<p>I posted about this in the "are your upperclassmen happy?" thread, but I thought it could actually be its own thread. When I applied to college three years ago, I generally "knew" I wanted a school with more than 7,000 or so students (I went to huge high school, and many LACs are smaller then just the combined junior and senior classes at my HS), a strong bio/pre-health program, a good Japanese program, a school not located in the south with things to do other than drink (didn't drink then, still don't now), and very good merit aid. I ended up a school in the west with 13,000 students (9,000 of them undergrads), a good bio/pre-health program, a reportedly good Japanese program, and a post-merit aid COA of $7,000-8,000 per year.</p>
<p>Flash forward to three years later. I'm pretty happy with my school. I still don't drink but joined a sorority (not something I planned to do during HS). I was <em>seriously</em> disappointed in the Japanese and pre-health programs (though the bio program is still pretty good), changed my major to a double major in psychology and social work (still want to go into health, just in a different way), and kept the minor in biology.</p>
<p>Like I said, I've been, overall, really quite pleased with my school. However, looking back on it from where I am now (which, yes, I realize is at least partially a product of where I've been for the past 2.5 years :) ), my search criteria might have been a bit different:</p>
<p>-I wouldn't have been so quick to throw out LACs and smaller schools (I think there are definite benefits to a small school that I might have originally ignored, though I've found some of them here [excellent faculty interaction], for example).</p>
<p>-I would have looked more closely at psychology and social work programs at schools and at potential fall out with Japanese and pre-health programs at schools.</p>
<p>-I wouldn't have been so quick to throw out Southern schools... I'm still in my preferred region, but in hindsight, throwing out a whole region was pretty drastic, and there are plenty of Southern schools that would have been good fits for me.</p>
<p>-I would have looked more closely at undergraduate research opportunities. Even though I have had excellent research experience here so far, that has been somewhat serendipitous --this wasn't, imo, something I looked at closley enough, and it something that is really, really important for graduate and medical school admissions. I just, so far, have gotten lucky in this regard.</p>
<p>-I would have looked more closely at the language offerings at colleges and not just Japanese! I would have loved to go a school that offered, say Swahili, Hebrew, or Norwegian... Of course, then, I may never have actually taken, you know, major requirements. </p>
<p>-This is something I actually lucked out on (because my school has insanely high credit caps--21 credits a semester, 25 with an override), but I would have looked closely at exact how many credits my tuition "bought" me at each school. Being able to override at no additional cost has opened up a lot doors for me.</p>
<p>-I would have looked at schools that may have been even cheaper (or free). Merit aid was a big deal to me then, but there are many fine schools that I could have gone to for (potentially) cheaper.</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong--I'm happy at my college and think it is very good fit--just not really for the reasons I would have put down on paper as a HS junior or senior...</p>
<p>So, in hindsight, did you/your kid have an criteria they may have been to strict on? Or anything they perhaps didn't look at enough?</p>