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For almost 30 years, “College Match : A Blueprint for Choosing the Best School for you,” Steven R Antonoff’s book has been a useful and handy guide on the college admission process. The material in the book is useful for counselors, parents and students alike as it is offered in an easy to use and methodical format to help ensure all the key milestones are met for a seamless admission process.

There are four key principles that guide the writing of this book

1. All students, regardless of grades or test scores, have colleges from which to choose. With an increasing number of options available to students now compared to the past, students and parents feel overloaded by the amount of information available online. But being able to understand what is important and analyzing the data available, can help cut through the noise and allow students to have a choice in deciding what works best for them.
2. There is a sequence of steps that, if followed, will lead to solid, suitable college choices. 

College Match is an extremely organized resource. With the help of the clearly defined steps and suggestions, students can take charge of the process and find colleges that will match their needs and requirements. 

3. The college choice process neither has to be, nor is, inherently stressful.

As mentioned earlier, with the increasing number of choices available to students, the anxiety has compounded to make the right choice. While a lot of this stress can be attributed to ‘misinformation’ about the admissions process, it is also helpful to focus on the colleges that are a ‘best-fit’ rather than the ‘top ranking colleges’.

4. Finding a college builds important, lifelong skills in taking initiative, making decisions, and assuming responsibility.

The college admission process brings students to the position where they are faced with real-life decisions including financial responsibilities as well as decisions related to their future career path. The process acts as a stepping-stone to understanding and accepting these decisions and their first introduction to how life works.

In summary, this book acts as the perfect guide that blends in all that I have learned as part of the College Counseling course and combines it with handy, ready-to-use worksheets that can be useful to counselors, students and parents to help make the college admissions process stress-free and have a thriving academic journey.

As a student of the College Counseling course, I appreciate the well-thought-out structure to the book. His call out to counselors ’this book is designed to maximize the value of your time’ seems like the culmination of every counselor’s wish list on finding the right tools to help students work on their own terms and make the right decisions for their future.

The book is divided into 10 chapters that take students through the process from understanding themselves and what they are looking for from the college of their choice to understanding the financial implications, making the best of college campus visits. In addition, there is also information on what admissions officers are looking for to navigate college life as a Freshman and in their future professional life as well. The book also has a special section for parents to answer their questions as they watch their children take their first independent steps in the world and offer them the support, they need to help their children through the rejections and acceptances that the process entails. Each section is accompanied by handy worksheets that help set clear goals that can be measured for progress every step of the way.

Chapter 1: Your power to choose a college

Talks about how ‘picking a college is an important choice’. It encourages students to take control of this process and not wait for their counselors, parents or best friends to make that decision for them. Rather than focusing on “getting into a high-ranked college”, students need to understand that they have a wide variety of colleges to choose from that will cater to what they want. On the flip side, analyzing whether a four-year college program is really the right choice for a student is also a very important choice that is in their hands.

Chapter 2: Knowing yourself

Is perhaps the first most important step in this process. The worksheets in this chapter help students understand where their personal strengths lie and help them tie that in with their college readiness quotient. Evaluating their accomplishments in the light of what admissions officers look for will help them evaluate themselves realistically as a candidate for potential colleges. 

Chapter 3: What are you looking for in a college?

Helps identify which qualities would make a college the right fit for the student. Some of the criteria include- size, location, academics, majors offered, admission difficulty amongst others.

Chapter 4: Paying for college- deal with it; don’t run from it

Navigates through the financial responsibilities that are a part of this process. Understanding the chances to FAFSA can be best accomplished with in-depth conversations with your counselor and the pointers in this chapter can help you steer the conversation in the right direction. Considering the problems students faced this year with the implementation of the new FAFSA, it is important to get the particulars straightened out to ease the last-minute deadlines for applying for aid.

Chapter 5: Building your college list

Ties in all the previous chapters and helps students build their college list. With a wide range of online resources offered here and combined with conversations with their counselor, students can nail down their top choices that would make the best fit. Finally, there is also a handy application tracker template that can help students keep track of all the deadlines and requirements for each college.

Chapter 6: Learning from Campus visits

Delves into how students can prepare for campus visits. It also offers a list of general questions they can use to lead the conversation with admissions officers, students or faculty. Taking notes on the key deciding factors like student life, campus facilities and other impressions can help in later review.

Chapter 7: Making your essays work for you

Works through the steps to ace the college admissions essays. The essay brainstorming worksheet along with vocabulary help and strategies to help with through the process offer a handy checklist students can work with.

Chapter 8: The Admission process revealed

Sheds light on 7 key factors that admissions officers consider while reviewing applications. There is also a brief section that highlights how to deal with admission decisions- Accepted / Deferred / Rejected.

Chapter 9: Being successful in your Freshman year (and beyond)

Talks about the key techniques that can help students succeed in college as well as in the future as well. Focusing on the right attitude as well as maintaining a personal discipline to deadlines and making use of all the resources available on campus can go a long way in framing a successful narrative.

Chapter 10: Parents as educators in the college selection process

As the final chapter tries to answer questions that parents might have about the admissions process. It offers helpful suggestions on how to guide students through the difficult phase and to provide them with the support they need without taking over. 

From the point of view of a counselor, I feel, this book offers a great resource for everyone- counselors, students and parents. It has the right amount of information to get the conversation going and make sure that everyone concerned can track the right milestones and make sure nothing is forgotten. All in all, it disproves the myth that admissions is a difficult process and converts it into a simple step-by-step manageable effort.

In addition, these links are a great place to start the college search based on your specific criteria.

How to Make a College List (usnews.com)

The Ultimate College Search Guide | CollegeXpress

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