<p>I’m only applying to schools with a Dunkin Donuts on or near campus. Any schools with a Starbucks or a coffeeshop that speaks fritalian automatically get crossed off my list if it doesn’t have a Dunkin Donuts ON campus.</p>
<p>I plan on applying to Duke because I love it’s name. :)</p>
<p>i didn’t ultimately apply to Western Washington because it was too rainy and hippy-ish for me, but I was about to when I visited and found out that it had a slushie club.</p>
<p>I applied to Michigan state primarily because it kept on sending me mail (and made me feel wanted, lol). I eventually researched the school and it ends up that it had everything I was looking for in a school (and now I go there)</p>
<p>I applied to the college that I’m currently attending simply because that’s where my best friend from high school wanted to go. I was painfully shy in high school, so I was terrified by the thought of having to make new friends all over again. Ironically, I got in, my friend didn’t. My friend took it pretty hard, but I really lucked out in the end. I didn’t do a thorough visit of the campus till after I was accepted, but I fell in love with it.</p>
<p>I love all of these. The truth is, when you’re a senior applying to colleges, many people don’t really know what they’re looking for yet. That’s why visits are so important. I have to say that the things important to me now as a student didn’t even appear on my radar when making decisions last year!</p>
<p>That said, I applied to quite a few schools, and I did have some funny reasons
- It has a sheep farm. Note, I did not want to study agriculture.
- It’s the only school on my list with good weather.
- The Application Essay questions are so interesting! (<– writer at heart)</p>
<p>Go to youtube and search for “Penn State Zombie Nation” and “Let’s Go PSU”… yea- I want in that stadium!!! :)</p>
<p>based on a college’s website, if im in between 2 colleges if i cant get into my top choice (binghamton)</p>
<p>I applied to Cornell early over Columbia because Cornell’s in the middle of nowhere and probably more conducive to dating (cold, boring etc). I was tragically wrong.</p>
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<p>Good point, A Persona. So what are those things that are important to you now?</p>
<p>@Sally - </p>
<p>Actually, there is a pretty big list. Some of them might sound silly but they are things that can matter a great deal in day-to-day college life.</p>
<p>1 - Dining Halls. I think this may be even more important in schools that are in the middle of nowhere, but a college can really ruin your health if you eat at a bad dining hall, 3 meals a day, 7 days a week. I actually got lucky and ended up in a college with pretty good food and a lot of off-campus dining options, but many of my original choices (as I found out from friends) would have caused me food nightmares.</p>
<p>2 - Flexibility in class programming. I am very fortunate to have a college that rarely has classes on Fridays and has distributional requirements as opposed to a lot of classes that you -must- take. The few classes that I did have that forced me to take a certain section at a certain time -always- caused headaches (they conflicted with other classes and internships)</p>
<p>3 - The -people-. I spent a lot of the college process investigating academic programs but it’s really difficult to find out just what the people at a college are like. However, from being in college, I found out that the people matter much more than the college itself. </p>
<p>4 - Campus size. I applied to some schools with really huge campuses. Until I visited, tried it out, and realized just what a 20-minute between classes commute would look like, I was pretty ignorant of this factor. Furthermore, even with a pretty small campus, you’re going to run into situations when two classes you want to take are just scheduled with too little a time gap to take both despite no overlap. On the other side, I applied to a school with no campus at all. I have no idea what my social life would be like now had I chosen to go there. It’s sort of a necessity to find the “perfect size” situation.</p>
<p>5 - Proximity to cities. This year, I found myself helping a lot of my friends from other colleges hunt for internships. The reason they couldn’t apply ahead of time? They were nowhere near any cities to do an interview. Furthermore, a lot of them had sub-par career services that rarely post positions (in one case, the board hadn’t been updated in 7 months!). The former should be obvious and the latter problem can be discovered by simply asking a student about the job boards. </p>
<p>That’s about it. 
Among the things I over-estimated, I have weather, honors/special programs, possibility of crazy degree combinations, study abroad opportunities (there’s plenty everywhere), and social event frequency (if you’re a social person, you’ll have plenty to do, if you’re not, even a party school won’t help).</p>
<p>Thanks, A Persona. Those reasons don’t strike me as silly at all. Are you going to tell us which college you attend? (Whichever it is, you’re a great spokesperson for it )</p>
<p>because I want to serve my country i chose the naval academy!</p>
<p>An insightful list, A Persona.</p>
<p>I’m applying to certain schools that send me stickers or other little things like that. If it is down to identicle Colleges X and Y - the one who sent me a sticker wins.</p>
<p>My son chose one of his schools since he found out they would pick up his laundry each day at his dorm room door.</p>
<p>P.S. I made sure that was not the key factor in his final college choice.</p>
<p>I applied the school I go to now because they gave me an iPod, I hadn’t even planned on going there I just felt like I owed them for the iPod haha. But I got a great scholarship so I ended up going there anyway.</p>
<p>Wow, love post #70. Making me think of things.</p>
<p>I am considering like, not going to a college b/c I already know a lot of the people there. Is that a bad reason? >_></p>
<p>Am considering reasons (that could be silly) such as:
- good vegetarian food (I’m a vegetarian!)
- ability to mingle in many majors/minors (because i’m crazy)
- mail. that’s actually getting me to apply to a few small, unknown liberal arts colleges.
- at the same time, colleges that email me a ton are slowly getting off my list.
- i guess colleges being ivy’s and having high rep is a stupid reason too :(</p>
<p>@Sally - I just didn’t mention it because I didn’t want to sound like a marketing booklet for my college. xD I go to Barnard and love it. <3 I would have never guessed that I would end up here (in fact, I only found out about the seven sisters and Barnard junior year) but I couldn’t be happier. </p>
<p>I think everyone is different so there’s no such thing as absolutely ridiculous reasons. Who knows? Maybe a particular student really can’t enjoy a college experience that doesn’t include a great basketball team or a panera bread.</p>
<p>This is a fun thread. I recall my daughter looking at band uniforms…how they looked, the colors, etc. “If I’m going to wear it for four years, I want to make sure I look good!”</p>
<p>She chose ASU, it is shiny, has a cape and black pants…big change from the white ones she wore in HS.</p>
<p><em>currently</em> I am not planning on applying to any colleges that are in regions with humid subtropical or humid continental climates. In addition, I am strongly taking into consideration environmental issues in the college city (IE, smog). And then I really want good financial aid, specifically need blind and no-loan financial aid policies.
This pretty much narrows my school choice to schools on the west coast which aren’t OOS publics(I live in washington), and then they can’t be in Los Angeles city.</p>
<p>Stanford
Reed
Whitman
Pomona
CMC
Colorado College
UW Seattle</p>
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