@lookingforward, I don’t think anyone disagrees that selection is much more than ACT/SAT ranking, Endowment per student or ROI.
For our twin DD’s,
- IT STARTED with what we could afford, how far from home, big school vs small school, urban vs suburban vs rural, the types of majors they were likely to be interested in and which schools had what,
- THEN we began to look at where they could expect to get into including a broad mix of targets, reaches and safeties,
- AND THEN they applied ED and RD
- AND THEN AND ONLY THEN as decisions came in did we sit back and say if several schools felt the same to our DD’s which one seemed like the one with the smartest kids, best departments for their areas of interest, best cultural fit, happiest students, biggest endowment/facilities, best ROI - I don’t know any better way to approach it as while we can’t predict the outcome 4 years. 10 years or a lifetime from now we/they needed to go through a process that made sense.
That said as the funnel got tighter, they had the final say as its their school not mine.