to applying
to the last open college at the last minute. Last minute applications at a
random college leads to not getting into a good college. Not getting into a
good college leads to a nonexistent or unhappy career. An unhappy career
leads to depression. Its a slippery slope people. So to avoid said slope, I am
going to research colleges now and be ready for college applications next
fall.
The only information that I already knew about college were things that
I had learned through school. I knew that out of state college is really
expensive, scholarships are super important, and that theres a difference
between private and public universities. Based on this information, I always
figured that I would just go to a college in Utah, most likely Utah State
University. I assumed that it would be easiest to be close to my family, it
would be fairly inexpensive (as far as colleges go), and that I would get a
decent enough education in whatever I decided to learn about. However, in a
meeting that I had recently with my counselor, I learned very quickly that I

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didnt actually know anything for college. I learned that I needed to sit down
and talk to my parents about finances. I learned that I needed to have a
general idea of what I want to go into in order to pick a college that is right
for me. She said that I had settled on the idea of Utah State. I had become
paralyzed with fear and had indeed settled on a college that I really didnt
know anything about because I assumed it would be the most convenient
place to go. With my research I hope to find three or four colleges that I know
Id like to apply to next fall. I also want to find out more about out of state
colleges to see if I would be interested in them and how I could go about
getting scholarships to help pay for the expenses of said schools.
To begin my research, I needed to know a little more about myself and
what careers fields I would possibly interested in before I could choose
colleges to apply to. I went to utahfutures.org and took the interest profiler
assessment. This assessment asked me questioned about certain activities
and whether or not I would enjoy doing those activities. Based on my
answers, the interest profiler selected my highest ranking areas of interest.
Mine were social, investigative, and artistic. This gave me a wide variety of
careers to look at and choose from. I decided from these areas to look for
schools that had good art programs, psychology courses, or sociology
courses. I then decided that it was important to figure what kind of things Id
like to do in college and things that would factor into my decision like how far
away from home Id like to be, how many people go to the college, my
preferred type of learning environment, and how expensive the colleges are.

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To find colleges that fit my specific preferences in all these areas, I googled,
what college do I want to go to and it gave me the website
bigfuture.collegeboard.org. On this website, it asked me questions about
what Im looking for in a college experience. I said that I would like to go to a
medium populated college with a rigorous and interesting learning
environment. I would like to take part in clubs and sports. I also want the
college to not be completely unaffordable to my family and I would like the
opportunity to apply for a lot of scholarships. I also said that I am especially
interested in colleges in Washington, Oregon, and California. With this
information, the college filter gave me a giant list of colleges that matched
my needs.
With the lists of schools that this website gave me and the information
that is listed about the colleges, an in state college would fit most of my
college specifications. Knowing this was comforting because I know that I
would be fairly content going to Utah State or maybe the University of Utah.
However, I did find a couple of out of state school that fit my standards and
caught my interest. The first college was Puget Sound University in Tacoma,
Washington.
Honestly, the only reason I looked at this college was because I
thought its name was ridiculous. However, as I explored the universities
website, pugetsound.edu, I came across a lot of things that caught my
attention and made me actually very interested in learning more about Puget

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Sound. One of the first things I saw on the website was their outdoor club,
PSO (Puget Sound Outdoors). This club is dedicated to getting students
outside and active. They plan and organize hiking and camping trips over the
weekends that students can participate in. They also have a climbing wall on
campus that they encourage students to use and be active. Another thing
that I liked about this college was their philosophy behind the importance of
self-exploration. The SLICE, or Spiritual Life and Civic Engagement section
says to, foster and nurture a deeper connection between the self and the
world in which we live. I really like that idea. Puget Sound also has a large
focus on the arts and humanities. This is important because those are the
areas that I will most likely go into.
The other University that caught my attention was Stanford in
California. Using their website, stanford.edu, I learned a few things that made
me interested in learning more. Firstly, I learned that Stanford is a most
known for their engineering, humanities, and science courses. This is
important because I do have an interest in going into a career that involves
the sciences. I learned that Stanford is a huge school that offers hundreds of
programs for students and a rigorous educational program, so I would never
be bored. Another thing that was important was that based on what my
family makes every year, I would not have to pay for much of my tuition.
They are a blind-need based school for their undergraduate program. That
was kind of a relief to learn.

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I have learned a great deal more about colleges after my research and
I still plan on doing even further research into these schools. I know have
more foundational knowledge on what I should be looking forward to and
how I should be preparing myself. Doing this research has lifted some of the
fear and replaced it with actual excitement and anticipation towards college.
I am also more knowledgeable about how to get financial aid and
scholarships, even with the more expensive, out of state colleges. I now have
a very good of at least 3 colleges that I want to apply for next fall. I will look
further into Puget Sound and Stanford University, but for the time being, I am
excited to apply. I am no longer procrastinating and I will not end up on the
slippery slope headed towards depression with a dead end job.

Works Cited
Stanford University. http://www.stanford.edu/
Puget Sound University. http://www.pugetsound.edu/
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-search
https://utahfutures.org/assessments/work-importance

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