We spent time looking through the course catalogs of schools my daughter was interested in. There is actually quite a bit of difference in courses taught (the focus and scope) even in the same subjects.
Some schools went off her list quite quickly once we looked at the course catalogs. She is majoring in a foreign language and the areas and focus of expertise at different schools were more narrow than one might think. There were lots of schools that looked great on paper, and then she read course descriptions within her likely major and thought, “I don’t want to take those courses.” Easy to drop those schools. She also read a lot about the tenured professors in her departments of interest on each campus, what classes they routinely taught, and what their focus of interest was - looking for professors she felt wold be a good match. She also reached out to her favorites via email to find out more info. She got a lot of feedback that way, which helped immensely.
We also did a lot of in-depth looking into college websites. If she didn’t like how the website was set up or found the site difficult to navigate, she dropped that school off her list. Both she and I are quite web (and research) savvy so a difficult site was a big indicator to us that the school hadn’t thought through their site very well, and lead us to believe it wouldn’t be better in person.
We did all the online virtual tours we could do. Again, if the virtual tour wasn’t appealing/informative, we dropped the school. There are too many out there to keep those on a list that don’t absolutely appeal.
We researched the areas schools were located (TripAdvisor, Chamber of Commerce, local tourism boards) to get an idea of whether the surrounding area had the amenities and resources that my daughter thought were essential. She wanted to make sure there were non-chain restaurants, vibrant music venues and at least one decent museum close by.
We investigated travel length, routes, methods and costs. D20 thought long and hard about how far away she wanted to be from home, how many connections she was willing to make, and how easy it would be to get to and from her college.
We looked at what the housing and dining situation looked like. Did my daughter want to spend all 4 years on campus, would she want the option of moving off campus, or was she ok with not having guaranteed housing. How plentiful were dining options, did they have variety easily available, and what kind of campus culture was there surrounding food? She didn’t want to attend a school that offered lots of fast food on campus, but I know a ton of people love the idea of their favorite fast food restaurant being available every day on campus.
She was able to narrow down her original list of dozens to just over 10 colleges the summer before senior year - all of which fit our financial parameters and constraints. We started doing the financial calculations pretty early in the process, it was fairly easy to eliminate many schools because even with their full merit aid, the price wouldn’t be affordable.
She ended up applying to 3 colleges total, as she became clearer and clearer on what she most valued during her search. She ED’d her clear first choice, EA’d two other colleges and was done by mid-November of her senior year (she was accepted ED).
I’m not sure we will be doing the traveling out of state to look at schools - he seems pretty set on Texas A&M for engineering. We will see if that changes this year.