5. Pre-Admit days and other college visits
Many colleges offer Pre-Admit days in which admitted students are invited to spend a couple of days touring the campus, living in a dorm, participating in special activities, talking with professors and current students, attending lectures and, of course, eating dorm food.

If you can’t attend one of these events, then you can also visit a campus on your own. Some students prefer to see a campus under more normal circumstances.

Even if you have visited a college before, do it again. There is a big difference between seeing a college when you are an applicant and when you are an accepted student. A post-admit visit usually has a very different feel to it. You are now in the driver’s seat, a place from which you can look at a college more realistically.

Rather than gaining specific information about a college campus, what is most important about a Pre-admit visit is experiencing how that campus feels to you.

adMISSION POSSIBLE® TIP! Students from low-income backgrounds should contact admissions offices to see if they have funds to help them with travel and other expenses to admit events.

THE ACTUAL DECISION-MAKING PROCESS
As you approach making your final decision, try to keep calm. Say to yourself, “I don’t have to hurry or rush; I have until May 1. Everything is going to be just fine.”

By getting involved with the above information-gathering exercises, you are performing your “due diligence” in terms of final choice decision making. No one can expect more than that. After you have gathered all of the information you can about colleges, here are some techniques you can use to come up with your final decision.

1. Pro (what I like) and Cons (what I don’t like)
Students often find it useful to create a grid in which they identify the pros and cons of attending each college. It might look something like this:

COLLEGE	PROS	CONS
College A
College B
College C
College D