College applications!

[wintermute]

Stay away from private colleges. Even if your parents try to convince you otherwise ("You'll have smaller classes and won't be just a number!").

Twice the price and half as nice.

[chaosakita]

Stay away from private colleges. Even if your parents try to convince you otherwise ("You'll have smaller classes and won't be just a number!").

Twice the price and half as nice.

Price isn't an issue here, so it doesn't matter. I'd have to go out of state for a private school, so it wouldn't be that much cheaper anyways, especially when I'm definitely in consideration for a half-scholarship at USC. UC schools are all massively underfunded, so that'd be a more terrible deal.

But as you can tell, I have no publics on my list, so I'd have to do a massive overhaul of that.

If you were to suggest to me an actual college though, which one would you?

[chaosakita]

The good news for me is that I have about a dozen options for where I can go to school. The bad news is that I have no idea which one is the right choice. They're all great choices but I'm a little apprehensive about each one. And the thing is I have to choose before the end of the month.

Since you guys have gone through the experience already, I want to know how you guys chose your schools.

[CorporalChaos]

Went to a local university that would be about the only place to take me at the last minute due to my indecision.

Pretty much sums it all up.

[Mr. Tines]

It's natural to be apprehensive about a big life-changing event.

Unless there is a place that is obviously better for some reason like courses offered, location or cost, just go with your gut feel.

Admittedly it's easier when you only have a list of 1 that you're seriously considering.

[Kenshin Sephiroth]

Like Mr. Tines said, begin by doing as much research into your options as you can. Try to get a good overview of the colleges right away, narrow the list down from a dozen to maybe your top five picks, then look more thoroughly into the course plan, campus and all that other stuff. This is meant to be something you want to do, so just relax and try to locate the place that speaks most to you as a person.

Good luck, and Congratulations!

[chaosakita]

Yeah I'm trying to do that right now with a bunch of last-minute college visits.

The problem is that they're all so different so it's really hard to compare.

Does anyone here live in the LA region? I'm going to visit USC and Claremont McKenna in a couple of weeks.

[Ornette]

Since you guys have gone through the experience already, I want to know how you guys chose your schools.

Advice: If you know what you want to get into, make sure to apply to schools with good programs for those fields. If you don't know what you want to do, bigger state schools with a wide variety of programs are probably better. You can muck around (and for cheaper tuition) until you find something you like, or until you decide school isn't for you.

I knew what I wanted to get into an simply chose the school with the #1 program in the U.S.

[Stryker]

I'm going to try to shoot for MIT.

[chaosakita]

Ornette, I actually did get into CMU! For H&SS only though.

[Hunter21]

If you know what degree you want go with Ornette's advice and simply pick from your list which one is best in that field.

If you are not sure make your pick based upon what you feel after all the different college visits. You are most likely going to do better at a college you feel comfortable at.

And remember this, you can always switch colleges later on down the road if you change your mind about what you want to study. It's not even that uncommon anymore for someone to go to a cheaper college to figure out what they want to study and then switch over to a more accredited institution in what ever field they decided on.