Definitely agree with doing head-to-head comparisons. I’ve even seen students set up their decision in tournament bracket format, and that works pretty well!
The problem with not doing this is that it can be a setup for bad logic. When you’re considering multiple schools at once, it’s easy to have thoughts like, “School A is pretty good, but I really like the honors college at School B, and the maker space at School C.” But you can’t mix and match the qualities of schools B and C in real life, so this just muddies the waters. Breaking it down to 1-on-1 comparisons prevents this.
As for the cost thing… I agree that budget should have been discussed beforehand, and if some applications were based on “This will only be an option if they give merit,” that should have been understood. Nonetheless, I don’t think that final decisions need to be entirely cost-blind within what is financially possible. At minimum, price is a great tiebreaker! And it can also be a more nuanced part of the assessment - does it make sense to go to a school I like 10% better, for 2x the price? Are there other uses for the additional money that would be more beneficial? Of course, if you can afford a more expensive school and you see the value-added, that’s great!
The tough part here is that if all has gone well, there will be roads-not-taken that are hard to let go of. Sure, sometimes there’s one choice that’s a clear slam-dunk. But more often, you’ve found things to love about more than one choice, and you’ll never get to see how things would have gone for the alternate-reality you who made a different decision. Daily Affliction - The tragedy of commitment