A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

YOU SIT IN THE QUAD, AND THINK "OH MY GOD! I AM TOTALLY GONNA GO FAR!"  One of our younger correspondents -- we'll all keep the name private to protect her from Googling, so I'm not going to spell it out for you -- is in her senior year of high school and looking at colleges.  She shared with me her list of colleges to which she's planning to apply, which seemed somewhat disjointed until she explained that each was reputed to have a strong program in at least one of the two career paths she's considering.

No, I responded. That's not how to choose a college. "Well then what should I focus on in a college?" she replied, to which I said:

You want to go to the best school you can that feels right for you. After you visit enough schools, folks generally just "know" it. At a minimum, you should be able to rule some out -- both XXX and YYY just exuded such elitism/class issues for me that I feared I'd never fit in completely -- I still applied to one of the two, and am grateful it did not offer me admission. And "feels right" means a whole lot of things depending on who you are and how you're wired--size of student population, location (urban v rural, east/west, all of it), breadth (or specificity) of academic offerings, academic focus and intensity (things like Chicago's core), importance of athletics and Greek life on campus (or lack thereof), class size, sense of elitism/class issues on campus ... in short, is this a school where I will feel nurtured and safe, and will it help me develop into the adult I'd like to become? [And, of course, there's the financial issues.]

Use the opportunities afforded to spend overnight on campus with students without your family around (I did post-admission, pre-acceptance) -- you need to see how it feels to be immersed in these places.

Your further advice on this question would be welcome.