martel_pride

and i'm BIOE (BME) so that makes me crazy to yall.

Cre8tive1

It's pretty easy to choose a LAC over Harvard are UC Berkeley, both of which can be terrible for undergrad, mainly Harvard. You wont believe how college counselors I know that will try to keep students from applying to Harvard.

bullwinkle

Gotta agree with Cre8tive1. Prestige of a school doesn't mean much if you are hating your experience there. I really think the prestige of a school is a very superficial, fleeting and relatively minor concern. It's also such a subjective thing, "beauty in the eye of the beholder" and all that. I do speak from experience of having chosen a college based far too much on its image, rep etc. Waaaaaaaaay more important things to look at IMO.

bullwinkle

Just wanted to add to my previous post that while your college choice is most certainly important and there are so many factors to consider, to what ever extent the prestige factor and related considerations may be important, save that concern for grad school. Unless you see undergrad as the end of the road for you, your grad school is going to dictate how you then fare in the job market, etc. At that point, where you went undergrad usually only comes up in discussions of football rivalries, lol.

ClaySoul

patientlywaiting, i would reccomend Tulane. Except the football team is terrible and there's no school spirit. But anyways, best location anywhere and very active Greek life. Ick. But if you like it...

Answer628

whoa..1 vote for legacy..that's remarkable

mpmich_23

For me...academic area, relatively close to home, College football and basketball. It's what I wanted...my brother went to MIT, I went to Purdue...I would choose Purdue every day of the week, because to me, it was the best Engineering School in the Midwest (I would put UIUC/UofM/Purdue as basically the same) and the sports were awesome. Also, Purdue basically is West lafayette, another thing I was looking for, where the college was the town.

It got me into Berkeley for grad school no problem, which also fit my athletics requirement...maybe i'll be a traitor and goto Stanford for an MBA, as they too have the athletics.

let me tell ya, it's cool and all to have great alumni and recognition, although the first man on the Moon was a Purdue grad and Berkeley has it's share of Nobels, but, it's not as fun reading about them as it is watching your alma mater on a Saturday afternoon. 65000 screaming fans, 20000 students rushing the field as you are heading to the Rose Bowl were some of the most memorable things in college.

scholarships

This is a really great poll. The variety of answers is pretty amazing. Just goes to show each person has their own set of criteria.

A couple of cool sites for selecting colleges:
http://www.lunch-money.com/Guides/Co...ollSelect.aspx - This has articles by a bunch of schools and a College Scorecard tool that lets you rate schools yourself. I think they just added a College Organizer for student members which lets you keep track of the application process yourself (and write some notes for yourself).

http://www.review.com - This site has a cool ReviewMap tool that finds schools similar to the ones you may be looking for. The one drawback is I think you HAVE to register to use it.

Hope these resources help.

As far as the state vs private school debate, I don't know if there's a right answer. I grew up in Indiana. It would have been hard to justify going out of state to do engineering with one of the top engineering schools right in my home state (Purdue). I went out of state. There is something to be said for seeing a new place and pushing your comfort zone. I found it exciting embarking on my college experience in a completely new place. To each his own, again, as this poll shows.

Good luck to everyone.

SHABIN

Why isn't climate an important factor in the choice of University/College?
Remember Cecil Rhodes had to leave Oxford because the climate there affected his health badly and he went to Africa!

lemonteacake

what the.... ? Come on now. Who said climate?

alscharr

..........dennis?

aphoenixtear

Sometimes it's terrible paying for school yourself...it surely limits you, and that's why I have to say tuition affordability is a make or break deal for me.

micheal

siriusloveriam

look! does anybody here know whether a person who have won the international math olympiads gold medal will be able to go to harward or not?

irishmeghan23

the school has to feel like home or you arent gonna enjoy your time there. i based my decision soley on that and im as happy as can be.

chowdy

IMO, Academic strength > prestige because prestige can obviously be earned. Look at the < 60 y/o CA schools (younger UCs, LACs, etc...) that already have built up a great level of prestige for themselves.

Too bad i couldn't pick more than 1. Climate! Crap weather is crap to live in!