S24 is starting to form an idea of what he is looking for in a college (finally 
). He really is very easy going and can be happy in a lot of different situations and environments, so it has been challenging to think about what he wants in order to narrow down possible colleges.
Interestingly, he has decided that cost is a major factor. Since he thinks he can be happy lots of places, heâd like to aim for lower cost to give him more flexibility in life. If he is a NMSF, he will have some very low cost options to weigh other schools against. If not, Iâm not sure what the baseline âweigh other schools against thisâ will be.
The second feature that matters to him (and one that would motivate him to spend more) is flexibility in curriculum/major. He recognizes that he still doesnât know what he wants to study, and he would really like to be somewhere where he can truly explore across disciplines (including engineering and computer science type fields, but also social sciences and liberal arts areas) his first year to help him decide. And, even better if he continues to have flexibility in later years to sample classes from a variety of areas. That means schools that require you to apply to a specific major or school and make it hard to switch to another one drop down the list, and schools that allow you to just apply to the college and that have a wide variety of majors move up the list.
The third thing that matters to him is a student body that is really engaged and interested in what theyâre learning and intelligent, but also collaborative and not âdriven.â I am trying to understand exactly what he means, but I think what he is saying is that he doesnât want to go to a school where it is the norm for students to take the maximum number of classes allowed and be stressed out constantly. He wants to go somewhere where students are thinking at a high-level, and taking classes that they enjoy and working hard when needed, but not having to work so hard all the time that they donât have space for fun and relationships.
The last thing he has decided is that he does not love city campuses. He doesnât mind a defined, pretty campus with lots of trees that is in a city. But he doesnât like a campus that is mostly city, or lots of buildings without trees. So for instance, BU << Northeastern << Boston College << WPI & Brown. He probably would not pay more for the type of campus that he wants, but if all other things are equal, he would prefer a pretty, defined, tree filled, less city-like campus to something else.