<p>I’d second the suggestion to visit, visit, visit. If you can, spread it out so that you have a couple of 3-4 day trips. Schools that look like perfect fits on paper can just not feel right. I think my son saw 20 or 25 schools over the course of high school (he went on his older sister’s college visits with us), and still, the summer between jr and sr year, we went on one trip just for him to see another 10 schools. He didn’t know if he wanted more math/physics or more engineering, or how much he was willing to go to a “dude” school where the ratio is very male. We found he didn’t like large schools (UWMadison, Canegie Mellon). He liked some urban schools (MSOE, IIT, Case) and some suburban (Ursinus, Harvey Mudd). Didn’t like Caltech. Liked MIT but it was too much of a reach. Most schools had wrestling so that made a search easy in some ways, but it wasn’t his only criteria. He didn’t look at schools with no merit money as he’d seen his sister really torn by getting into Tufts and Barnard with no financial aid offers. Bottom line – see as wide a variety as you can, apply early so you have at least one safety you like, and realize that even with the common app, senior year is very busy and you may just burn out before completing 15 applications!</p>