Focusing on the match

If you're a regular reader of this column, you know that one of my favorite themes is the importance of choosing a college that will be a good match, rather than focusing exclusively on getting into the most selective school. As high school seniors are in the process of visiting colleges this summer and deciding where to apply, I'd like to give a couple of examples of students who have made unexpected choices.

My best friend from high school has a son who plans to major in engineering. He had excellent grades and test scores. I wanted admissions officers to see beyond the math/science strengths that many prospective engineering students would present in their applications.

He wrote a great essay about how he had always been more comfortable with math because of the clear right or wrong answers. He described how struggling with the lack of a definite answer in English forced him to shift his way of thinking from results to process and enabled him to develop his creative side.

After working hard on his applications, he was accepted at every school he applied to. That list included Duke, Northwestern and Washington University, which offered him a scholarship.

So where is he going next year? University of Maryland. The engineering program appealed to him, and he really liked the "rah-rah" of a big university, with its football games and school spirit. His parents may have forfeited bragging rights, but they have the consolation of no tuition payments for the next four years, since Maryland is giving him a full scholarship.

While Duke is certainly more prestigious, his mother really can't complain, since back when we were high school seniors, she also turned down Duke to attend University of Maryland. Maybe it's genetic.

But what happens after college? Many parents are afraid that if their children don't go to an elite college, they won't have the same opportunities as graduates of Ivy League schools. It's really not where you go but what you do while you're there that determines your options after college.

My niece, who turned down University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins, just graduated from the University of Maryland. She applied to top law schools and was admitted to Columbia, Penn, Georgetown, Berkeley, University of Chicago and NYU and was offered a scholarship at University of Virginia. We were pretty excited.

But it got even better when both Stanford and Harvard pulled her off the wait-list. She was at the top of her class at Maryland and her professors wrote incredible recommendation letters. I am confident she would have had an impressive college career even if she had attended a more prestigious school, but there would have been more competition.

Not everyone who graduates from an Ivy League college gets into a top law school. You still need terrific grades, test scores and recommendations.

In case it seems like I'm plugging Maryland today, it's my home state and I still have family and friends there, so I hear a lot of stories about students attending the University of Maryland. There are similar stories in other states. In fact, my friend's older son had a roommate who turned down Cornell for Penn State's Schreyer Honors College.

If you go to a college where you feel engaged in the community and have strong relationships with students and professors, you'll be more likely to have a successful college experience. And you'll have many post-college options.

Note: To the mother of twin daughters who called me, I have information for you but didn't get your number. Please contact me.

Audrey Kahane, MS, is a private college admissions counselor i n We s t H i l l s . She can be reached at (818) 704-7545 or via e-mail at audreykahane@earthlink.net