For my S22, we made a 12 page Google doc comparison of his preferred majors of his top 4 schools. His GF’s school would only offer 6 credits out of 120 in the major This is compared to 24 credits out of 120 at his selected school.
We formatted the doc so the headings appeared in the outline view. It was easy to spot the school with 75 credits in gen Ed and non major electives.
You may want to add travel to/from and if that cost and time is a consideration.
One daughter is a freshman at a more remote LAC and we were surprised at parents weekend and on the facebook page of all the parent complaints about travel time and cost.
School never hide the fact that it was more remote and kids seem to have no issue figuring out rides and options to/from airport.
Needs to be a spreadsheet to go true geek.
Agree among my son’ s friends Cal State Long Beach rejections were more common than UCs
Check! 
Oh, you guys have completely inspired me! 
So many great suggestions of things to consider in making final decisions. I just made a spreadsheet and filling it in with information from the Common Data sets, College Scorecard and College Navigator is soo satisfying!
What am I going to do with myself after May! 
It is useful for your kid to talk to a large number of other kids from the schools under consideration. Large => some genuinely large number like 20 or 30.
Mascots can make a difference… my oldest ruled out UC Irvine because she thought the anteater was silly (really that wasn’t the only reason but…). Also youngest (S22) would prefer a school that doesn’t have orange and black school colors, if everything else were equal. His high school is orange and black and so was his middle school and he’s really over it.
As far as where I would most enjoy visiting for parent weekend it’s a tossup between Lewis and Clark (easy to get to from here and I have another kid also in Portland) and Chapman (2 miles from Disneyland and 15 minutes from Newport Beach. )
Can totally relate. I have an elaborate excel spreadsheet populated with every possible data nugget about my son’s schools and it has a fancy model that allows my son to assign weights to different attributes and makes a “school recommendation”. He knows I’ve been monkeying around but will likely feel embarrassed when I unveil it on 03/24 when all the UCs are in.
Once you know the college of choice, you can start shopping for all the dorm stuff!
Consider adding:
Ease of getting to and from…from a mom of D21 who did not get all the way home last night due to canceled flights yesterday. Managed to get her rebooked on a flight late last night to an airport 3.5 hours away instead of ten minutes.
Proximity to a family friend or relative, even someone a couple hours away can be helpful if ever needed.
housing prospects for years 2, 3, and 4. Was not even on our mind last year and we would have been scrambling at a few of her top choices now.
@s318830 haha I get that, but I’m a graphic designer so I love nothing more than to create an info graphic displaying the location diversity of the student body of each school!
@washugrad neither of my kids would even consider a school very similar to all the schools they applied to because they have the same mascot as their high school.
LOL! I have a 6 tab spreadsheet for all of the college cost planning to help me sort between the methods available to my kids (as a veteran, I’ve got a few, but each doesn’t apply to both kids for various reasons). So I’ve got calculations for the 529s, GI Bill, & Cal Vet. Then I’ve got a tab that splits out the GI Bills since I’m 80% for a set number of months and DH is 70% for a different number of months. Then I’ve got a tab for each of three possible colleges for both kids. And a final tab for the overall plan that tells me exactly how much we need to add to the 529s each month to ensure all the costs are covered. Calculations fly between the tabs so that I only have to enter information once and it does it all for me.
I set up an appt with the VA office at SLO on Wednesday because I’m not quite sure exactly how many years our 23 months of cumulative GI benefits actually cover due to the way that stuff is calculated. I also want them to look over my spreadsheet and say, “yup, that’s how to do it.” (or correct me if I’m wrong anywhere.)
I already created a College Dorm wishlist on Amazon we can start ticking off when the time comes.
If anyone ever wonders, this is why you have a bunch of fabulous folks on this site who linger long past their kids time to help others out.
A friendly word of advice…don’t over buy, and DON’T over pack for freshman move in. Families always show up with much more than they actually need.
He is so not interested in “stuff” I can picture us showing up with a suitcase of clothes, his backpack/laptop, sheets/towels and toiletries.
My S22 helped his older sister move in to the dorm in 2019.
“Mom, I will have three IKEA bags. That’s it.”
Lol!
That was my son exactly! I have a feeling my daughter will be a different story!