Subscribe

Get updates by:
RSS
RSS
Twitter
Twitter
Email
Email
Online College Search

Pay for College

Find Student Loans
Student Parent

Loan Amount:
$

Graduation:

How to Find the Right College

PDF Print E-mail

Finding the right college is an extremely important decision for many high school juniors and seniors. It is a big life change, especially if you decide to attend college out of state; therefore it is important that you take the time to research your intended colleges and make sure that you will be a perfect fit at the school. This will reduce your likelihood of transferring later.

Decide on a Major

As a seventeen-year-old college student, it is a little early to decide what you want to major in while in college, however your major may determine the school you attend. Students with common majors such as psychology or business can attend almost any college as those areas of study are offered at most schools. However students with an interest in education, medicine, or law, should research the best schools available for those majors. If you are going into one of these specialized fields, you want to make sure that you attend a school that has the curriculum that will help you succeed when you are ready to hit the job market.

Location

When choosing a college, make sure you are alright with the surrounding area around the college. Is the college located in a city where you will have to use public transportation to get around or is it in a suburb where a car will be necessary? Also make sure it is an area that you may not mind living in the future as some college students continue to live in the area where the college they attended is located. Also, if you are a student who may want to come home often, then you may want to consider a college close to home. This way you won't be spending too much money on airplane tickets; you can commute home by bus, train, or even car if you are able to have one on campus.

Extracurricular

Check into extracurricular activities, clubs, and organizations that your intended college offers. If you plan on pledging to a sorority or fraternity then check to which ones have chapters on campus. If you play sports, check out the popularity of the teams on campus. This is all helpful to do since joining clubs and organizations on campus will help you be more involved with your college as well as make friends.

Other tips on finding the perfect College

  • Check into things such as size and student to teacher ratio. If a class of two hundred students does not appeal to you, then you may want to stay away from large public schools.

  • Check to see how much the tuition, room, and board and other fees total. You may have found the perfect college but if the tuition is expensive, you may have to take out additional student loans and/or apply for scholarships.

  • Make sure you apply to more than one college, just in case your “first-choice” falls thorough. Try to find at least two to three “perfect” schools so that you have a cushion in case something does not work out with the first school.

Find and Compare Colleges that are right for you:

 
Share it:
facebook
Twitter
Delicious
Digg
Stumble

Featured Stories

For the second year in a row, Sarah Lawrence College is the most expensive college in the nation, while NYU edges out The George Washington University to take 2nd in the ranking.
Room and board can be a big expense on top of tuition and is a price that often gets overshadowed by high tuition prices. Take NYU for example...
College is no cakewalk. It takes a lot of hard work to get that degree and maintain a respectable GPA. Follow these tips to help you on your journey.
Being a college student usually means living and surviving on a cheap budget. Some of you may be pretty good at pinching your pennies and getting...
Textbooks in digital form not only cost less, but are easier to carry around. Another benefit: no waiting in lines at the college bookstore. Digital textbooks can be downloaded right from the Internet.
It's not easy being a broke college student. Yes you could get a part time job or internship, but you are best off without a job in college, so you can...
Here is a select list of colleges that are known to be easy to get into, as they have some of the highest acceptance rates in the nation.