Feel versus Real in College Decision Making

A parent of a high school junior, making her first college visits, responded to our challenge that we can flip the college decision making odds in students favor by using our 6 Keys of College Fit. The excellent, but quite difficult, question the parent sent us was this: How as a parent, do you help your student see beyond the "emotional appeal" of a college and more objectively at the process?

We, at College UnMazed, call this the Feel versus Real error in college decision making. When making a college visit, students are very likely to be dominated by the emotions of the moment. They make compelling and, unfortunately, often lasting judgements about whether or not a college is a good one for them based on highly subjective factors: e.g., liking or not liking the tour guide and college representatives; the weather as they walk around campus; and the sales pitch and snappy market branding the college has likely paid a lot of money for.

These are but a few of the many emotional factors that can dominate a young person’s mindset as they evaluate which colleges fit them best. Young people are at risk for placing too much emphasis on these feeling reactions to a college and not nearly enough on data-supported evidence that engages their reasoning. Our solution to this very serious judgement problem was to develop a higher order thinking strategy based on the research of two Nobel Prize winning scholars.

Kahneman and Tversky won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics after demonstrating that when consumers experience uncertainty emotions rule their judgements. In the absence of good information, consumers use certain judgement heuristics (shortcut tricks of the mind to resolve uncertainty) to fill in troubling and unknown spaces with emotional rationalizations. Similarly, students make college decisions under extreme conditions of uncertainty. Because of this, they are highly vulnerable to quickly latching onto and, many times, stridently defending a decision based more on feelings than an evaluation based on reliable evidence about a college.

The 6 Keys of College Fit balances off the emotional appeal of a college visit with an understanding of that college based on data and evidence. Integrated into our LEADS (List, Explore, Apply, Decide, and Succeed) informed decision making strategy, the 6 Keys approach disrupts the emotional impulsiveness of compelling subjective judgments in order to allow for more reasoned decisions to be constructed (Kahnemann, 2011). Young people go far beyond whether or not they clicked with their tour guide to seriously consider: the Academic Match (their academic profile and their college’s learning environment); Career Match (a college’s alignment with their career goals); Financial Match (actual cost of attendance and family resources to afford it); Personal Match (personal preferences like distance from home, enrollment size, social life, and recreation/sports available); Student Outcomes (graduation and retention rates, alumni salaries); and Student Support (tutoring, writing services, counseling available, disability office).

Doing a good job at this takes some time and effort. But, given the costs (financial and personal) of making a poor college decision, it is to everyone’s advantage to understand each college from the 6 Keys of College Fit. We have a free tool that can help you do this effectively and save you time.

Here’s how a student can balance off the domineering feelings (both positive and negative) they get from visiting a college by using our reason-informed strategy. First, have students go to our website and download the free College Data Organizer (www.collegeunmazed.com/downloads). Have students follow the instructions, gather information on the 6 Keys for each of the colleges they are interested in, and then compare colleges.  Students will then be able to more easily see those colleges that match them best based on 6 critical factors of college fit (Academic, Career, Financial, Personal, Student Outcomes, and Student Services).

Our Student Workbook (College UnMazed: Your Guide to Navigate the High School to College Maze) has additional activities that allow students to effectively use credible 6 Keys information when choosing which colleges to apply to and then deciding on the one college to attend. When students fully utilize the 6 Keys, they learn how more informed college decisions happen at the intersection of fit and chances of being accepted to a college. Feel versus Real is transformed into Real, as in a really informed decision based on credible and reliable information, not impulsive subjective reactions.

Try it out for yourself and let us know what you find out. Let’s keep the conversation going. Keep sending me your questions. With your permission, I’ll share some of what you send me. If you want me to look into a particular college you, or your students, are interested in, let me know and I’ll take a look. You can reach me at rlapan@collegeunmazed.com.