REFINING AND SETTLING ON A FINAL COLLEGE LIST
1. Add and subtract colleges on your list as you become more knowledgeable about colleges and yourself. Your college list (as well as the criteria for selecting colleges for it) should be open to change, not cast in stone.

For example, after visiting a school you might decide that the location of a college is a lot more important than you thought, or that a large college is inconsistent with your wanting small, discussion classes and close relationships with professors.

Annie decided that the most important characteristics for her were to attend a small, liberal arts college (with all that this means) with 2000-5000 students, in an intellectual atmosphere with friendly, down-to-earth people and a very safe, beautiful, well-kept campus.

2. The summer before your senior year is a good time to finalize your college list. Here are some things to consider in coming up with that list:

a. Each college on your final list should meet many of the criteria you established in filling out the College Selection Questionnaire. The list should contain colleges that you really like and want to attend, regardless of whether they are Reaches, Good Chances or Pretty Sure Things.

b. When you’re making your final college list, make sure that you have colleges in all of the categories. A good rule of thumb is to have 2-4 Reaches, 3-5 Good Chances, and 2-4 Pretty Sure Things. You want to neither sell yourself short by not having Reach schools that you really like, nor to leave out Pretty Sure schools that you like and are pretty assured of getting in.

c. Try not to fall in love with one single college. It’s natural for students to find that they like some schools better than others, even one school better than the rest. But in today’s admission climate, no student is guaranteed admittance to any college, even if he or she offers “the best” of everything.

adMISSION POSSIBLE® TIP! If you have trouble deciding which colleges to keep on your list, go through your list and evaluate each college on a scale from 1-10 (1 = not interested, 10 = most interested). What you should end up with is a list of schools that are at the top of your list.