Choosing A College

Do you have a particular interest in the field you would like to pursue?

If so, look at the faculty at each university who could be relevant to your interests and more strongly consider colleges at which there is a concentrated interest in a specific topic. Even if you do not have a specific interest in a field, a department with a depth of knowledge in a particular area is likely to enhance the potential for learning 'depth' throughout your undergraduate cirriculum.

[CS Rankings], for example, is a website dedicated to tracking research output and weighting institutions based on their graduate research strengths. Other disciplines have similar rankings systems that can be looked at for guidance.

What do you want to do outside of college?

The location of the university is one of the most important aspects of the decision. It'll determine what you have access to in your free time, the kind of people you'll connect with, the place you'll have the most connections in and eventually could play a hand in the location of your employment. Read a bit about the 'personality' of the city or town that each college resides in, watch some videos, and visit if you can. The environment is the part of the college selection process that is most difficult to quantify, and takes knowing a bit more about what you want to determine.

If you're looking into a smaller school or a school in a small town, make sure that the school or locale offers the resources to do things you enjoy. You might be hard-pressed to find a golf course in Oberlin, Ohio, for example.

If you don't have a strong urge to live in a given place, that's fine -- you'll be able to better optimize for academic interests, and you're likely to meet plenty of friends at any college you choose to attend.

The Portfolio

As such, it's best to develop a 'portfolio' of colleges with a variety of different risk factors. Critically examine yourself, your scores, and your extracirriculars and identify what colleges expect.

Colleges are required to report their 25th percentile and 75th percentile SAT and ACT test scores for admissions, and often describe what type of students they're looking for on their websites. You can use this information in conjunction with other resources (described below) to determine if a school is right for you.

These factors depend on the individual and their circumstances, but you likely want a spread similar to the following, assuming applications to about ten different schools:

• 2-3 top schools. These are the best schools money can buy in your field; the colleges you'd love to attend. Your test scores are a match for their high expectations and your extracirriculars may be considered by the colleges as defining characteristics. Regardless of financial constraint, it's important to apply to at least one 'dream' institution -- otherwise, you'll be left wondering what could have been.
• 3-3 'match' schools. These are good schools you feel your profile is a good match for -- they have relatively forgiving acceptance rates and your test scores are compatible with their expectations. You would be very happy attending one of these schools, and they provide a good balance between financial viability, quality of academics and other considerations.
• 2-3 'safety' schools. These are schools for which your test scores are in the 75th percentile or higher. They have high acceptance rates relative to your other choices and you're confident that you would be accepted here. These may not be located in your favorite city, or may not have the best ranked program, but they're good default options to pursue in case your other applications don't go well.
• 1-2 'scholarship' schools. These schools are safety schools that might not be as appealing academically, but carry financial benefit -- they're schools that are very likely to provide a significant amount of merit-based financial aid. UT Dallas is a notable example of this -- I'd recommend that everyone at least considers the school given their willingness to provide significant scholarships to out of state and international students to well-qualified students. Even if money is currently no object, financial circumstances can always change and it's good to be prepared for such an eventuality.

[Here] is a good place to start for finding such schools.

Unless you have a strong idea of what you want from your college experience, it's a good idea to apply to a diverse group of colleges (in terms of location, campus values and prestige) rather than focusing on a particular type of school. After all, your perspective on what you want from college will change during the application process and as acceptances (and reality) start to kick in as decision day approaches.