So you’re sitting in your room thinking, “I wonder what colleges I should apply to” – at least I remember this happening to me. There are hundreds of colleges in the
Here is a list of some things that you may or may not want to consider as being important or not important:
· Academic programs
· Size of school
· Location of school
· “Average Student” scores
· Cost of Tuition
· Sports and other social events
· Campus activities
· School Demographic
Academic Programs
If you have any idea what you want to study when you go to college, whether it is just an idea of a general subject area or a major that you have decided on, you want to make sure that the colleges that you are looking at include that area of study. For example, if you want to be a political science major, make sure that every college that you are looking at has political science as a choice for a major. You may think that all colleges offer every type of degree, but this is not the case. I remember there was one school I was really interested in, but they did not offer psychology as a major (which is very strange considering how popular a major psychology is). Basically, check to see if the school offers the areas of study that you are interested in. If it doesn’t, then you should probably cross it off the list.
Size of School
Some people would not go to a school with more than 3,000 students on the campus; other people won’t go to a school that has less than 20,000 people on campus. You should consider what size campus you will be most comfortable on. Would you feel lost on a huge campus? Would be bored on a small one? Also, how important is class size to you? Do you want all your classes to have no more than 25 students in them? Or is this not important to you? You do not want to put yourself in a situation where you can’t feel comfortable and at home, so consider what size campus you want to live on.
Location of School
Are you the type of person that wants to go home every weekend or would you rather only have to see your family on holidays? Do you want to have to jump on a plane every time you want to go home (and imagine moving to campus if that is the case)? Do you want to live out in the middle of nowhere with corn and cows, or would you rather be in a major city? As I just stated when I was talking about the size of the school, you want to make sure that you are setting yourself up for success not failure. Do not put yourself in the middle of a big city if you aren’t comfortable walking around city streets at night. Don’t move 1500 miles away from home if you think you’re going to be home sick unless you are able to go home whenever you get the chance. So again, make choices that you will be comfortable with in the long run.
“Average Student” scores
Not all of else can get 1600s on the SATs (well 2400s now with the new SATs) or graduate number 1 from their high school – I know I sure didn’t. Therefore, you want to take into consideration the average scores (check average SAT and ACT scores) at the colleges you are going to be applying to. However, as I stated in my post on the importance of a guidance counselor, you should go into looking for colleges with the mindset that you are trying to fill three different categories:
Reach schools – these are the schools that are generally beyond you academic scores. Your SATs might not be high enough or maybe your high school GPA is a bit too low. Whatever the reason, these are the schools that you will likely not get in to, but that you still might have a chance of being accepted to. Reread the last part of that sentence. Reach schools should not be impossible for you to get in to. Let’s say that for your normal schools you have about a 65% chance to get into them – your reach schools are the ones you have a 30% chance of getting in to (these are not real numbers, they’re just hypothetical). Otherwise if you are applying schools that you could not possibly get in to thinking that they are reach schools you are really just wasting your money.
Normal schools – these are the schools that generally match up to your academic scores. If you line up with the average scores for these schools then they are probably in your “normal schools” category. This is not to say that you will definitely get in to them. What I’m trying to say is that you would be the typical applicant for that school (whatever a typical applicant for that school would be). You might get in, you might not get in. Many times this will come down to things such as your essay, your extracurricular activities, an interview, etc. – basically things besides your test scores and GPA.
Safety schools – these are the schools that have average scores that are below yours. This is why they are safety schools. If, going back to my example above, you have a 65% chance of getting into a school in your “normal schools” category, you should have over a 90% chance of getting into the schools in your “safety schools” category. That is not to say, though, that you should just ignore your safety schools. You should still choose decent schools just in case you end up going to one of them. Also, another thing to note about safety schools is that many times if you are overqualified for a school they will give you scholarship money to try and attract you to their school.
Cost of Tuition
At some point you’re going to face the fact that college is expensive, so you might as well face it when you are looking for schools. The problem with basing what schools to apply to on the cost of their tuition is that you do not know what type of financial aid you are going to get. You might apply to a ton of scholarships and get all of them – or get none of them. The school might look at your academic record and your financial situation and give you a full scholarship – or they might not give you anything. Unless you are firmly set against a specific tuition amount I would not worry too much about the cost of tuition when looking at schools to apply to. If, when you’re ready to apply to all the various colleges, you have a giant list of something like 15-20 schools you may want to narrow it down a bit, in which case knowing the cost of tuition may be a deciding factor in whether or not to apply. Otherwise, though, you do not know enough information about what you will be getting financially before you apply to the school.
Sports and Other Social Events
This goes along with the whole idea of enjoying yourself at school. Are you a sports fanatic or could you care less? Do you care whether you’re at a big Division 1 powerhouse or would you be satisfied with going to Division 3 sporting events? Or maybe you like big social events like concerts or block parties. If these are important things to you then you should certainly look into which colleges host these types of events and which colleges don’t.
Campus Life
Do you have your heart set on being in a fraternity or sorority? Do you (or your parents) want you living in a dry (non-alcoholic) dorm? Do you want a campus that has facilities such as an extensive gym (most colleges will have some type of gym, but do you want just a weight room or also things such as an indoor track, an indoor pool, etc.), a student center, a library, etc.? These are questions you should be asking yourself and should be researching for each school if these are important things to you. The college you choose will probably be your home for 9 or so months out of the year, so you want to make sure that it has everything that you want it to have.
School Demographic
This may or may not be important to you, but it is something to consider. Would you rather be on a campus with more girls than guys – or vice versa? Or maybe you want to be at an all girls or all guys school. Maybe you are very close to your culture and you want to make sure that your ethnic background represents a good sized portion of the campus population. Or maybe you just don’t care, which is how I basically felt. Still, it is another criterion to look in to when looking for colleges to apply to.
An amazing service for finding whether or not colleges meet these criteria as well as others is The Princeton Review. It asks a variety of questions (many of them pertaining to the above categories) and then suggests schools that match to your answers. I would suggest using it as one of your primary tools for finding colleges to apply to.
