Creating Your College List
Creating your list of colleges where you would like to apply (ergo, where you'd like to attend for four years) is the most important and possibly the trickiest part of the college search process. With over 3,000 4-year colleges is the US and many more in Canada and overseas, how can you know about all these places? What majors, what programs, what type of campus culture? How are the winters? What are the dorms like? How welcoming is the surrounding community? So much to know, so start thinking about your college priorities, and use the tools to help identify places that line up with your interests, your values and your goals. Here are some resources you can and should use:
The place to start when creating your college list...is with you! What are your interests? What about long-term goals? Please refer back to the "Researching Careers, Majors and Colleges" tab. Then, dive into:
Xello - this is the tool La Jolla High School uses to help students and families research colleges.
There are many websites which can help you search for colleges that fit your interests here are a few:
CollegeXpress - www.collegexpress.com
College Navigator - https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/
College Data - www.collegedata.com
College Transitions - https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/
The worksheets provided free of charge by Dr. Steven Antonoff, author of The College Finder, are absolutely invaluable! Please check them out - complete his worksheets and read his thoughtful feedback at https://schoolbuff.com/worksheets/
And please check out this presentation about creating your college list that I did in 2019...the information is still relevant!
2019 Lunchtime workshop for juniors - college list.pdf