Also, you may want to ask yourself things that will help you determine fit. You mentioned being near or in an urban environment and strong STEM. What else interests you?
- Greek life strong? (Union and Dartmouth and DePauw and Amherst and Penn State) Greek life nonexistent? (Vassar, BMC, Smith, Mt. Holyoke) In between? (Columbia, and many others)
- Any arts (Vassar has both strong STEM and strong theater/ dance arts, as does Weselyan for music and theater, and other colleges)
- Size of school? (small LAC where you get a chance to do research immediately without competing with grad students and where you won't get weeded probably from intro classes? Or, don't mind the weeder classes, competion is my middle name? (Johns Hopkins and U Chicago) Or I want a large research university? (UW Madison) Or something in between? Wesleyan U, Dartmouth, Brown)
- Lots of school community (Mt. Holyoke and Bryn Mawr) or not so much (NYU) or lots of sports-centered spirit (Syracuse and Berkeley and Michigan at Ann Arbor, Penn State)
- Outdoorsie culture? (UVM, Colorado College) or I hate the outdoors! (NYU, Columbia, Barnard)