<p>You can’t ignore this. Now, maybe you don’t let it be the sole factor, but a lot of what you gather is randomly acquired information. Maybe you visit one school on a beautiful fall day. And another when it’s sleeting and unseasonably frosty…and that sort of thing you should try to filter. But if you go on a visit and see things that turn you off, you can’t tell yourself that you should discount them because the school would filter them out if they had the chance.</p>
<p>Maybe, on a tour of another school, something worse happened just after you rounded the corner out of view meaning that, but for 5 seconds, you didn’t see a student let the air out of the headmaster’s car or you didn’t see the news story about students arrested at yet a third school for spray-painting swastikas on police cars. You probably wish you had been informed of those things if you later learn about them…so why would you shut out something you do learn?</p>
<p>It’s true that it’s dumb luck that you heard all of this…and your knowledge is far from perfect. Who knows what you might hear if you were a fly on the wall on a Saturday morning at each of the schools you’re considering? But there’s no need to dumb down just to level the playing field. You’re working from scant information, so take what you do know and use it as best you can. It may not be “fair” to the schools to judge them based on an uneven knowledge base, but it’s as fair to you as possible for you to use as much as you do know to your advantage.</p>