smillan

one of the most important things in selecting a college in my personal opinion is the Tuition, potential scholarships and cost of living. specially the diference between the colombian pesos and the dollars. earning in pesos and changing these into dollars is like 1/3 of what you really have... since 1 dollar is almost 3,ooo pesos.

MikeU

Ideally, the strength of the program in your chosen field should be the main reason you attend a school. Although some schools may be more reputable than others, those schools may have some programs that are better. However, I believe the majority of people choose a school merely on brand name and statistics.

acbate_master

It depends on your goals. If you want to get employed by a company after graduation, prestige(for recruitment),
strength in major(for recruitment),
and location(for recruitment) are good criterias.

If you want to start your own company,
strenth in major(to help you start a business),
and location are good.(location to start business)

If you want to enjoy college, all these factors are interrelated really:
location,(might be by the beach or near night clubs or your fav restaurant)
climate,(same thing)
good vibes,(same thing)
athletics(for people who like to pregame party), are good ones. So I guess location is always there.

COlsen573

back to uber's post , the second post to this thread...prestige is not why people choose harvard over a state school. it is because when applying to a grad school or job from harvard, people know that you have a greater knowledge in that major, because of the teachers with PhD's from HARVARD that were teaching you.

bhiggins

If a College specializes in the sunbject you wish to study then you should go there and get the in-depth study on it instead of going to a place just be cause it looks "fancier" or "nicer" on job applications. Who would you hire? A person that went to a expensive school with a known name or person that went to school that specializes in the job?
Think about it.....

Lafalum84

OK, I didn't read all the postings, but this poll adds up to way over 100%. The way I got it, you could only pick one choice. something's fishy...

TheVeganActress

good point....

Pat2323

The closest answer they had to my opinion was "Good Vibes." The most importat thing for a student is to find a school where he feels like he will be happy. Ignore the rankings and the prestige and all that garbage. Find a school who's overall environment matches your personality.

mj93

those percentages add up to about 189 :P

Pat2323

"Academic strength in my intended major" is important, but people go about this the wrong way. I see all over this site the US News graduate program rankings, which people use to judge the strength of an undergrad program. First of all, a college's undergrad program can be EXTREMELY different from its undergrad counterpart. Secondly, the rankings are just so flawed. Just look at the methodology and you'll see what I'm talking about.

missybear25_2004

it's all about the feel, man. if you aren't feelin it, you won't wanna be there and you'll have a much higher chance of failure.

blue147

^Absolutely.

loslobos71

This site is so sick in a bad way....930 of you idiots said prestige? Are you serious? Fit without a doubt...

vossron

The problem is lumping "prestige, overall academic ranking or reputation" together into one category; it's the only box to check if you want to vote for general academics.

This is another example of biasing questions in order to produce desired results.

Chipmoney

It's a combination of these three for me...

Good vibes...felt at home.
Academic strength in my intended major.
Geography: far away enough from home.

all about equal