<p>I think a spreadsheet might be most useful in the beginning when you are trying to come up with a short list of colleges. If you create a list of "important factors", e.g., "college town", "school spirit", "strong history department", etc., apply your best guess ratings in each area, you could focus on the top-scoring candidates. If you are into spreadsheets, you could also add a weighting factor for each category and vary the weighting to see how it affects your choices. By adding new colleges to the list as they are suggested or when they pop up in research, the work in filling out the sheet wouldn't be too bad.</p>
<p>The toughest part of the college search process is getting a really appropriate short list of schools.</p>
<p>Oh, I love you guys! I knew that if I posted my questions, I would find more than a few other kindred souls. Thanks again for all the great suggestions.
kathiep: I laughed out loud when I read your comment,
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jeez, how many of us did spread sheets?? I was keeping that a kind of an anal obsessive parent secret.
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Yulsie, I am going to take you up on your offer - I'll PM you. I did consider using a database to collect all this info - just think of all the reports we could run! ...but I really don't want this to get out of hand and I want it to be easily accessible and usable by my D. I also laughed when I read the counselor's comment to yulsie. I imagine ours would have the same reaction. My D has suggested that I not discuss my obsession with CC or college information gathering with him.
Thanks also to everyone who encouraged visits. She has visited a number of schools through summer programs, etc. and we are planning an extended summer trip to a number of NE LACs. We realize the summer is not the best time, but due to travel distance, it is the only practical time we have. (Mandatory sport practices during spring break....) I told her she could do overnights at two or three of her top schools next year to get a better idea of fit - thanks for the heads up on the issues with overnight visits Faline2 - I had no idea that they could be so difficult.
My D is just starting to show real interest in the college selection process. She has some definite ideas but, as I mentioned in an earlier post, she seems to have no problem adding schools to her list which don't meet any of her criteria - including location, significantly complicating the visit issue! Oh well, I am looking forward to the visits and search process.
I guess I will be putting together a spreadsheet this weekend!
Sincere thanks to everyone for their input.</p>