My son is a Freshmen at Wake Forest. Looking back to all the tours we did, he ultimately made his decision based upon where he got the best vibe from the info session ,tour, and interview (we also scheduled a 1 on 1 within the business school to get a better feel). There were a few that he had NO interest in, even though they were great schools, because he felt they were too snooty or too this or too that. I had to convince him to apply to one of those and he actually got a great scholarship but had no interest in attending.
The great thing about this is, at least in our case, he really was quite intuitive and new what he liked. Everything he expressed in terms of class size, geographic diversity, school spirit, weather, opportunities, etc., has or is coming true. During the official visit, he immediately shot it up to the top of his list. We made him attend some other admitted students days just to make sure, but again, he had no interest in the other schools.
The lesson I learned is…Listen to them, they actually are capable of making important decisions. Once he was accepted into several and narrowed the choices down to three, we had him explain to us why he was most interested in Wake. He was able to articulate it and realized it would cost him some student loan money (vs. nothing out of pocket) but was willing to take on the debt. Once we returned to campus for their admitted student day, it was so obvious he was in the right place. It just felt like home. That tone was set by the first campus experience (informative, kind, spirited, beautiful).