My College Hunting Experience

Black Issues in Higher Education, Feb 18, 1999 by Portia Imani Hurtt, Lee-St. John, Terrence Jerani

This year, as I prepare to enter the rest of my life, one of my most memorable experiences has been the search for my perfect college. I have been through many steps in this process. In addition to evaluating schools in the basis of the academic environment, I've had to consider issues such as geographic location and campus size as well. One of the most important factors in my decision was that the college I chose be moderate in most aspects of student life. For example, some schools are very religious, some have an extremely heavy workload, some have extremely strong athletic programs as supposed to academics, etc. I sought a school that offered a balance.

Initially, I was under the illusion that I wanted to attend an Ivy League school. This thought quickly disappeared, however, when I visited the University of Pennsylvania. I was the only Black person in my tour group and, at first, was treated as if I might have been a bad student, only getting in to fill a quota. In other words, the guide assumed that the other kids had certain credentials which I lacked, and that was evident in her conversation with me. However, when she discovered that I had outscored the rest of the group by far on the SAT, her attitude, and subsequent treatment of me, changed. This is when I realized that maybe the Ivy League was not the right environment for me.

So, I started to focus more on southern schools. The first southern campus I visited was the University of Virginia. What struck me most was the relative scarcity of Black people. Perhaps I am sensitive to this issue because I come from a high school that is predominantly Black. I knew, in advance, that UVA was a predominantly White school, but this lack of color was disturbing to me, as I could not picture this as my ideal learning environment.

Luckily for me, just as I was deciding that a historically Black school might best suit me, and business was the major that interested me, the scholarship offers came rolling in. I visited several other schools and have decided to attend Florida A&M University in the fall.

My biggest piece of advice to college recruiters is to treat each and every prospective student as if she has perfect grades and SAT scores. Students notice differential treatment, and it is not appreciated. Also, it is sometimes the student you least suspect who may turn out to be a hidden asset to a university. So, don't write a student off and not encourage her to apply on the basis of how she looks, because we listen as much to what you don't say as to what you do!

Portia Imani Hurtt is a senior at Washington, D. C. School Without Walls and a National Achievement Semifinalist who scored 1450 on the SAT- 800 in English.

In October 1997, I began my college admissions experience by filling out a questionnaire before taking the PSAT. "All it does is determine what kind of schools you will receive junk mail from," was what the proctor told me. Luckily, I already had an idea of the type of school I was looking for and what majors I might lean toward. I answered the questions so that I would receive mail from engineering schools.

The next eight months brought wave after wave of college "junk" mail -- letters inviting me to explore schools, pamphlets giving me information and small peeks at campuses, books showing me all that the schools have to offer, and applications. Though getting all that mail was good for my self-esteem, I did not pay it much attention. By the time [ started receiving the college mail, I had already made my college list and pretty much knew where I was going to apply.

I developed my college list mainly through Internet research. The multiple college fairs I attended had little to no effect on my decision. It seemed to me that every table was basically the same -- happy people singing the praises of their respective schools. After all of the mail and fair visits, it looked like no matter where I decided to attend school, I would enjoy myself and receive a good education.

I found that I was better able to distinguish among colleges by searching Web sites and other related pages on the Internet for more information. The ETS College Board's college search computer program also helped to narrow my list. I looked and/or searched for majors offered, location, national rankings, intern programs, and social life information. It turned out, not surprisingly, the more I was able to find about the colleges over the Internet, the smaller and more specific my list became.

In the end, I decided on a university that sent me very little "junk" mail and did not recruit me until I contacted them. The overall recruiting processes of the other colleges had very little effect and did not push me in any particular direction. Instead, it was what Stanford University had to offer me--programs and location -- that attracted and finally grabbed me. And the financial package helped, too.

Terrence Jelani Lee-St. John is a senior at the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. He is also a National Achievement Semifinalist who scored 1450 on his SAT--800 in math. He spent the first semester of his senior year studying in Beijing China.