There’s something that I try to make very clear to my clients before I begin working with them. Everyone gets almost exactly the same speech:

I don’t do anything that you can’t do. You don’t need me. A million high school kids graduate every year and go on to college. Most do it without anyone like me helping them. I don’t have any secret techniques or special connections. You won’t get into college thinking that Benjamin Holloway got you there. You’ll probably, hopefully, forget about me. What I do is help you do it more effectively and more efficiently. This is your first and only time going through this, but I go through this with multiple people every year. So that’s something, and it’s not small. But you can do this on your own if you choose.

To be honest, most colleges could make the same sort of statement. You don’t need college, and you certainly don’t need any specific college. The benefits of a college degree are meaningful and real, yet around two thirds of Americans don’t graduate from college. College doesn’t automatically or effortlessly deliver you to your goals. What it does is make you more effective and more efficient at reaching your goals. College doesn’t make things good; it makes things easier.

To find the best colleges for you, spend time thinking about what you want to be easier. It’s not as simple as it sounds. You have to be honest with yourself and think expansively. There are probably several things you would like to be easier, and some of your hopes and expectations you probably don’t talk about openly.

Sometimes the best way to figure out what you want to be easier is to focus on replacing words like “good” and “best” with statements of ease.

Here’s one example: “I want to go to a college with a good chemical engineering department.” Ok. What does “good” mean to you in that sentence? What do you want to become easier? Do you want it to be easier to get a job in chemical engineering directly after college? Do you want to make it easier to get accepted into a graduate program in chemical engineering? Perhaps you want to go to a “good” chemical engineering program because you want to make it easier to decide if chemical engineering is really what you want to do, and you figure that going to a “good” program will make that more clear than going to an “mediocre” program. Maybe the desire, at its core, is more social-emotional than academic: you’ve spent years being a nerd, and you want to make it easier to hang out with other people who are interested in things like chemical engineering; you want to make it easier to belong.

And what if you don’t know your major, or you’re open to changing? When students tell me they’re worried about choosing a college because they have no idea what they want to do, I tell them that’s no problem— liberal arts are really good for undecided people. When I talk about liberal arts colleges being “good” for these students, and what I really mean is they make it easier to explore multiple options while still graduating in four or five years.

Another example: students often tell me that they’re interested in a place with a strong sense of school spirit. That’s perfectly fine, but think about why that’s important to you. What becomes easier? Is it because a school like that will make it easier to set up a lifetime network of friends and job contacts? Will it make it easier to find social events with people your age? Will it make it easier to feel part of a community that will last beyond the four years that you’re in college? Will it make it easier to do your school work, which you’re not super excited about, if you know there are sports events every week, which you are excited about?

I can anticipate some objections to thinking about how colleges make things easier for you. College isn’t supposed to be easy or to make things easy, some will say. It’s about being challenged, being out of your comfort zone, about being exposed to things that make you question your assumptions and even your identity. I don’t disagree—college, at its best, indeed does all those things. But also: any other aspect of life, at its best, will also do those things. College just makes it easier, because there’s a concentration of people and traditions whose job is to challenge you, and there’s also a built-in support system for dealing with the challenges. It’s like going to a gym. You don’t go to a gym because gyms are the only places with heavy objects to lift. Gyms aren’t meant to be easy, but you go to them because all the equipment, trained professionals, and support are in one spot. It’s easier to do the hard work. College, while hard, is the same. Yes, college is difficult and challenging. So much so that you go there because it’s easy to be challenged there.

While we usually think about college as a transition from youth to adulthood and focus on things like jobs and training, there are also deep emotional aspects of college. There are all kinds of things we want to be easier that college can help with. We want to make it easier to make our own paths while still making our parents and communities proud. For many, the thrill of getting accepted to a prestigious, famous college comes down to making it easier to feel accomplished and important right now, before college even begins. In our vague-but-real American class system, a college degree doesn’t guarantee you’ll be in the upper classes, but it sure makes it easier. That’s on a lot of high school students’ minds, even if they don’t articulate it that way.

I don’t think every student needs to go through this. The majority of students I talk to have a pretty good idea of what they want, and they can go straight to committing to that by making a College Mission Statement: “I want to _____ at a _____ school with _____.” But if you’re struggling to understand what you want, if the answers to lots of questions about your near future are “I don’t know” or “I’m not really sure,” then begin by thinking about what you want to make easier. Think about it academically, professionally, socially, emotionally, and spiritually. You can do almost anything. What would you like for someone else to make easier? Which challenges would you like the most support in tacking? Understanding that can help you narrow down your college search much more efficiently and effectively than looking though more lists of “good” colleges.

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