<ol>
<li><p>Cross off any schools that don’t meet basic quality standards, for example (if you’re comfortable with rankings) anything that does not fall inside the USNWR/other top N for your reach, match, or safety set. You might set N to 30 or so for your reaches, 75 or so for your matches, 100 or 150 for your safeties. If you think rankings are complete bunk, fine, but in that case try to come up with your own “fit” filters such as size or location, and apply them objectively to your list. </p></li>
<li><p>Then cross off any out-of-state public university, unless (a) it has specific programs of interest and (b) you have good reason to believe you’ll be able to afford it (it offers guaranteed merit for your stats, or is one of the very few public schools that is need-blind & full-need)</p></li>
<li><p>Also cross off expensive private schools that are not need-blind, full-need (or close to it, i.e. on average, > 90% of need is met and your stats are in their top 25%)</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, cross off ay school that is more selective than your #1 choice.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>[Need-blind</a> admission - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission]Need-blind”>Need-blind admission - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>(you can get more detailed finaid information about each school from its Common Data Set file, section H)</p>