BP Human resource management

You have been accepted to three of the colleges that were on your wish list. All three are great schools and seem to have exactly what you want but now you must decide. You are relaxed and happy about these acceptances but also faced with the anxiety of picking which one will suit your wants and needs. You want to make the perfect choice, but is there such a thing? Is any one school perfect and can any can any one school provide absolutely everything you have thought and dreamed about? Probably not. The suggestions below are meant to help you weigh your options and though not complete, may provide you with a more focused perspective.

1. Unless you are absolutely certain where you want to go, you might want to consider a school close to home as your starting point. A community college, for the truly undecided, can be a wise and comfortable choice for your first, perhaps second year. Attending a community college can mean lower costs, smaller classes, more accessible faculty, state-of-the-art technology among other perks; it can also give you the opportunity to transfer to a four year college of your choice.

2. Identify your priorities. Which factors are most important to you? What are you most concerned with? Cost? Location? Academic programs? Social life? Make a priority list and start eliminating a/o choosing possibilities based on the list you made.

3. What must the college of your choice offer? What do the colleges on your list offer that you simply could not live with if you chose that college? What are your specific reasons for selecting a certain school? Make a pro and con list as you are researching your schools as this will help you discover what things are truly important to you.

4. There is no substitute for seeing the school and its offerings in person. Once you narrow down your choices, then take a previously created checklist of your priorities and visit these campuses. What is on your checklist is personal and should include only things that are important to you--no one else, not even your parents.

Choosing where you want to go to college is a very personal issue. Unfortunately, for the prospective students and their families it can also be very stressful and anxiety producing. An added piece of advice here would be to start this process early, ideally in your junior year in high school. The above suggestions were meant only to provide a framework of thinking to help you narrow down your choices and were not meant to be inclusive. The most important issues in your decision making should include whether your final choice will meet your academic, financial, geographical and social needs.