Help in creating a college list?

College Search & Selection
1

OK, I know this might not be the best thing to post, as it is essentially only applicable to me, but I’m a little lost.

I am a Junior in high-school and we are constructing our college lists - 15 of them ranked on a scale of High Reach, Reach, Possibly, Likely, Safety. Now, my situation is slightly different as the cost is essentially not a factor in my search. I’m also looking at only co-educational universities/colleges in the Northeast and Chicago that aren’t extremely rural.

However, beyond this I don’t know how to narrow my options. At 15, I don’t know whether I’d like to be in a big city or a small town, in a big university or a small LAC, hell I don’t know whether I want to study biomedicine or economics. I guess my question is: How do I determine “fit” when I don’t know my preferences?

I have a list of 33 schools as of now that my college counselor has created for me. However, I really don’t know much about them and researching 33 schools extensively sounds difficult and time consuming. I also wonder if there are schools beyond those 33 that I’d love but will never hear of because they are not on my list.

2

I’m pretty new to this, as my oldest is a Junior and it’s been a million years since I went to college.

But a site we’re using a lot is college navigator.

While this doesn’t apply to you, I’m going to put it out there, since I think it probably applies to a LOT of people:You can take a look at each of your schools and consider first, the tuition and Cost of Attendance. Then, under Financial Aid, take a look at the percent who get Institutional Grants (not loans). That may help narrow down your list a bit.

And, of course, you’ll want to consider your ability to get in. They include 25th and 75th percentile SAT scores.

Next, take distance into consideration. For some families, it’s not an issue. It is for us. My mom is 84. If something happens to her in the next 6 years, I know my son will want to be able to get home. Likewise, I want to be able to get to him in the event that there’s some sort of medical issue— as well as to be able to get to Parent’s weekend and things of that sort. We’ve set a ball park 250 mile— roughly 4 hour-- radius. We’re on Long Island, so that’s roughly from Baltimore to Boston. Plenty of schools from which to choose.

As to the rest, you’re right. You can’t really get a feel for the campus from a website. So far, we’ve seen 3 schools (one each in Nov, Dec and Jan. Since then, it’s just been too cold and snowy to consider it!) We’ll be hitting some more schools in the coming months. We started with a list of about 20 schools, all of which carry his major. Our second visit was to a school of about 8,000 kids. He said that he could see himself there, but not at a school much bigger. OK, so that set the upper limit on size at ballpark 8,000. We would never have known that from the website, it was the visit that really did it.

As to schools not on your list, consider taking a look at ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.com. Choose a state, a level of difficulty, a price point, and take a look at some websites. Anything that looks interesting can go onto your “maybe” list.

By starting as a Junior, you give yourself the luxury of lots of time to look online and narrow down your choices before you actually visit the schools.