I’m a senior, and I’ve thought that I had my college list set in stone for a while but now I’m feeling really unsure. I’ve taken off colleges that I thought I for sure was going to apply to and I realized that I don’t really know what I’m looking for in a college. Or rather I don’t know how to find out if a college is right for me? I don’t have the finances to travel anywhere for a college visit so that is making my decisions a bit harder to make. Any tips?
For many people the biggest factor, initially, is how much your family can afford to pay. Find out exactly what your budget is from your parents, and then that should give you a ballpark of where you should be looking - is any school fair game? Or only a public school? Or only public schools in your state?
The next step is probably a general preference for what you want: urban, rural, suburban? Big rah rah sports school or small liberal arts college in New England? And is there a radius from home that you’re not willing to stray from? For me, it was about a five hour car ride.
Another factor, of course, is what you’re studying and whether or not the college has a good program, or a program at all, for it.
Once you hit those three things it should be somewhat easier to navigate. And if you figure them out, feel free to post and people can give suggestions.
Your local library or bookstore probably has the Fiske Guide to Colleges. Its descriptions are usually pretty accurate. That and some web browsing will apparently have to substitute for actual campus visits.
Obviously the variety of majors, the difficulty of classes, and strength of your classmates (your competition) are important. But also consider:
Weather…do you hate cold weather?
Size & compactness of campus. Some people love a brisk 20 min. walk to class; others might find it irritating, exhausting, or time wasting.
Safety…how safe do you need your neighborhood to be?
Sports…you need big football or basketball or hockey or lacross games to attend?
How close do you need stores and restaurants to be to campus?
How close do u need to be to home? Dpes your school need to be near a large airport?
Does it matter what way the students tend to lean politically?
It’s hard to tell how hilly campuses are on the internet. A lot of colleges start ed on the cheapest land their founders could find, so a considerable percentage of campuses are on hills. Depending on how fit and energetic you are, this might be a problem.
I’m from a low-income family(less than 35,000 a year) so the question of how much can I afford really translates to how much will they give me lol. So a big factor is the percentage need met, and in recent searches I’ve only looked at those with 100% or something very close to it.
I know that I definitely don’t want rural or anything close to remote. I like the idea of being maybe an hour tops away from an urban area. The liberal arts versus research thing has been a problem for me because “research university” seems to sound better than “liberal arts college” in my head so it’s hard for me to distinguish what is really right for me and what just sounds more prestigious(though these factors don’t correlate with the caliber of the school) And I want to be far away from home basically, I live in Georgia currently and I’d prefer to go to the northeast or at least somewhere cooler…not a big fan of hot weather.
And I want to major in psychology. My ultimate goal is to get a phD in that field. With the psychology thing, when searching it just seems to me that every college has a “good psychology program”, it’s a little hard to tell.
One small nit with MurphyBrown’s wise comments – WUSTL (St. Louis) is not as isolated as is made out. For example, there are roughly a dozen flights to DC Dulles on SouthWest Air alone. Throw in BWI and National and other airlines and you have a number of options. Chicago is only five hours away from Chicago and buses, rail and other transportation is available. I would encourage you to be a bit adventurous in looking at transportation wherever you are considering. Also – you will find that as you make friends you will find fellow students who live near you and will be open to sharing car expenses for trips home.
Our experience with our student is that they craft their own path and actually are not so concerned about ease of getting home. Spring breaks spent doing volunteer work or exploring other parts of the country should also be included in your thoughts.
As far as going to see the schools – you raise good points. I would encourage you to see some representative schools near your home that may be easier to visit in day trips – and then think about comparable schools you would be interested in. Some schools offer assistance for those interested in visiting and applying. Definitely worth calling the admissions office.
Finally – when you do make your visits, I think you will get a good feeling for those institutions and communities that you would be happy spending four plus years at.
Best of luck to you!
I was actually a College Prep Scholar and I am applying for the National College Match 
I’m looking into their partner colleges that a closer to a match for me because I’m already applying to Yale, Brown, and UChicago through there and they are pretty high reaches.
Look at these LACs, too
http://ctcl.org
Many of them give good FA, plus they have much more forgiving admit rates than Yale, Brown, and UChicago.
If you are a competitive candidate for a college, contact them about fly-in opportunities for low income students.