Hunt is on for the right university

Maddie Callis, a senior at Hickman High School, wants a rigorous academic program when she goes to college. She also wants to play golf.

So far, she has visited several schools, including Illinois Wesleyan University, Truman State University, St. Louis University, Washington University, MU and Rhodes College, in Memphis.

“I think it’s really good to get a feel for the campus before you go there,” said Callis, who has played golf since her freshman year of high school and was the top-ranked player on Hickman’s women’s golf team this year. “I’d say they’re (college visits) a must before you enroll.”

With the school year about half gone, the hunt for the right college or university is under way in earnest for many Columbia high school seniors. Most of the students interviewed for this story began their searches during their junior year or earlier.

When the students began their searches, many did not have particular schools in mind, but they at least had an idea of what they were looking for in a colleges. Among their criteria were a good academic reputation, size and location, campus atmosphere, and athletic and student activities.

For example, Hannah Sher, a Rock Bridge senior, knows she wants a school with a good photography program, so that was one of the things she looked for when choosing potential colleges.

The students’ decisions were also influenced by the opinions of family members as well as family traditions.

When Holly Smith, a Rock Bridge senior, began her college search, she knew the University of Michigan was an option because her parents and other family members had gone there, as well as Northwestern University because her brother went there.

She then looked through The Princeton Review, picked some she liked and discussed her choices with family members.

“I had a lot of influence from my family,” Smith said about her decision on which schools to apply to.

Mike Yoakum, a Rock Bridge senior, applied to four schools — MU, the University of Arkansas, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Louisiana State University — but said he will probably stay in Columbia because of family tradition.

“My family has gone to MU for three generations,” he said.

Peter Fritsche, a Hickman senior, knew that he wanted to get out of Missouri and go east or northeast and that he wanted to go to a small school.

Fritsche began his search by looking through college books to find schools he thought he would like. During this past summer, while visiting his grandparents in Rhode Island, he visited six schools in the Northeast. Although Fritsche said visiting the schools rearranged his order of preference, he still applied to all of them.

His mother, Alisa Fritsche, said that whatever school he was at most recently was his favorite, so she knows he’ll be happy at any of them. She said she hopes Peter will end up “somewhere where he’ll be happy and get a good education.”

That was the consensus of the parents: Their main hope is that their children will end up at colleges well-suited to their students.

The parents and students said they thought campus visits are an important part of the process; all five students have already visited at least one of their potential schools.

Yoakum, who has yet to visit any campus but MU’s, said he looks forward to seeing the schools he applied to.

“I think the visits will hopefully provide me with insight to college that I can’t find on the Internet or in books,” he said.

Karen Smith, Holly Smith’s mother, said she likes her children to visit colleges before they even apply because seeing the school changes their opinion of it.

“They get a feel,” Karen Smith said. “They either love it or hate it right off the bat.”

She said that this way, her children did not waste time and money applying to a school they truly were not interested in.

Now that their applications are in, the students are playing the waiting game to see which schools accept them so they can make their final decisions. Meanwhile, their parents are adjusting to the idea of their children leaving home.

“I don’t think a parent’s ever really ready,” said Holly Sher, Hannah Sher’s mother. “But I’m not going to hold her back.”