Big School vs. Small School: The Show-Down

Why’d you pick this school?

It’s a question that literally everyone asks.

Your friends and family.

The embassy agent at your visa interview.

Heck, even your classmates, who chose the same school, want to know why you picked it to!

Truth is, it’s a fair question.

There are so many options for pursuing education these days.

• Your traditional schools, ranging from Harvard and Yale all the way down to the local state college.

• Smaller, independent colleges that may have only started within the last 20-30 years.

• An entire industry of online “experts” promising that their course is the one thing that you need to make big amounts of money in a very short time frame.

Plus, there’s the free, 100% no cost YouTube University.

With all these different options, it can seem like a miracle to just wade through the noise enough to make a decision.

As it turns out, people use a lot of different strategies to choose their school.

For yours truly, it wasn’t geography, it wasn’t the amount of financial aid I qualified for (although the certainly factored in), and heck, it wasn’t even whether the school had my preferred major.

I chose a school I have never heard of, in a place that I had never been, because I was recruited to play on their American football team.

Now, to be fair, the other boxes had to make sense too- it was a good school academically, the school and surrounding area was beautiful, it had several options for my studies, and while it was a smaller school, I was okay with that.

Because here’s the thing..

Assuming they are accredited, few schools are objectively a poor choice- they may just not be the right fit for YOU.

Maybe you want to go to a big school that people in your home country have heard of, and you’re willing to wait until the next admission cycle.

Maybe you are ready to take the leap of faith and start your American education journey, and you want to start as soon as possible.

Maybe you’re unsure if studying in the U.S. is the right decision for you at all.

Wherever you are in the decision-making process, if you need some support, Ask A DSO is a team of people that work directly in colleges and universities that can help you through your specific need.

To show you how committed we are to helping international students through this time, we’re offering a completely free half hour consultation- you can book yours here.

Whether you need us or not, this Fall Semester, we want you to know one thing:

We’re cheering for you.

-Josh