I would like to know how other parents have handled the college decision process when it seems like your child can’t decide. This is even after money, distance, and majors have already been covered. Advice and experience, please!
We gave our kid a deadline of April 30 to make the decision. Period. We needed to send on the deposit.
At this point…set a deadline for the decision, and ask your child to get it done by that day. Then just try to be patient…the kid will decide!
Tell the kid that the college choice must be made by April 30, or a plan for a gap year needs to be presented to you.
I wouldn’t wait till April 30th because you will probably want to choose housing and may not get your first choice if you wait. If the child is not able to decide I would make a decision for them that you are comfortable with.
Both of my kids committed on May 1, and neither ended up sleeping in a tent.
Give the kid time to make the decision. I would suggest April 28, however. You never know when /if there will be a computer snafu and you want this to be done for May 1.
TICK, TOCK. Just kidding.
If all the choices are affordable and wise, then just hang in there and listen as much as possible. A deadline sounds like a good idea… early than the last day, to avoid the stress of internet/website glitches.
Another parent with a kid who waited until 5/1. No biggie. Nothing bad happened. 
Right there with you @onceuponamom… :-S
Mine waited until 4/30 or 5/1, and one school even offered to give him another week if he needed it. That same school gave him another $1,000 a year the last day. It was very expensive for us, and every little bit helped. Plenty of people wait until the last day. If there is an expectation that you reserve a room earlier, then you may want to do that at multiple schools, assuming you are following all rules. My (other) son was considering 2, and we paid a housing deposit we later had to request back. It was fully refundable until June.
You probably already know this, but I found that an excel spreadsheet can solidify and put numbers to feelings.
List colleges in contention on left column. On top rows put down each factor that would have any large sway positive or negative or what is important to both you and kid. Assign each item in the row a relative /weighted importance factor: so extremely important gets 100%, mild or mod importance gets 50%, unimportant -leave off list so it doesn’t clutter it up. Then assign a value for each of these attributes by college 1 worst to 10 best. Then multiply your values by the weight to get a weighted value. Then add up all of the items for each college. Highest number wins. Or at least your kid can see that some factors might weigh more heavily in the decision than other factors etc.
flip a coin on April 30th?
The choice they want (and you want) is probably there ready to be made. However, it is hard to let go of the others. Cost has always been a big determining factor for us, we chased merit scholarships, the lowest bottom line, and interestingly, with each acceptance (my daughter only applied to 8 schools, all of which she says she would have been happy to attend) came a relatively bigger merit scholarship. So for however long the front runner was the front runner was how long that school was “the one.” Each time “the one” changed there was a little grieving for that school that had been the front runner, and this feeling was anxiety producing and totally unexpected. I suspect many of your kids and you will feel similarly about the schools you give up. However, I have to say that my daughter’s last offer was the best offer (full tuition plus a one time study abroad scholarship) and within days we paid that enrollment deposit. It was like a weight was lifted, as a family we are enjoying looking ahead to the actual choice that has been made. And as parents we aren’t so worried about the cost anymore! You will all get there. It is wonderful that your children have choices–many on here do not.
There are some colleges that allow you to sign up for housing before April 30 and I think it’s pretty rotten. Not everyone has had the money to visit all the colleges they applied to before acceptances. If you are dealing with different financial aid packages and different levels of selectivity there’s a lot to ponder. Luckily many colleges don’t try to assign housing until all the acceptances are in.
I think it’s fine to say if you can’t make up your mind on April 30, you’ll flip a coin.
I can tell you what we did - not that I recommend it. We did a visit to the top 2 schools, scheduling an overnight at each. The trip ended on April 28 and I told DS he wasn’t getting on the plane unless he made up his mind. 
Just to be double-dare sure, I’d recommend making the decision and paying the deposit by April 30. Otherwise, if something goes wrong with your internet connection or insert whatever crazy breakdown occurs on May 1, the decision and deposit are history. The stress is OVER! Until you go shopping for dorm stuff.
I’m in the same boat. It seems like my son is the last one to choose a college out of all of the other people we know, but he is torn and continuing to think about it and do more research. We asked him not to wait until he was up against the deadline, and he promised to have a decision this coming weekend, with 5 whole days to spare! But I do understand the stress of making the “right” decision when there are no real guarantees.
Still deciding here too. He appears to be settling on a choice, but still hard to finalize as there are good and bad about each school. Your kid will decide. As the time is getting short, I would get a bit more pushy about discussing pros and cons and asking what is making the choice hard. In our school kids wear the t-shirt of their selected school one day in early May, so I told him we need time to order one (he didn’t buy one at all his final four). Good luck…
I encouraged my kids to make a decision earlier than the deadline so that they could “try it on” and see how they felt about it. S1 decided about a week before he told us. He wanted to make sure he didn’t have regrets. S2 decided at 8 pm the night of 5/1. What finally tilted it was looking at the course listings for his intended major and see how they compared, Some classes with the same title and subject had wildly different approaches. That helped him suss out what he wanted.
Eeny meeny miney moe…
dartboard with college names