How to narrow down a college list?

College Search & Lists
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Here is how you narrow it down

  1. Cost. Research scholarships and give automatic priority to schools potentially offering scholarships. Out of state flagship schools cost 2-3 times more than in-state schools, and offer no additional benefits. Unless you’re being offered a tuition waiver or scholarship, financial aid favors residents, which means that the nonresident gap has to be covered by your parents or co-signed private loans. Those loans are a bad idea and could potentially sabotage your career. Unless you can get a tuition waiver or a scholarship, get them off your list, otherwise they can set you up for failure. Southern schools like Alabama, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Auburn and LSU offer the best nonresident scholarships.

Select your favorite private schools, get your parent’s tax returns and run the the net price calculator. Find out how much financial aid they offer. If it requires you to have student loan debt greater than 27k over 4 years, take it off your list. The more elite the school, the more generous they tend to be, but the harder they are to get into.

  1. Major. You should never go into a university directionless. Getting into school is only half the battle. In the big schools, employable majors tend to be highly competitive and they’re not very forgiving with major changes unless you can maintain a near 4.0, which is not realistic for just about anyone. Private schools tend to be less competitive with majors, but majors have limited choices. Gone are the days when you can switch majors by just signing a few forms. Even less competitive schools are finding that they have to be more selective because of space. Look at your strengths and ambitions then research majors and potential occupations that are a good match. This is going to require some soul searching and expect it to take time. If you just don’t know, then it’s much better to just go to a community college. This will allow you take your generals at a fraction of the cost and see if your grades are competitive enough to major in what you want at a flagship school.

  2. Choose about a dozen or so schools. Google admissions stats for each school. You need a small list of reach schools. Harvard, MIT, etc are always a reach no matter how good your stats are.

You need a list of target schools, where you’re more/less right about average, but still a possibility of decline.

Then you need a list of safety schools. Be sure a safety school is REALLY a safety school. This means a school you like that you KNOW you’ll get into, it’s within a good budget and you’ll be able to major in what you want.