Can anybody point me to a more or less comprehensive college choice criteria list? I mean the list that’s including not only no-brainers like “does the college have your preferred major”, “is it big or small, rural or urban”, but also the factors we will have hard time coming up with on our own (my husband and I have done our undergrad studies outside the U.S.). E.g. “are all students required to live on campus”, “how easy it is to switch majors” or even “are non-music majors allowed to play in the orchestra” (I’ve heard all of these asked during a recent presentation). Of course most of them won’t be relevant to us but it’s easier to cross things out than to come up with your own list 
If there is no such list maybe we can collect some criteria here?
Biggest criterion that you did not mention is, “is the college affordable?”.
For need-based financial aid, run the net price calculator on the college’s web site. If it is not affordable, then check for whether the college offers sufficient merit scholarships that can make it affordable. Be aware that merit scholarships that are not automatic for GPA, rank, and/or test scores are likely to be highly competitive, so the college should be assessed as a reach in this case (since the student needs to aim for the scholarship, not just admission). Also note what college GPA is needed to renew any merit scholarships – a 3.5 college GPA is typically significantly harder to earn than a 3.5 high school GPA.
Regarding offered majors, pay attention to whether the majors of interest are impacted, restricted, selective, oversubscribed, etc… This may mean applying to the major (or a division, like the engineering division) initially (possibly facing a higher selection threshold than for the school overall), and/or it may mean taking first year course work and then applying into a secondary admission process to get into the major.
A comprehensive list of things that could matter to any single person would go on ad infinitum. The trick is to for each person to form his/her own personal comprehensive list of what is important. I can tell you that the lists of what was important to my S and my D were quite different.
OP, I suggest starting an excel file listing the criteria as they occur to you and your Yucca children, and putting the potential colleges in each column so that you can make notes or checks for each one. Some things will not occur to you until you actually start searching and doing tours.
Something that might be important to your family might be minor to another. Football? Greek life? Hillel?
Some of these things might be the tie breakers once you are accepted, like you’d prefer football, but it wasn’t a factor in making up the first list. Now that you are choosing between State U and Tiny LAC, it’s a point in the ‘for’ or ‘against’ column.
I think if you/child have too many requirements, it becomes a Goldilocks list and you might leave off some really good options because the freshman dorm food is rated a C, or there are no cars allowed on campus.
Sure, I understand the list cannot possibly be comprehensive. What I’m driving at is to see the factors that may be important but we’re not aware that they even exist. For example, for me at this age having a single room at the dorm would be a huge plus, but up until now without research I just kind of assumed it’s not possible. Or that switching majors may be a problem. There are many things that may be obvious factors to consider for native-born Americans but not us.
The biggest factors are typically affordability, academic suitability (including offering majors of interest and whether they are competitive or restricted admission, but can also include what the school’s general education requirements or other curriculum features are), and admissibility.
Pretty much everything else is secondary to these factors, when one considers the purpose of attending college (academic study) and its feasability (affordability and admissibility).
And I’m sure many things come up on tours, but we can’t possibly tour dozens of colleges. So far it seems there are just too many similar options for target and safety schools.
This was an important factor for us too. It eliminated schools where one applies to a particular major and then may have difficulty moving into another, particularly those universities where the other possible major was in a different college of the U altogether and treated like a transfer.
Other non-academic criteria (add to the list for op’s file):
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male to female ratio
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can you live on campus after freshman year (can’t on some campuses)
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is campus dry?
I am not aware of a checklist but this thread covers a lot of ground:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1943565-little-things-that-mean-a-lot-when-choosing-a-college-p1.html
Rest assured, there will be something you never think of till too late, or that is impossible to ascertain beforehand, or there will be a change in college policy, major requirements, etc. You just do the best you can and it all works out one way or another.
I think in the end it comes down to a gut feeling about a place (as long as you can pay for it). We didn’t make any lists but all three were happy where they ended up. When you visit, hang out on the green, in the dining hall, in the bookstore, in the library and get the “vibe.”
Just start with a few basics – that will cut things down considerably. Your search for the secret/unknown factors that make the big difference is somewhat pointless.
As you get further into the process, you can add or refine things as you discover the things that your kid does/does not care about.
The biggest sorting factors in the process are the obvious ones: (i) what school can my kid get into, (ii) what school can I afford to pay for and (iii) what kind of school does my kid want? The list gets short very fast once you’ve identified that you are looking for, as an example, a top 50 private school, midsized, with an engineering program, not rural, not in a cold place, not a big greek school, and where my kid could score some merit aid.
My kid’s spreadsheet started off with:
USNWR ranking
size (undergrad enrollment)
m/f ratio
location (urban, suburban, college town, rural) and also region/weather
50% SAT range
50% ACT range
Standardized test writing section required?
SAT subject tests required?
Admission plans (EA, ED, ED2, REA, SCEA) and applicable dates
overall acceptance rate
ED acceptance rate (if applicable)
% of seats filled via ED
Sticker price
Availability of merit aid (if that’s important to you)
Does school meet full need (if that’s applicable to you)
% of kids in greek life
Relevant majors offered
blank column for comments
Spend the $10 bucks to get the magazine version of the USNWR rankings when it comes out in September. The 2 page ranking tables they have in that magazine are pretty much a basic starter spreadsheet. You might even be able to download those tables into a spreadsheet.
Adding to the above, D20’s spreadsheet includes:
Our EFC (run through each college’s calculator)
Driving hours from home
GPA needed to keep merit scholarships, % freshman retention, rate 4 year graduation rate,
These mostly track admission selectivity and a few other factors that relate more to the student characteristics (e.g. whether the student can afford the school) than the treatment effect of the school; a given student’s personal academic qualifications and other characteristics is likely much more predictive of his/her chance of graduating on time than the rates associated with his/her school. However, if a school has unusually higher or lower rates here than would be expected based on its students, that may be worth investigation.
What UCB says is true. Which is why the USNWR magazine charts are so handy.
In addition to the raw grad and retention rates, USNWR also reports on whether the particular school over or under performs its own demographics. That’s a more helpful thing to look at.
Please don’t feel that you have to include everything that’s been suggested. If something is not important to your child or your family, it doesn’t need to be on your list.
For example, some students care very much about whether they go to school in a rural or urban environment. For others, this makes no difference at all. If it makes no difference to your student, then it doesn’t belong on your family’s list.
Once you have these basics, focus on your needs. For us, it was things like availability of good Asian food off campus, team for his sport where he would actually get a chance to compete (ie, good but not only Olympians), depth of involvement in and mentoring for coding/math/hacking competitions, availability of world-class research in 3 specific areas he wants to focus on eventually, availability of coterminal BS/MS degrees, etc. The more specific you can get, the better you can drill down to good options, especially if you are looking at some giant schools.
I told my son about this thread. After basics, my S18 cares about campus beauty, being driving distance-close to home, responsive college staff, and liking the mascot name. He warns that importance is subjective.