How do you start your college search?

<p>How do you start your college search? How do you get to know the school without going over there? How can I find in CC amid thousands of topics and posts the inside scoop of the students that actually are there? How do I know who are good professors who teach great classes and all that through the internet?</p>

<p>I first was interested when I started getting tons of emails and letters. Don’t just throw them away-read them and see if the school interests you. I requested additional information from most of them, just for the hell of it. You can also try collegeboard’s college match.</p>

<p>Invest in a good guidebook. The Insider’s Guide to Colleges is surprisingly fun to read, although there are several good ones. Try to get a feel for what colleges are about, then create a list of factors that are important to you…math/science oriented or more creative, etc.</p>

<p>We started with Fiske and developed an initial list of schools from that. Although the college mailings can be overwhelming, these definitely did bring a few to our attention. It did take a while to narrow the list of actual applications down, and even then, our lists were long. </p>

<p>I would first get a big list of schools and then narrow it down later based on specific academic interests, inside scoop, etc. Start out with areas of the country, size, location, feel of the student body, Greek / no Greek, etc.</p>

<p>Also, once you know your SATs, then it helps to figure out what range of schools to look at, and if your school has Naviance, that is a big help, too.</p>

<p>I think Fiske and Princeton Review’s Best 3__ Colleges are really good guidebooks. Both have pretty thorough commentary, but PR is more numeric in their summaries so it is easier to determine if a school is a reach, match, or safety.</p>

<p>My kids started with the annual Newsweek college issue. There’s a listing by state, with a thumbnail sketch of each school (size, selectivity, popular majors, etc.). My kids knew they wanted to be in a certain geographic area, so they skimmed the information only for certain states. They enjoyed leafing through at odd moments and were willing to start thinking about the process a little at a time. They didn’t really want a lot of information about particular schools at first.</p>

<p>They also got into the various (free) online college searches. There’s a good one on CC - it’s right next to the Discussion tab on the home page. You put in the areas, sizes, majors, etc., that you’re interested in, and it gives you a list of schools that meet all your criteria.</p>

<p>I found it helpful to determine up front what variables are absolutes. We were able to eliminate many schools from the onset by sticking to those.</p>

<p>For example, D wanted a school that had a Jewish presence. She is not particularly religious, but wanted enough other Jewish kids around so she did not have to be the only kid on her dorm floor not celebrating Christmas or not going to class on Yom Kippur.</p>

<p>So an absolute for us from the beginning of the search was to look at schools that were at least 10-15% Jewish.</p>

<p>Another absolute for us was cost. So her list of private schools were determined by schools that gave true merit aid (no financial need). The only exception was Barnard/ Columbia because commuting could have been an option if necessary.</p>

<p>Our third absolute was traveling distance. We had a family discussion and determined that we would all be happier if D was no more than about 5 hours away form home by car. So essentially that radius included schools in PA, and up to Massachussetts and down to DC.</p>

<p>Soon into our search D decided that she wanted schools that were urban or near an urban area.</p>

<p>She wanted a strong music and theatre program, too. (Regardless of what she chose to major in.)</p>

<p>With those criteria set, we narrowed our list to about 15 schools and when she applied, down to only 7. (She got accepted to all.)</p>

<p>The answer to some of your original questions is that you can’t get the answers to all those questions. You have to use the information available in books and on the internet to narrow your choices down to a manageable list and then talk to as many people as you can about your choices. Visiting helps, too. One thing I found that helped was to actually look at the courses you would be taking in the first couple of years. You can get this information from the college website. But, most of the time students will have a fit with a lot of schools (luckily) and one can get too analytical about the whole process.</p>

<p>Since you have said on another thread that you are low income, before deciding to apply to a college, check out their financial aid. If they aren’t among the relatively few colleges that promise to meet 100% of students’ demonstrated financial need (and this usually means students get a package that includes grants – money you don’t need to pay back – loans and work-study jobs during the school year), unless the college’s cost is relatively low (which may be the case for your in-state public schools) or unless when you check their merit aid information it looks like you have a good chance of getting excellent merit aid, don’t bother to apply.</p>

<p>It’s a heartbreaking waste of time to apply to and get accepted to a college that can’t give you the financial aid you’ll need in order to attend it.</p>

<p>Your guidance counselor also should be able to help you.</p>

<p>Most people go to college within their home states, so look at the colleges there first. Tuition at public universities is cheaper for students from their state than for students who reside elsewhere. </p>

<p>The total average amount of loans that students take out to pay for their entire college education is about $17,000. Taking out more than about $25,000 total to cover your entire years of college may be a big mistake because such high amounts are difficult to pay back particularly if your family can’t help you with things like getting a car, business clothes, etc. when you enter the work world after college. </p>

<p>There’s some good info here about how to find a college: [Plan</a> for College - Study Skills - High School Action Plans](<a href=“Home – BigFuture | College Board”>Home – BigFuture | College Board)</p>