So I’m a junior in high school and have been doing plenty of research on colleges but I am stuck at how to narrow down my selection so I can figure out which schools I should visit this summer. I just can’t seem to think of any reasons why one college is better than another. Is warm weather a good enough reason to pick a college? I know I want to do something in finance, and so far I’ve been looking at UPenn, Villanova, Penn State, Miami (FL), and Univ. of Florida. But there’s many other highly qualified schools that I don’t know how to differentiate between. I live in PA. I probably won’t get much if any need-based financial aid. I have straight A’s so far, and it should remain that way for the rest of high school. I also am the current number 1 of my class so there’s a decent chance that’s where I’ll end up. I took the SAT in March and am still waiting on those scores but I just got back the April ACT which was a 31. Should I go to Penn because it’s the best? How do I narrow down my search? Thanks.
Have you had the budget talk with your parents? How much can they pay each year without borrowing money?
They tell me to not worry about the money and they keep me out of the loop with how much we actually have, But if I had to take a good guess, we could pay off most schools without needing to borrow money. But to me, I don’t want to go to a more expensive school if I’ll end up getting the same quality degree.
Have you had the opportunity to visit any campuses yet?
“Should I go to Penn because it’s the best?”
Well, it’s extremely hard to get in (12.3% acceptance rate this year) One way to narrow your search is to figure out where your GPA/test scores fit within the spectrum of admitted applicants. The Princeton or Fiske guides would be a good place to start for general stats and snapshot portraits of schools. See how you react to the descriptions.
My brother is a freshman at Penn State so I tagged along when he visited colleges. I liked Penn State and Lehigh, Pitt was okay, and I didn’t like Carnegie Mellon or Cal Berkeley. I have not gone to any recently, but have planned trips to UPenn, Penn State (again), and Villanova for this summer.