By now you’ve gotten at least a handful of glossy brochures in the mail and probably have begun narrowing down what you’d like to study in college. But there is still what seems like a gaggle of decisions to make until the day when you promenade through the door of your fine new institution of study. We have a few thoughts and guidelines to make some of those decisions a little easier.
Compiling your list
You might have a couple of “dream schools” in mind as well as a few schools you know you have a good shot at getting into. By now you might have also considered whether you’d like to go far away from home for college or whether you’d rather stick close to family. A good rule of thumb is to apply to a few “reach” schools some schools that you think you may get into and a few safety schools. Let’s break these down one by one:
Reach Schools
Go ahead and apply to two or three schools that you really don’t know if you have a shot at but that you’d love to get into (i.e. you’ve had one of these school’s pennants up on your wall since fifth grade). You never know; top colleges look for particular students to make up a diverse student body each year. You might be the kind of fit one of these colleges is looking for. By all means apply.
“Good Chance” Schools
Apply to three or so schools that you’d really enjoy being at and that you think you have a reasonably good shot at getting into. You might end up at one of these schools and find it’s just the environment you were hoping for.
