High school students usually embark on the college process in the spring of their junior year, although it is never too early to start. But with so many colleges and universities to choose from and so much conflicting talk about college choices, how do you even begin?
A great place to launch your college search is on the CollegeBoard website.. The CollegeBoard is the organization which administers the SATs, and you will have to set up an account in order to track your searches or keep your lists. You can set up the same account as you will use for your tests – registering for the SAT, sending scores to colleges. If setting up your official CollegeBoard account, be careful to be accurate in all your registration details, as they must match your full legal name, actual address, and other real details for test registration. (If you aren't ready to make a real account, make an account using a secondary email address that you will not be using for your college applications and then use different information – i.e. not your real name or address – for the other information they demand. Uncheck all the extras they offer so you won't be bombarded with their spam.) Don't forget to make a note of your registration details and password and email it to the same address you used to register so you will have a record of it on file.
Once you've created an account, go to the CollegeBoard homepage and click on "Find your match" next to the College Search title on the left side. Click on "College Matchmaker" on the upper left column and you can set the parameters for your search: location, size, competitiveness, cost, activities, type of school, and more.
A CollegeBoard search for four-year colleges within just twenty miles of New York City yields ten pages of results! It sounds overwhelming, but you can quickly whittle that list down by narrowing your parameters. Once you have an idea of your SAT score range, you can further refine your list, eliminating schools which seem too competitive or not competitive enough.
Now that you've got a good starter list, save your list or your search so you can go back to it again. Take time to go to the individual colleges' websites and learn about them, starting to get a feel for what appeals to you personally. As you visit more colleges' websites, you'll think of questions you'd like to have answered about each school. Start a file with college names and note your questions and observations as you delve into your research. (This will help motivate your explorations and also serve as a good basis for eventual interview or college tour questions.) Bit by bit, you will start to develop an idea of which colleges are likely to be a good fit for you!
