How to Start a College List
Building a college list is one of my favorite things to do with students, but it is one of the most time-consuming! With literally thousands of colleges and universities in the United States, it’s hard to know where to even start - but there are ways to help your student stay organized and make things a little less demanding.
Start Searching Early
By “searching,” I mean encourage your student to dabble in the potential options. It doesn’t hurt to walk around your local college campus or even stop by a college during a road trip. It doesn’t have to be anything formal or extensive, but walking around and seeing college students headed for class might spark something in your student. These brief experiences will actually help them when it comes to what I consider the first official step in building a college list…
Determine Criteria
There are hundreds of factors in selecting a college list. When I word it like that, it’s a little overwhelming, right? Here’s an activity to help reduce that overwhelm. Start with a white board, a giant piece of paper, or post-it notes on a wall. Create three sections or headers: “must have,” “might be nice,” and “absolutely not.” Then, have your student start adding criteria under the appropriate header. Is your student political, or religious? They may want to attend a more conservative- or liberal-leaning college or maybe one with a religious affiliation. Do they like snow? Maybe they want 350 days of sunshine? Does your student want to do undergraduate research? What about living on campus? There are so many different pieces to think about, but once you start going, you might snowball through lots of options. Before you know it, you’ll have lots of criteria up on the wall to help your student navigate their search.
Keep an Open Mind
Some of my favorite scenarios are when a student of mine ends up selecting a school they never would have imagined choosing. Students with an open mind during the search process can rationally decide which schools may be the right fit for them. I strongly encourage students not to restrict their search to the schools they’ve heard of, or the ones down the street, or the ones their siblings or parents went to.
Research Financial Aid
You may be eligible for need-based aid or maybe you’re focusing more on merit aid. Whichever you’re looking for, do your research ahead of time. This includes calculating your EFC (estimated family contribution) via an online calculator and researching which schools offer merit scholarships. (Helpful hint: many selective colleges do not offer much merit aid.) If finances are an important factor in this process for your family, do not leave this step out!
Categorize and Prioritize
Once your student has about 15-25 schools on their list, it’s time to categorize and prioritize! Categorizing will help your student determine their chances of admission. This is research spent comparing your student’s academic profile to the average admitted student’s academic profile. Are they above the median scores? They might have a good chance of admission. Look at standardized test scores and GPA first, which will give you a pretty good picture of your student’s chances of admission. Prioritizing can be done once at the beginning (once the list has been created) and then multiple times over the next few months or year, depending on your student’s year in school. It’s important to understand that this list will change - it’s MEANT to change - as your student grows throughout their junior year of high school. Schools may be knocked off the list, schools will be added, and prioritization will change as they research and learn more about the schools. This is encouraged because it tells us they are engaged and committed to this process!
Once the college list is built the list should be narrowed towards the beginning of senior year.