After the Declaration of Independence, all-you-can-eat 2:00 AM Chinese food, and the end of the Twilight craze (we’re still waiting), there is nothing more important than deciding which college or university to attend. Wait. Except making sure your parents send you a Box-O-Box when you get there. Obviously.
We are sooo tired of the lists of best schools where “you want to hug a tree for 4 years,” “you never go on a date,” and “you will live in the library – don’t even bother paying for a dorm room.” So we’ve assembled the Box-O-Box branded, straightforward, and most importantly, realistic, college decision-making process. Drum roll, please:
1. How addicted are you to your parents? If you cannot imagine a weekend without hanging with your folks or eating meals cooked for you on a nightly basis, please do the rest of us independent (and cool) people a favor and go to your state college or university. That is down the road from your house. And good luck to you.
2. The super-mathematical but useful algorithm: dorm-to-classroom distance. Monumental (ok, kinda large, but walkable) dorm-to-classroom distances mean that you must leave your warm bed and fuzzy feet pajamas behind in the morning. If you are so lazy and in love with your teddy bear that you do not think you will make the trek to class, please look into a small college that resembles a summer camp. If for whatever reason you engage in such embarrassing behavior and attend a large school, odds are you won’t attend class and your friends will get sick of filling you in on lectures and writing your papers. Unless you pay them.
3. Do you like to paint your face and lose your voice at sports games? Or pound the pavement and take public transportation? A suburban or rural school is for you if: you want to live in an enclosed campus with thousands of your closest friends, attend many sports games and spirited social events, and don’t want to think about an off-campus existence. If the thoughts of never seeing a highway or people who aren’t college students make your head spin, please check out those hipster urban schools, and buy a pair of skinny jeans, gals AND guys. Not to mention you can then go mingle with the 30+ crowd much more easily.
4. Perform a Freudian analysis of the freshman orientation itinerary. Your parents are probably shelling out big bucks for you to hang out on campus before classes start so that you can get all buddy-buddy and drunky-drunky with your new friends. What does the orientation week hold for you? Base camping or kayaking during a smelly week of “team building?” Leadership programs with the next generation of promising (achemm…nerds) young scholars? Expensive lattes and walking tours of “up and coming” neighborhoods? Please look into this, youngins’. Crackberries and iPhones don’t work in the wilderness.
5. Sex & Cultural Makeup. Who goes here? What's the cultural makeup here? What am I prepared to open myself to? How many guys? How many girls? Which ones do I like and do I know yet? With the lattermost question aside (because we hope you'll figure that one out on your own with quality experience and not too much sideline coaching), this is something to consider quite heavily. After all, the “happy ever after” stories of our parents' generation often seem to point toward the college years. And statisticians will tell you – numbers DON'T lie. So think long and hard about your dating and social prowess; your cultural comfort zones and how you see yourself when placed outside those zones. Consider the environment you've known, and whether that is the same one that's right for you to thrive in going forward. Think about birds and bees, meeting new friends or partners, gaining meaningful insight to the world you'll soon be immersed in. And remember, if it doesn't workout the first time – DON'T WORRY - you can always go through the pain of transferring.
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