Well I once was a teenage girl, and I’ve also raised one – so I can tell you. She’s a 17 year old girl who doesn’t have a clue of where she wants to be next year, but she knows she wants to go to a good school (because who wouldn’t?) But then again, she really has no clue as to exactly what distinguishes a “good” school from any other.
And she knows that she wants to go away to to a 4 year college… because she thinks that living with one’s parents and attending a local community college is really lame.
She doesn’t want a college list filled with names that she would be embarrassed to share with friends-- which is why she started out with a list of prestige schools, and it is so very important to her now that her best friend has obviously decided that Northeastern and Alabama are acceptable schools and worthy of consideration.