<p>So I'm just a Junior and I'm already very overwhelmed by the college research process. I'm not sure what I want in a college and my mom wants me to make decisions now about where I want to tour. Should I just let college be and focus on my studies? I feel as if I am swimming in a pool of hundreds of colleges that may be good for me but I can't know until I see them and I can't see them all. For example, I loved Bowdoin on paper, in real life it felt tiny and isolated. But for some reason I really liked Middlebury. Any suggestions for what to do next or to break this process up into smaller chunks? Also, how do you know without visiting? </p>
<p>I started my sons early, HS Freshman/Sophomores, but we did only local schools and only 2-3 each year those early years. I would just start slowly and if you have a day off from school, visit one of the schools of interest within a 1-2 hour radius. After you have visited a few, you should be able to start narrowing down the list and during spring break, you expand the visits. We never did the 7 colleges in 7 day visits. No more than 2-3 during spring break. My sons were really able to focus on which schools that felt would be the best fit and not be overwhelmed by all the possibilities.</p>
<p>We used a copy of Fiske as a starting point to decide where to visit. We went through with a pack of post-its and marked schools that looked interesting. (One kid did it herself, the second asked me to mark for her and then discuss). We then reviewed the schools together. Followed by some online research (online tours, net price calculators, and looking at some CC threads) to decide where to visit.</p>
<p>I don’t really have any advice, but know that being overwhelmed by college selection junior year is completely normal. Don’t worry too much ;)</p>
<p>We did the money thing. It had a funny way of bringing schools into focus. We looked for schools we could afford before anything else (almost $-)). So we put together 5 or so TYPES of schools that D might attend. In-state flagship, match OOS flagship, typical private NE LAC, a medium size private uni, an ivy. </p>
<p>We ran the net price calculators to figure what each would cost without merit. We learned most of the need-based aid schools she might get into, the ivies and their kind, would not give us enough aid. Then we used the pinned threads at the head of the Financial Aid forum on CC to find schools that offered very large or tuition/full ride merit. We didn’t want to pay a whole lot more than the in-state flagship COA. </p>
<p>We came up with 30 or 40 schools with D’s major that we might be able to afford if she won full tuition or huge merit or really good (ivy) need-based aid. We looked at the schools that admitted her and gave large merit early in the fall. We had already visited local schools that fit the types I mentioned above, so had a pretty good idea whether D preferred one kind of school over another.</p>
<p>When you already have the state flagship in your pocket and can afford to go there, everything else fell into place. D did not go to the flagship because we hunted down a school with slightly more expensive residual cost that we could afford, but she applied to all kinds of schools that might have given her great need-based or merit aid and got into most of them. She had no desire to work on Wall Street, so the reputation of the school didn’t matter (esp to her parents) but she still wanted and ended up at a very good school.</p>
<p>You should narrow first by objective criteria
- Major availability
- Affordability (use NPC on each school website to see if it is affordable or not)
- Location (if you do not want to go far from home)
- Size</p>
<p>Things like that will help you get a first crop of potential universities.</p>
<p>Once you have that, start researching indepth schools that interest you from that list. Go to the CC respective forum for that university and search around. Go on other websites and find out what kind of culture/vibe the campuses have if that appeals to you. some schools have a lot of pride and are really into sports. That may or may not be your thing, but you need to look deeply into each university to see if that is the kind of atmosphere there or not. </p>
<p>Another factor to consider is the placement of the graduates in your prospective major. If you have graduate school intentions try to find out (by searching or possibly e-mailing department head of your major). If you intend on taking a job right after graduation you can also find out what companies hire out of that Uni by e-mailing a professor within the department or another person of interest. I’ve gotten some valuable information that I’ve included in my search through actually communicating with admissions/departments. </p>
<p>Finally, you want to consider if you can imagine yourself at any of these places for 4 years. Grinnell College for example is in the middle of nowhere in rural Iowa, a state renowned for being flat out boring. That may be your taste, but you may prefer being in a bustling city at Boston University or something like that.</p>
<p>However before anything else you should consider if the school is affordable. There is no point in getting excited about a school that you simply will not be able to afford. Immediately cross a school off your list if the net price calculator gives you a price that is simply unavailable, and you wouldn’t be in the running for any substantial scholarships at that school.</p>
<p>I started my search early Junior year but only in the last year or so I’ve gotten interested in CC. It’s a very valuable resource. All my life I had thought I was going to SLU but I did not realize the availability of need-based aid at many institutions. Now I am considering affordable universities across the country because I gained valuable knowledge through this website. But if you are going to ask questions here, know what you are asking, and you will get meaningful answers. Start by running the college match on the left and bring back what you find there. Many members can provide input on what may be a good school for you, given your personality and interests.</p>
<p>Also, don’t get too serious until you have your ACT/SAT scores in. Knowing your score on standardized tests will help you put in perspective universities you have a realistic shot at getting into (and potentially merit aid at certain schools)</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>We did something similar to the posters above. We used the college board’s Big Future website to create a “My Colleges” list of schools that looked like potentials based on majors, location, how many students graduate, and whether the range of GPA and SAT scores was vaguely comparable to my daughters (based on her PSAT). It was probably about 30 schools to start with. Then we used the same site to run the net price calculators for each school (since we were signed in with an account, we only had to enter the information for the first school, which made the process much less tedious!) That knocked a whole bunch of schools off the list.</p>
<p>By midway through junior year we had a list of about 15 schools, all within about 7 hours from home. We planned a couple of road trips on school vacations where we spend 3-4 days driving around checking them out. This really helped my daughter realize that she wanted a smaller LAC with a traditional campus, not in a city. There were also some schools where she just did not like the “vibe”! That narrowed the list down considerably.</p>
<p>The favorites were revisited early senior year, and she sat in on classes and did overnight visits. Don’t undervalue the importance of “fit”. How do you feel on the campus? Excited, inspired or scared? Do you feel like “these are my people”? Can you SEE yourself there, working, learning, having fun, making friends? </p>
<p>Looking at different size and types of schools can allow you to hone in the setting that works for you.</p>
<p>@Katycollege16, don’t get too discouraged by the fact that your reactions to Bowdoin and Middlebury were so unexpected. I think you should visit some more colleges and see what you react to at those campuses, and I bet you’ll figure out why it is that Bowdoin seems tiny and Middlebury doesn’t. There’s a lot more to campus “feel” than the size of the campus.</p>
<p>So my advice is to go on visiting campuses, while at the same time narrowing down your search based on factors like financial affordability and your chances of getting in. You’ll need some safeties even if Middlebury ends up being your top choice, so make sure to check out a range of schools.</p>
<p>It is certainly very confusing when you first start out, but once you start narrowing down your search you will be surprised at how quickly a lot of schools just drop out of contention. </p>
<p>Do you have any preferences as to location of schools? What I told my D1 was that unless she really wanted to go to school far away from home (some students do want that), she should focus her search nearby just for the convenience. There’s really no need to include every possible school in the country in your search if you’re perfectly happy with the schools in your own region.</p>