You might not know the answer yet, but hopefully, with the help of this article, you’ll be able to narrow your scope. 

One of the very first things you need to think about when choosing which colleges to apply to is the matter of price.  You’ll have to ask yourself how you actually plan to pay for college.  Firstly, you should have a conversation with your parents about how much of their money they intend to contribute towards your college fund. This amount can vary wildly, and if it is below a certain point, you may have to take out a loan to pay for college, meaning that you’ll effectively have to continue paying for school even after you’ve graduated.  However, most colleges offer some form of needs-based financial aid to make paying more affordable for those students with less to spend.  You should make sure to look into the financial aid policies of the various colleges you intend to apply to.  In addition to financial aid, many colleges also offer a variety of scholarships for particularly gifted students.  For some of these scholarships, you’ll automatically be put into the running via your standard application, while for others, you’ll need to fill out specific forms or requirements to be considered.  Some of these scholarships operate on a school-wide basis, while others relate to individual departments or fields of study.  These scholarships have a large range of potential value, with some offering a thousand dollars and others offering to pay for the entire tuition.  However, it should be stated that there’s no way to guarantee a scholarship, and you should steer away from applying with the assumption that you’ll receive a scholarship.  Finally, one of the most effective ways to reduce the cost of your application is to apply to an in-state school.  Public universities within your state will offer you lower tuition than if you were to apply out of state, making an in-state application a great way to receive a quality education at a lower price.  Ultimately, when applying to a college, and often before you even write your application, you have to ask yourself if you have a serious plan to pay for it and only proceed if you do.

Another important thing to consider in the college application process is location.  A potentially perfect college can be ruined by a location which doesn’t suit your needs.  It’s important to remember that a college is not just a place where you’ll be learning, it’s also where you’ll be living.  If you want to hold a job while in college, you’ll have to consider the employment opportunities in the town or city where you’ll be living.  If you have a particular hobby which is more accessible in some locations than others, you’ll have to consider how important it is to you going forward.  For example, if you’re a big fan of hockey, you may want to avoid attending college in Louisiana.  Additionally, some colleges are significantly more metropolitan than others.  Some colleges are in the middle of major urban areas, while others can be more isolated.  It’s important to consider your own personal tastes when applying, as for some, a more isolated school will lack the convenient commodities they crave, while for others, a more urban campus will be loud and overwhelming.  It’s also a good idea to think about the distance between the location of your future college and the location of your current home.  You should consider how often you think you’ll want to visit your family, as well as how often your family may want to visit you.  Location can be a deceiving quality when it comes to applications, as it isn’t directly related to the school itself, but it can ultimately be one of the most important aspects that you’ll be deciding, as it’s the one thing you can’t escape when you’re at a given school.

One aspect which one might want to keep in mind when choosing a college is size.  When I say size, I’m referring to the population of the student body.  For example, ‘small colleges’ typically refer to schools with under 5,000 students, while ‘large colleges’ generally have over 15,000, with the mid-sized schools occupying the space in between. Additionally, the size of colleges is often, but importantly not always, related to the public-private status of the school.  Public colleges, as in schools which receive funding from the government, often have larger student bodies.  For example, the University of Michigan, a public college, has over 34,000 undergraduate students at the time of writing, while on the private end, Reed College has under 2,000.  Further, it’s important to recognize that a large student body does not mean that a school is less accredited, nor does it even mean that it has a high acceptance rate.  One thing that size can affect, however, is the size of individual classes.  Generally, as you go through college and your points of interest specialize, the size of your classes will shrink in terms of the number of students present.  This means that your freshman year will typically include your largest classes, and these classes will tend to be even larger if you have a popular major, such as computer science.  A larger class size generally means that it will be harder to directly speak and engage with your professor, making some classes harder for some students.  You must be aware that if you go to a larger school, you will likely be met with very large classes in your freshman year, which you will have to endure in order to make it to the smaller ones ahead.  However, going to a larger school often means having access to more resources.  For example, you might want to take a very specific major, and that might only be available at a particularly large school.  Perhaps you want to join a large number of clubs and likewise want to join a school with a large number of active student organizations, or maybe you just want to root for a sports team that actually wins.  All of these are angles from which a large school might seem appealing to some, though to others, the closer, tightly-knit community found in smaller schools might prove more enticing.  Ultimately, size is a matter that varies by taste, and for some, it doesn’t really matter at all.  Personally, I’d suggest applying to multiple schools of varying size if they all seem appealing, as size is a factor which matter most when it comes to affecting other factors.

