With finals week over, it’s high school students and parents — not college professors — who are grading prospective universities and deciding their future educational path at this time of year.

And from the perspective of a parent and college administrator in Chester, the highest grades ought to go to the schools whose commitment to students and their success overflows into abundant personal attention, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer opinion by Widener University President Julie E. Wollman.

The evidence of such a commitment is faculty and staff who know their undergraduates, spend time with their students, engage students in their work, provide thriving career services, succeed in placing graduates in jobs, and receive high marks in student satisfaction, Wollman wrote.

And her advice doesn’t just come from personal experience or her view from the top of Widener. It’s backed by a Gallup-Purdue University study: “Undergraduate students who had experienced personal attention and strong support of professors and others on campus were, after graduation, much more likely to be thriving — to have jobs they liked, to be more engaged in their work, and to be happier overall.”

Read more about what to look for in a college in the Philadelphia Inquirer here, and check out previous DELCO Today coverage of Widener University here.