2 min read

How to Find the Best College Fit

Picture of Peter Van Buskirk Peter Van Buskirk : May 04, 2020

College Search and Discovery

Spring is a time when college planning is very top-of-mind for many rising high school seniors and parents/guardians. With these tips in your back pocket, you and your student can find the best college fit!

The best approach is to take a step back and view the process as though nothing has changed. In fact, a silver lining here is that you have time on your hands which can allow you to engage reflectively in college planning, rather than instinctively.

Many families tend to approach the process with tunnel-vision surrounding a list of colleges they perceive as the “best” when beginning conversations of college planning. When this happens however, the most important person - the student - in the process is often overlooked. Today, we’ll walk through strategies for identifying the student's priorities and a sense of purpose that are important to college planning in a "student-centered" way.

This narrative provides a high-level overview of the key topics discussed, along with the times that those topics are discussed within the video. We hope this helps you jump to the specific parts of the video that are of interest to you.

If you have additional questions, we encourage you to reach out via our contact form!

The Conversation-Starting Questions

Why do you want to go to college?
How do you like to engage in learning?
List three things you would like to accomplish by the time that you graduate from college

To hear the full explanation behind these questions, jump to 9:28.

What is a Best-Fit College?

The best college for you will:

Provide a program of study that meets your needs.
Provide a style of instruction that is consistent with the way you enjoy learning.
Offer you a level of academic rigor commensurate with your ability and preparation.
Provide you with a community that feels like home.
Be a place that values you for what you have to offer.

To hear more about defining a best-fit college, jump to 17:50.

Understanding the Competitiveness of Your Credentials

In other words, when compared to other applicants, how do your credentials measure up? We'll discuss the following to help you understand the overall competitiveness of the college-going environment, as well as where your credentials might be fit best.

The Pyramid of Selectivity (illustration)
The Enrollment Model (illustration)
The Competitive Playing Field (illustration)

To understand the competitiveness of your credentials, jump to 32:00.

Where You Might Go Wrong

The best college fit will not be:

The place that your significant other attends
The most highly ranked institution
The one with the most successful athletic program
The place your parents attended

To hear more about why these are the wrong steps, jump to 48:00.

Final Pieces of Advice

Some final pieces of advice for parents:

Manage your expectations
Resist the temptation to “engineer” a perfect candidate
Keep rankings in perspective
Separate rhetoric from the reality
Adjust to life in the passenger seat

Looking to learn even more specific tips? This article on the top 5 ways to find your college fit can help.

To hear the final pieces of advice, jump to 54:00.

Peter Van Buskirk

A 25-year veteran of the college admission process, Peter Van Buskirk is dedicated to helping families find student-centered solutions in college planning. His ability to interpret and personalize a complex, and often mysterious, college-going process makes him a popular speaker among students, parents and educators. His creative programming has informed, inspired and entertained more than 2,000 audiences around the world. Peter’s books, Winning the College Admission Game; Strategies for Students and Parents and Prepare, Compete, Win! The Ultimate College Planning Workbook for Students, coach families through the complexities of finding and getting into the college that is the best fit for the student. His weekly blogs are featured on his website, www.BestCollegeFit.com, and he has appeared on numerous television and radio interviews including “Oprah and Friends” with Jean Chatzky. A graduate of Bucknell University, Peter moved through the ranks at Franklin & Marshall College to become Dean of Admission, Interim Director of Athletics, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Management, and Executive Officer in the Office of the Provost. He subsequently created and now operates Best College Fit® as a platform for delivering student-centered college planning content to students, parents and educators.