Closer to home, within walking distance? Throw everything to get to the best in the country (or even abroad)? Anyone, just to keep your parents off your back?
Do you need it?
The first thing you should do ideally still in high school, but it’s not too late in the 11th, – is to decide firmly that you want to go to college in general. And then choose where you want to go.
When it’s the only opportunity to legally avoid service in the army or to continue a carefree life, the road is defined – only “higher” (as an alternative – college). Or hide at home, like the Japanese hikikomori.
In most cases, however, prospective applicants have a mess in their heads. Adults push: “You’ll lose a whole year!”. They want to go to Oxford, maybe – to pay to the nearest pedagogy, but the real goal is to lie under a palm tree and do nothing.
According to Essayassistant.org – essay help service, in the West, in such cases, graduates take what is called a “gap year. – In the West, in such cases, graduates take what is called a “gap year,” travel, get a job, and get on with their lives. Life is not lost, 12 months are not dropped from it, on the contrary – enriched.
In Asian universities, whose graduation and entrance exams are compared to hell, this approach is unlikely to be understood.
Conclusion – everyone has his way. You don’t have to choose your university at all. Or… Read on!
The main thing is your profession
It is more reasonable to concentrate on the choice of profession, the general sphere of activity.
An effective and perhaps the most popular strategy among applicants:
- While still in school, choose a direction first: journalism, pedagogy, medicine…
- Prepare for and take examinations in the necessary subjects.
- And then storm the universities, where these disciplines are taught, where you can get a passing score and enter.
It is unrealistic to predict which universities and faculties will be at the top in 5-10-15 years. Although, logically, young specialists from the most prestigious universities of the country will always have more opportunities.
Global trends: the development of bioengineering, general digitalization, technology, and increasing attention to ecology. If you focus on them when choosing a university and future profession, you have a better chance of not getting lost in life. But this is inaccurate.
A person of the near future, most likely, will have to retrain and change the field of activity more than once, it will become commonplace.
Where will I live?
For applicants from remote regions, this is often the decisive question in choosing a university. After all, for five or six years, you will have not only to study but also somewhere to live: sleep, eat, prepare for classes.
A dorm? Is there even one? Maybe it’s scary, dirty, and uncomfortable. Or they don’t give it to everyone. Or the conditions of admission are draconian (such as mandatory vaccinations).
Rent an apartment? Expensive.
Is it easy to get to school every day? Or – “so what, just 2 hours by train and an hour by bus one way”?
It is better to think through everything at once and apply to those schools, which certainly will not be a problem than to get into a top university, and then realize that you do not pull.
The cost of tuition
Another crucial question for many families. Public universities are available for free, but to get there and stay there, you need to have great ability, to be diligent and persistent. If objectively there are no such qualities, it is worth choosing fee-paying faculties.
A possible way out is to take out a student loan. Banks for such a noble purpose offer low-interest rates and maximum stretch overtime payments. It is possible to pay for only one year or even a semester with borrowed funds.
Tidbits
Fish look where the fish are deeper, but man look where the fish are better. When choosing a college, be sure to ask:
- Are there interesting internships, such as foreign internships?
- Does the university cooperate with companies that can take a good student “under the wing” from the first year: first for practical training, and then to work for them?
- Is the local STANDUP-team known, are the guys funny?
- Are the teachers brutal or are they all souls who make it easy and pleasant to learn?
- Is it comfortable in the classroom, is there new equipment?
And any other parameters that seem important.
You can find out all this in university groups and publishers in social networks, in personal communication with students, for example at the open house.
And yes – it is better to start testing the ground, not at the last moment, but at least a year or two before admission and the final choice of university.