<p>Ok, so it’s still early in the process. I would suggest starting a list. A lot of people use a spreadsheet like Excel, I just have a list in Word. On the list include facts and figures about each school that you investigate which are relevant to you - Name, Location, website, Cost of attendance, number of undergrads, middle 50% SAT scores, any notes or thoughts you might have about it, etc. A great deal of this information is compiled in the collegeboard website. </p>
<p>Key to remember that student is young, and what he wants now might not be what he wants 2 years from now, so you want to keep the list pretty general at this point. Also it will be there for the later kids. On my list, if I investigate a school and rule it out, I make a note as to why (e.g. “NO MERIT”) and leave it on the list for future reference. (After awhile they start to run together.)</p>
<p>You will find that you develop certain criteria which will rule out some schools without further investigation. One of mine is a top-of-middle-50% SAT CR/M of at least 1200. Another is reasonable potential for merit aid if school is a private. A third is a minimum cutoff on the size (say 2000). </p>
<p>As far as visits, since you live in NY, I would begin with the nearest SUNY research campus - Albany, Binghamton, or Buffalo. If possible take one of the official info sessions and tours. Get some sense of the town/city outside of the school as well. That will give you and the kid a sort of baseline for comparison. Make notes for the list about what you liked and didn’t like, general impressions, etc. </p>
<p>With S we found that after awhile we had a list of a number of schools he liked and new schools that emerged in searches were compared to the “liked” schools. If School P was similar to liked School A, then was there any reason/feature why he would choose P over A? Often P would be farther away or more money, so was less desirable than A. In that case P would not make the list. Some schools which looked good online were nixed after visits. Eventually it gets narrowed down to a decent selection for application.</p>