<p>Consider the housing situation and the student’s preferences:</p>
<p>There are colleges where students are required to live on campus all four years.</p>
<p>There are colleges where students are permitted to live off campus for some of their four years.</p>
<p>There are also colleges where students are basically kicked off campus at some point; housing is only guaranteed for one or two years, after which essentially everyone lives off campus. (My daughter goes to a school in this category.)</p>
<p>A student who wants to live on campus all four years would not be happy at my daughter’s college. Similarly, a student who wants to spend only a year in the dorms would not want to attend a college that requires students to live on campus throughout their undergraduate years.</p>
<p>I haven’t officially done this yet (I feel 90% set on Stanford), but yeah, I’m a spreadsheet kind of person. I only have to decide between two schools, Stanford and Washington University in St. Louis (of course, on the assumption that I get in), and both were tied for my first choice - so, it’s not as difficult. These were my parameters. Considering the academics were extremely similar, that didn’t play a huge role. This is in no particular order.</p>
<p>Weather
Student-Oriented Facilities (student center, fitness, etc.)
Academically-Oriented Facilities (library, classroom buildings, etc.)
Financial Aid
Location (how difficult is it to get back and forth)
Dining (prefer station or restaurant style to cafeteria dining)
Residential Life (is it popular, are the dorms nice, etc.)
Health Life (how is the health center, how will my allergies be, etc.)
Availability of Potential Majors (undecided leaning toward social sciences/soft sciences)
Student Body
Visit Vibe</p>
<p>Ack, writing that made me love WashU again. Ah, well. They’re so similar given what’s important to me, that it mostly comes down to A) money and B) Stanford’s fantastic weather.</p>
<p>Now, im just a high school student in the same situation and have thought many times of the spreadsheet idea, but i dont believe that is an accurate way picking a college. Some factors, at least for me, are weighed more heavily (i.e. cost). So if I were to do a spreadsheet I would have to weight the factors much like grades. Tests more than homework and cost more than walking distance. I hope I explained that well, it just seems more complicated to me than it does to most people who have done it. And this of course if you rank them.</p>
<p>Example: </p>
<pre><code> I would break it up into two or three categories of importance and adjust scales accordingly. (of course the scales would be numbered according to the # of schools)
</code></pre>
<p>You can see how just a plain rating would skew your answer. Now if money was no option never mind, but this is for people who cant exactly pay full freight for Harvard or MIT.</p>
<p>There may be other things wrong with this I just showed this so some can get the idea.</p>
<p>Yup. Financial aid, prestige, and fit are roughly equal for both of my schools. So I’ll be doing the same thing, except Stanford gets like +10 for the weather. I have 17 inches of snow. It’s over. I never want to see a goddamn snowflake AGAIN!!!</p>
<p>If you do a thoughtful job picking your list of schools in the first place, there will be no bad decisions come April. That was certainly the way we all felt about S1’s options two years ago.</p>
<p>^^^^I completely agree! The analyzing was done prior to apps. All schools on the list passed the bar and met the kids’ needs and wants; there could be no bad choices. After the decisions were in, the kids revisited their top 2-3 and then each went with their gut and chose the school at which they felt most at home.</p>
<p>Two factors that were huge in my D’s decision-making process:</p>
<p>–Student/teacher ratio and class size - both had to be tiny; she simply doesn’t learn well in large lecture classes.
–Opportunities on-campus to continue with her lifelong EC.</p>
<p>Once you’re past the easy analytics, the gut vibe about the student body and student-professor interaction should probably weigh heavily. There was an almost audible “click” on the two times D visited her ultimate campus and it continued for four years.</p>
<p>It all depends on the extent that your D has a sense/focus of what she’ll do after she graduates. If she’s very unsure, than the college that will be most nurturing (in many of attributes that some of the responders have listed) is likely to be the best choice. If she’s somewhat unsure than the college that has strong programs in several likely fields is a better choice – think big university with well established program, and one that allows some movement from major to major. If she’s mostly sure than it’s easier. Pick the college with the very best academics, with the best reputation among perspective employers, and downplay the “soft” attributes that all too often motivate incoming freshmen.</p>
<p>If you have a cat or dog, lay the acceptances evenly across the floor and put a treat on each. Now bring in the pet and put it on the other side of the room, so the letters and the pet are perpendicular. Now whatever treat the pet chooses is the respective school than you should pick.</p>
<p>FogCity, I would slice across your criteria in a completely different way: which college is most likely to optimize the student’s potential? Which I think you’re trying to answer but I disagree with your premises/conclusions. I don’t think that certainty or lack thereof is the foundation for determining “fit.”</p>
<p>I think my son knew he’d be going to Carnegie Mellon after the accepted students weekend - the School of Computer Science did a fantastic job in presenting their offerings. They also impressed me with their ability to go with the flow. They’d run out of volunteers for kids to stay with overnight, but told my son he should bring his sleeping bag anyway, because they would try to find a room. When we got there they counted leftover kids and then they somehow managed to find a place for every kid who didn’t have a reserved place already. They were apologetic about the fact that our kids had to wait, but I was impressed that no one got left in the cold or was forced to go spend the night with their parents in a hotel. </p>
<p>Of course it took him till May 30th to get the courage to turn down Harvard! (He had a very nice accepted students weekend there as well, but the computer science department did not wow him at all.)</p>
<p>It was clear he’d find kids like him at either school.</p>
<p>I’ve not read through all of the posts, but for DS#1, after all acceptances (or not)/merit aid offers had been received, he narrowed it down to his top two choices. Did back-to-back overnights at both on the first weekend in April. The good news is that after that weekend he had a clear preference. I really think spending more time at the short list can help the student decide. Things looked very different that spring than they had during the initial visits the fall before.</p>
<p>I don’t think one needs to read the whole post to know how I would make my decision. </p>
<p>One word - affordability. Our children will only attend schools that we could afford. Since they made their selection of schools at the beginning of the application process - thus the school list. The final decision comes down to cost.</p>
<p>My D is very practical and she is very realistic. She’ll attend the college that gives her the best financial aid award, end of story. She didn’t even apply to colleges that weren’t financially feasible for us. I know it’s sad, in a way, but what’s the use of getting accepted by a college then find out you can’t afford it?</p>
<p>I like that idea, HighlandMom! Kind of like how do you eat an elephant …</p>
<p>Last night, he decided to not apply to one more school. I’m totally cool with that because it was a middle-tier choice anyway and he already has two acceptances in hand from that middle tier.</p>
<p>Of course affordabilty should be part of the equation, but I think it’s difficult when the college you like better is somewhat (but not wildly) more expensive than one you like well enough, but not quite as well as the more expensive option. There is a trade-off beyond the absolute family cut-off of “this is what we can afford.” Or maybe not? Do you just always take the lowest bid?</p>
My d would probably agree, though there’s one at SMU and SMU is NOT on her list ;)</p>