Student Life/Affairs
Student Life/ Student Affairs is the often overlooked but most important aspect of deciding on the right school. As much as we want to all idealistically believe that college is all about the education, the truth is students are only in class about 18 hours a week, which means the VAST majority of their time is spent OUT of the classroom. This "out of the classroom" time is the responsibility of student affairs, which means a good or bad student affairs can have a MUCH more significant effect on a student's college career than a god or bad academic experience.
There are many branches of Student Life, but some of the most important to know and learn about when choosing a school are Residence Life/Housing, Student Activities, Student Government, Fraternity and Sororities (if your campus has them), Career Services, Leadership Development, Volunteer Services, Campus Ministry, Counseling Services, Campus Safety/Security, etc. As I said earlier, students will have more interaction with these members of the campus community than your faculty, so be sure to get to know them and use them as resources when learning about a school.
In order to better understand the most important areas of student affairs and how they effect your time on campus, I am going to break these down into a couple small areas. The first is Housing/Residence Life. These are the people in charge of the residence halls on campus and control your living environment. Usually these are overseen by a Director of Housing/Residence Life or a Dean of Students. This person is an excellent resource to speak with, because they know all of the good and bad happening on campus. They know what life on campus is REALLY like and they also often are responsible for overseeing judicial affairs, so they know what trouble is occurring on campus and how severe things really are.
This is a good time to bring up FERPA (Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act) which is a federal law mandating just how much information a university can share with parents. This means that depending on if the student signs a waiver or not, parents may or may not be notified if a child gets in trouble, what their grades are, etc. This is a law and must be followed, so when an administrator tells you they cannot tell you something due to privacy, they are telling the truth and they have NO choice on the manner. It can be good to have a student affairs administrator explain FERPA to you during a visit to better understand how this law effects you.
Another branch of student affairs is what I am going to call Student Involvement which can include campus activities, student government, leadership, etc. At some school these are the same office, at others they all may be separate, but essentially they are responsible for how students at that campus spend their free time, i.e. what is the social life at the campus. Perspective students can learn a lot from these administrators by asking things like: Is this a suitcase campus, what percentage of students stay on campus during the weekends? Those that stay, what are they doing while they are here? Can I see your schedule of social events for this semester? What percentage of students hold leadership positions on campus? Do the students have true power on this campus or is the student government just a group getting together to complain but with no real power to enact change? (This is important because it will reveal how much the students can do to create the university into the place they want, the more power the more student friendly the university is usually.)
The next area to discuss is Campus Safety/Security. These vary by campuses, with some being official officers, others having less formal training. What I can say is that they all care deeply for everyone on the campus and are there to serve and protect the student body. The other important aspect of the Campus Safety/Security office is that they release the annual crime report for the campus. Every campus is required to release a report summarizing the data about all crimes, etc that occurred on the campus. This has to be accurate and has to be available to the public. This means you can have real data about the safety of each campus you are looking at for a few years back.
The final people you should speak with while on a campus visit are the people who know the institution at a ground level. Often the best people to speak with for a real assessment of the campus are the people who work in the dining hall and the people who help to clean the campus. If you happen to get to talk to one of the people who clean the residence halls, you will get a true understanding of life in the halls. The people who work in the dining hall know what students really eat on a regular basis which helps to assess the overall health of the student body. Plus, these people are not often trained to give the official university line, so you get honest answers instead of scripted answers.
Sean was a College Administrator and Faculty member for over 10 years and knows the real inside secrets to what happens at college, and how to find the college that is the best fit for you! Since he is no longer working for an specific school, he can tell it how it is without the usual scripts. Check out more hints, advice, links and even a complete "Insider's Guide" at http://www.CollegeSearchSecrets.com.