<p>I'll tell you how I decided, I basically boiled it down to what I wanted to get out of my college experience besides academics. Location, size, and social scene dominated.</p>
<p>I, like you, disliked history, english, and art as a potential major, and I ended up with a pretty wide array of colleges. I wanted an urban, small to mid sized school, with at least some potential as a social college, in the northeast. I ended up with a pretty wide variety of schools ranging from NYU to MIT and Harvard. I then figured out a week long trip to the colleges I thought would benefit from an initial visit, which eliminated some more (Amhearst which was too rural, Cooper Union which was too small, etc.). Then I applied to 6 of them, waited for the results, and THEN and only then did I think about my major, because then and only then did I know a little bit about what I wanted to do. If asked at the end of sophmore year what I would major in it would have been pure math or mechanical engineering. At the end of senior year I developed a dislike for math and physics and was interested in chemistry and decided chemEng was the best fit.</p>
<p>And that was how I decided. If people trust your couselors they provide a pretty good initial list based only on academics and whatever other priorities you have if you ask for it, otherwise just figure out what else will make college a good place to be and try and find a wide range of schools that'll cover those specifications. I did not apply to one school outside the northeast, or one that was not directly in a city, and that worked out perfectly.</p>