 There’s a good chance that, as a high schooler, you’re not quite sure as to what you want to major in college yet.  This is not something you need to worry about.  In America, you do not need to apply to a university with a specific major in mind.  However, if you intend to apply internationally, you might have to, depending on the country.  Still, many colleges will ask you about what fields you’re interested in on your application in order to create a better idea of what your future at their school might look like.  Additionally, sometimes a college will actually consist of multiple semi-autonomous schools, schools which you’re expected to individually select for on your application.  Generally, colleges like this will have a large school of Arts and Sciences, which will host the majority of their majors, and a couple of smaller schools for fields like engineering and specific instruments.  If you intend to major in one of the latter fields, you’ll likely have to commit to them.  Otherwise, the question of majors in deciding where to apply remains a broader question.  If you have a specific major in mind, you should try to see which colleges have the most accredited departments for that specific major.

 One of the trickier variables one might see when applying to colleges is a given college’s acceptance rate.  The acceptance rate measures the percentage of people who applied to a school and were eventually accepted.  It can be a very useful number to look at when considering the chances you have of getting into a given school.  College applications take time, and you only have so much time in your senior year of high school, so you may want to avoid spending that time applying to colleges where you don’t think you actually have a chance at being accepted.  At the same time, college decisions are difficult to predict, so you can’t ever discount the idea that a school with a low acceptance rate will want to accept you.  My personal suggestion for alleviating this dissonance is to apply to multiple schools across a range of different acceptance rates.  This way, if you underestimated your abilities, you’ll still be able to go to a prestigious school, and if you overestimated your abilities, you won’t have removed all your potential lifelines.  It’s a good idea to set aside a handful of ‘goal schools’ and a handful of ‘safe schools’ as well as some schools in between, in order not to have all your eggs in one basket.  Finally, it should be mentioned that a school having a higher acceptance rate is not necessarily an indicator of quality.  There are plenty of schools that accept many students and still offer a level of education better than many of their more particular peers.

 Finally, I’d like to take a moment to discuss the least quantifiable trait of any given school, that being the school culture.  This concept includes both the sporting and extracurricular offerings at any given school, as well as the more nebulous school values and the group behavior of the student body.  For example, if you want to join a fraternity or sorority in college, you’ll likely want to be at a school with a strong Greek life program.  Alternatively, if you want to be as far away as possible from those sorts of people, you may want to attend a school with a very weak or non-existent Greek life program.  If you like to work out a lot, you’ll want a school with a good gym.  If you like to eat a lot, you’ll want a school with good dining facilities.  School culture is something where a con for one person could be a pro for another, and further, something that can be difficult to fully conceptualize from afar.  If school culture is an aspect which you think will have a large bearing on where you apply, I highly suggest that you consider visiting some of the schools you’re interested in beforehand, as that will give you a much better concept of a school’s character than what a website could provide for you.

Finding the right colleges for you can be a very personal endeavor, and you may never be able to find the ‘perfect’ college where every individual aspect is exactly as you’d like it.  However, you shouldn’t worry too much, as the game of college application is one of constant compromise, and even if that ‘perfect’ school exists, you can’t set your heart on it, as you still need to actually be accepted first.  You should establish a broad portfolio of options, not so broad that the task of completing your applications becomes daunting, but broad enough to ensure an acceptable result, a school you can feel comfortable attending.

Please feel free to share your own experiences in the comment box below.

Your shared thoughts may help someone else going through a similar experience.  Thank you.