Our third child is in the process of selecting which university to attend next fall. And it sometimes feels like there are too many choices. When he hears about another program or school, he adds it to the list and all of the sudden, a list of two schools turns into eight. And there is tremendous pressure to pick the “right” one.

Of course, this is all very familiar. I see and hear this on a weekly basis at work as families locally and globally are looking to find the right K-12 school for their child.  They visit multiple schools in our district, they speak to administrators, they examine test scores and they talk to current and former parents – doing as much research as possible.  

Listening recently to Barry Schwartz, gave me a different perspective on these kind of situations.  Schwartz is a psychologist with a famous TED Talk on the paradox of choice. In a recent podcast conversation with Adam Grant he told the story of how he often uses this New Yorker cartoon in his presentations: 

Schwartz argues that if you have stuck in your head that Yale is better than Brown and you go to Brown, you will not enjoy Brown as much had you not had that thought.  He argues:

Are there differences between Brown and Yale? Of course there are. Are there differences that you can know about in advance? Almost certainly not. And a lot of those differences are gonna be the result of happenstance, who your roommate is in your freshman year, who happens to be teaching Bio 1 when you take it, stuff like that.

So, you’re already in the region of unimaginable excellence, and there’s no reason to drive yourself crazy about this, deciding which of these incredibly excellent places is the place that you should be spending the next four years. But it’s hard, this is a, I don’t know what your experience has been, Adam. I find it impossible to convince young people that what I just said is true.

This sentiment connects for me, as I think about my son’s university decisions and our West Vancouver parents K-12 school decisions.  My son is picking between a number of great schools.  He is going to attend a major university in Canada – and they are all good.  As Schwartz says, this is really a region “of unimaginable excellence.”  But who knows who his roommates will be, or his teammates on the track team, or the people who sit next to him in his classes.  These “first” people will arguably make it the “right” school for him.  

And for the parents in West Vancouver, I say with completely sincerity, all of our schools are great schools.  There are no bad choices.  And I know most don’t believe me – they figure that is just superintendent-talk and something I have to say.  But every year I talk to students and their parents that LOVE all of our schools.  I know I wish there was some kind of code that could be cracked, to get the best experience for our students to perfectly match each child to the absolute best school for them – but within great experiences, some of what happens is luck.  

I like Adam Grant’s conclusion at the end of the podcast, good advice for my son and his university selection, and for all the parents and students I talk to about West Vancouver schools:

I think my biggest takeaway here is that the more you struggle with a choice, the more likely it is that there is not a right choice. So instead of agonizing over whether you’ve made the best decision, it’s probably worth picking an option. And then trying to turn it into a good decision.

We are fortunate to have so many great choices and excellent options when it comes to schooling – both in the K-12 system and the post-secondary world.  What a lucky position for all of our students.