What to do when your teen asks “what university should I choose?”: Parent tips for sorting through the noise
Last Tuesday I was folding mismatched soccer socks at the kitchen table, leftover pork fried rice congealing next to my laptop, when my 17-year-old Lila dropped a stack of college brochures on the floor and said, “Mom, what university would you choose if you were me? Help.”
My first instinct was to blurt out the school 45 minutes from our house, the one with the well-regarded environmental science program, the one I’ve quietly thought was a good fit for her since she started high school. I stopped myself halfway, though, because I can still remember sitting at this same table when I was 17, asking my mom the same question, and her saying “Pick the state school close to home, it’s cheap and you can live here.” I went, hated every minute of my first year, dropped out after two semesters, and didn’t go back until I was 22. I didn’t want to do that to Lila.
I pushed the socks to the side, pulled a chair out for her, and said the first thing that came to mind: “I’m not going to choose for you, but I’ll help you sort through all this mess. Let’s not talk about rankings or acceptance rates or what your cousin did first. Let’s answer three small questions instead of one big impossible one.”
That’s the trick I stumbled on that week, after scrolling through parent groups and seeing dozens of panicked parents asking the same thing: their kid is overwhelmed, asking for help picking a school, and no one knows what to say that doesn’t sound like either pushing your own dream or shrugging it off. Most of the time, when a teen asks you what university to choose, they don’t actually want your answer. They want help filtering through all the noise they’re already getting. Grandparents are telling them to pick the big name school. Friends are all applying to the same out-of-state school to stay together. Instagram is full of reels of gorgeous private college campuses that cost more than my first car every semester. They just want someone to help them figure out what they actually want, not add another opinion to the pile.
We went through the three questions slow, stopping when our golden retriever stole a sock and Lila had to chase him around the dining table. The first question was: What three non-negotiable things do you need to not hate going to school every single day? No “good program” vague stuff, actual daily things. Lila thought for a minute, then wrote down: No required 8 a.m. classes for freshmen if I can avoid it, small enough that my profs will know my name if I go to office hours, and a bus route that gets to a hiking trail within 15 minutes of campus. That was it. No mentions of ivy-covered walls or national rankings, just stuff that affects her every day.
The second question was: If you had a free Saturday every month, what would you want to do with it, and does the school let you do that easily? Lila’s answer was almost immediate: Half the time I want to drive home to babysit Mia, my cousin with autism who I’ve been close to since she was little, so it can’t be more than two hours away. The other half I want to go to a good art supply store and wander, because I like to draw on weekends when I don’t have homework. So any school that’s in the middle of nowhere with no way to get to a city or get home easily is out. That ruled out three schools she’d had her eye on just because their environmental science programs were well-ranked, right off the bat.
Third question: What’s the worst case scenario you can imagine, and can we live with that? Lila said the worst case is she gets there and hates environmental science, wants to switch to art or education. So we added that any school we look at has to let you switch majors easily without losing a full semester of credits. We also put out front the hard number: we can cover $15,000 a year, anything over that comes from scholarships or student loans that she’d be responsible for after graduation. That wasn’t a punishment, that was just being clear so she didn’t spend three months falling in love with a $60,000 a year private school that was never going to work for us.
That’s the practical stuff that no one tells you, right? You don’t need to spend thousands on a college consultant. You don’t need to visit 15 campuses over spring break. If you’re stuck, just pull out those three questions. Another small thing I’d add: if you do visit a campus, go on a random Tuesday, not an official preview day. Preview days are all polished, with cheerful tour guides and cookies at the welcome center. Last month we drove up to the school 45 minutes away on a rainy Wednesday, walked around the dining hall, saw how crowded the library was, and got coffee at the student union. Lila said it felt normal, not like a sales pitch, and that told her more than any official tour.
I’ve also learned not to stress when she changes her mind every other week. One week she’s set on the in-state public, the next she’s talking about a small liberal arts college two hours away, the next she’s wondering if she should just work for a year first. That’s normal. This is a big call, and no one expects a 17-year-old to have it figured out overnight.
We’re not done yet. Lila’s got a shortlist of three schools that fit all her criteria, she’s working on her application for early action to the top one, and last week she mentioned again that she might want to take a gap year to work at the local nature center first to make sure she actually likes environmental science. That’s fine with me. I still catch myself leaning in, wanting to tell her that the closest one is the right one, that it checks all the boxes, that it’s safe. But I bite my tongue. This isn’t my choice to make, and the question wasn’t actually a request for my answer. It was a request for help figuring out hers. That’s all most kids ever want, anyway.
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