How to decide where to go to college

Its stressful deciding where to go to college. You do homework on everything from size of the college to majors offered, to sports, to rankings etc. Then you set out to your preferred colleges. I went on grueling trips with my 3 kids to GA, NC, SC and DC, MD, PA, NY and MA.

From there the schools were all assessed. Some were dismissed, and others given accolades along the way.  Schools were crossed off the list because the sandwich they had wasn’t as good as the sandwich they had the day before at another school. Or the tour guide was boring. My favorite was a visit we made at 3:30 on a Friday afternoon. It had rained the prior 2 days of our tour, but today the skies cleared. The temperature rose. The students came out, blaring music, partying, and tanning in the sun. My son, declared, “This is a good college. I like this place. I could see myself going here.” I smirked. He didn’t say a word about the academics or the size or the rankings.

Back at home my kids made charts with pros and cons and searched website after website for data making it an exercise in analytics. But at the end of the day, it was the sun, or the food, or hearing that their best friend’s brother liked the college. It was more about how they emotionally felt and then justifying the decision based on those emotions. I suspect deciding on the college is not very different than deciding who to marry, or what job to take, or what clothes to dress in each morning. Feelings matter more than analytics when it comes to making decisions.

Think about how you are connecting with your target audience. Is it at an emotional or logical or analytical level?  We recommend sprinkling in a good deli sandwich, some clearing skies and a positive word from your client’s customer who hear a good word about you at a cocktail reception.