<p>As a rising senior I've done my fair share of college touring; my parents have taken me all across the east coast to visit schools that I have been interested in. I know that I want to do some sort of business management for undergrad, something that is offered at a variety of places, so that doesn't really narrow down my list.</p>
<p>My problem is that, while visiting colleges, I could see myself ANYWHERE! I haven't gotten that feeling that people talk about where its like, "once you step onto the campus, you know it's for you." I could honestly see myself at a smaller school of around 4000-5,000, but then I could see myself at a school with 20,000!</p>
<p>As well, we looked at a wide variety of locations. We travelled 4 hours through Pennsylvania farmland to look at Bucknell, and I thought it was okay. Then, we went to the heart of D.C. and looked at GWU: I could see myself there as well!</p>
<p>Having comprehensively read the fiske guide and doing extensive research on college confidential is sort of a curse in itself-now my eyes are opened to a wide variety of colleges, and I could see myself anywhere!</p>
<p>What on earth do you do? My friends all have their lists and everything, and I just don't know what I want!</p>
<p>How many colleges are you interested in, total? In other words, how many would you apply to if you had to right now? List them for us (and explain why you would apply to them) and we might be able to help you narrow them down.</p>
<p>There’s nothing wrong with being interested in colleges that have different characteristics, but surely you can weed out certain colleges based on other reasons. You can compare them on admission likelihood, financial assistance, student-teacher ratio, off-campus recreational opportunities, study abroad opportunities, campus beauty, weather, student body diversity, etc., just to name a few.</p>
<p>I’m having the same issue! I have narrowed it down a little but there have been very few places where I have visited and not really liked and very few places where I have visited and been like WOW! Like you, I have visited a wide variety of schools and there is no “type” of school I have been able to weed out. I have a few criteria though. I want a school where the students are engaged, where there are at LEAST 3000-3500 students, (ideally, there would be more like 5000-7000) and where frats/sororities do not dominate the campus. I have visited urban campuses and loved them as well as rural campuses and loved them. I have a feeling my college will kind of choose me because I’ll probably apply to quite a few and only get into a couple, ha. I really don’t know what I want, and it is kind of scary… but I’m sure everything will work itself out, for you and for me. </p>
<p>Good luck! Can you give us a general list, (even if it is long) of some of the schools you might be interested in. Where have you visited?</p>
<p>You needn’t feel weird about this. You apparently just have very flexible criteria. If they are all pretty much the same to you, then why not go for the cheapest? </p>
<p>Also don’t be afraid to let a seemingly superficial characteristic sway your decision. Sometimes people are shamed into thinking only about the academics, when in fact other things can have a huge impact on how much they enjoy their 4 years, like the way the name of the school sounds to your ear (you’re going to be saying your college’s name the rest of your life, sucks if it doesn’t sound good to you), the weather (the school year is mostly winterish), the architecture (it invigorates some people), the compactness of the campus (if you’re forgetful, a spread-out campus might result in lots of long walks to retrieve things you forgot), the male:female ratio, the school colors (maroon and orange at VaTech, Brown and white at Lehigh???) etc.</p>
<p>If you really don’t have any strong preferences, why not take the path of least resistance?
What Schmaltz said. But not necessarily focused only on cost.</p>
<p>There must be something that matters to you (cost? distance from home? prestige/ranking?) Pick one or two criteria that can be measured objectively and make your choice based on the numbers.</p>
<p>Yours is one of the situations in which asking your parents and teachers for advise might be a good idea. They know you well. They care about your success and happiness. And the former have a major financial stake in the decision. If they can articulate why they think school x or y might be a good fit for you, perhaps it will help you focus on those characteristics that do or don’t matter. (Nothing beats a parent saying ‘go here’ to invoke a solid ‘what, are you kidding?’)</p>