A Pocket Guide to Choosing a College: Questions to Ask on Your College Visits
Our newly revised guide, A Pocket Guide to Choosing a College: Questions to ask on your college visits, was created as part of an ongoing public awareness campaign to refocus the national conversation about what constitutes quality in the college experience.
See what people have to say about it!
Finding a Good Fit
Selecting the right college is one of the most important decisions a student will make. Parents and school counselors play a major role in helping students gather and evaluate information on potential schools. To get a sense of how likely a student is to learn, grow, and develop at a given institution, parents and students need to ask the right questions about the schools they visit or explore on the Web. To help them, the NSSE pocket guide includes suggestions for questions to ask of key people that they will meet - the tour guide, admissions staff, and currently enrolled students. A Spanish version of the pocket guide, Una Guia de Bolsillo Para Escoger una Universidad: Preguntas a hacer en tus visitas universitarias, is also available.
Questions Based on NSSE
The majority of questions in the pocket guide are aligned with survey items from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). Each year NSSE collects information directly from thousands of students at hundreds of colleges and universities. Responses to the survey provide valuable information about what is actually going on in the lives of students and the quality of their college experience. Although our agreement with schools prevents us from reporting the results for specific colleges and universities, many schools provide their NSSE results to prospective students if asked, or post results on their institutional Web site. NSSE also provides a list of colleges that have participated in the survey.
For more detailed information on the NSSE survey that may be of help to your students and their parents, see the FAQ for parents and students. Even if a school does not participate in NSSE, the pocket guide is still a very useful tool for getting answers to questions about the college experience.
How to obtain copies of the Pocket Guide
NSSE offers free copies of the pocket guide to high schools, colleges and non-profit education organizations. Professional consultants and for-profit organizations are charged a small fee. Parents and students can either check with their counselors for a copy or download a copy in English or Spanish.
Order Copies of the Pocket Guide
A Pocket Guide to Choosing a College:
Are You Asking the Right Questions on a College Campus Visit?
NSSE has revised and updated its pocket guide to exploring colleges. Our new guide, A Pocket Guide to Choosing a College: Are You Asking the right Questions on a college campus visit?, was created as part of an ongoing public awareness campaign to refocus the national conversation about what constitutes quality in the college experience.
The guide lists a number of questions that research over the last 30 years has shown to be positively related to high levels of student learning and development during college.
It is intended to get prospective college students and their parents to start thinking more about these types of questions during the college decision making process.
A Spanish version of the pocket guide, Una Guia de Bolsillo Para Escoger una Universidad: Cómo hacer las Preguntas correctas en tus visitas universitarias, is now available.
The pocket guides can be requested by school counselors, educational organizations, and college admissions offices in varying quantities. Parents and students can either check with their counselors for a copy or download a copy in PDF format:
Ordering Information for High School Guidance Counselors, College Admissions Offices, and Education Organizations
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Comments
"Thank you. I love to show off your powerful little brochure. I tell families, 'it's probably the smallest thing in your packet but probably one of the most important.'"
- High School Counselor, Ann Arbor, MI
We use the Pocket Guide "...to help train admissions volunteers (tour guides, alumni volunteers, etc) and to give to junior visitors beginning their college search during our junior open houses."
- Associate Dean of Admissions, Portland, OR
"I give these to families every year. As a former school principal who saw the link between student achievement and good teaching, I think the NSSE data is the most valuable tool we have in identifying good fits for students at the college level."
- Educational Consultant, Oakton, VA
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