Create a College List

You'll get the most out of a college that fits your needs and interests. Move beyond college rankings and name recognition and focus on criteria that target the kind of environment you want to live and learn in. Considering fit involves introspection - you want your college list to include the schools where you’ll be happiest and most successful.

Need help defining your fit? Use this College Fit Scorecard 

Download or print this template to guide you through common college fit questions, document your answers, and rate the importance of each to you. Here is an example of a completed scorecard. You might prefer to use this College Research Worksheet, provided by the American College Application Campaign. Or, a simple online "College Fit" search will reveal other resources to help you define the college characteristics that are right for YOU. 

College Search Tools

The sheer range of educational institutions in the U.S. can make it hard for students to evaluate the many options available. There are many free college search tools online; our favorites are below. Use your college fit criteria (e.g. School location, size, etc.) to apply filters in these searches so the results are more manageable. 

• College Search Created by BigFuture

• College Navigator Created by U.S. government; provides very detailed information (and filter options) on all U.S. colleges and universities.

• Xello: Use the Schools page on the Explore Options menu. Access is easy, just sign-in to ClassLink and launch Xello from there. 

College Data Sources

If you are looking for information for a specific college and you can't find it using the search tools above, you can usually find it on a college's website. Sometimes, this is easy, and other times the information you want is buried deep within different pages. 

Below are two alternatives for gathering detailed information about a college. The upside of using these is having all the information for a college in one spot. However, there’s a lot of information presented, more than most people would ever need.

Common Data Set (CDS)

The Common Data Set (CDS), a database of information pooled together by data providers in the higher education community and publishers such as the College Board, Peterson’s, and U.S. News & World Report. Find the CDS for a school with a quick online search, e.g. "University of Washington Common Data Set". 

Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)

Similar to the Common Data Set, the IPEDS, or Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, is a website run by the National Center for Education Statistics. The website has allows you to type in the name of the school you're looking for and presents a plethora of information in drop-downs:  Look up an Institution

Determine Academic Fit

Academic fit is a measure of the likelihood of a student being admitted to a college, based on the student’s academic performance. To determine this, you’ll need to compare your academic credentials to those of the average student a college admits. The most common credentials are GPA and test scores. Using this comparison, each school on your list should fall into one of these categories: 

Reach School	Target School	Safety School
Not likely to admit you, but it’s possible. Schools with low acceptance (<25%) are reach for everyone.	Match your academic credentials and where you have a competitive chance of getting in. We recommend at least 1-2 applications to target schools.	High chance of getting admitted based on your academic profile. We recommend at least 1 application to a safety school.

 

Move beyond college search tools and find ways to connect with colleges you're interested in. This is for your benefit, but it also helps you “demonstrate interest” before, during, and after the application process. Some colleges keep track of student contacts & consider this demonstrated interest when making admission decisions.

IHS Rep Visits	Local College Fairs	Visit Colleges	Contact Admissions Counselors
We bring the admissions counselors to you. View the College & Career Events Calendar to see who is visiting.	College Admissions Counselors hold yearly fairs: NACAC each Fall PNACAC in Fall/Spring	Visit a campus in person or browse a school's virtual tour. Or, use online social media.  Try Campus Reel to watch student-driven college videos	For each college, you're assigned an admissions counselor, often based on geographic region.  Find your counselor's contact info on a college's website. Don't be shy! This is their job and they want to hear from you.

Existing college search sites, and the colleges themselves, don’t make it easy to gather the information families need to compare colleges. You should create a college spreadsheet to help provide a centralized place for organizing information about the different colleges and universities you are considering. 

Need help getting started? Use this College Spreadsheet Template

Steps to create your own college spreadsheet:

1. Pick the type of spreadsheet you want to use (Google/Excel).
2. Take whatever list of colleges you have and add them to the first column of the spreadsheet (one row per school).
3. In the adjacent cells, add columns to capture:

   • General information (School name, website, location, etc.).

   • Basic admission info everyone should track (Cost of Attendance, Average GPA, Acceptance Rate, etc.).

   • Anything unique you want to track for each school (Weather, pickleball team, etc.).

Once you have defined your fit, researched colleges, and documented your findings, your college list may be LONG. Your final task is to carefully compare the colleges on your spreadsheet and choose those you want to actually apply to.  Your final list should be balanced, with no more than 4-8 schools you've chosen to apply to. 

This is one step of the college planning process you'll want to get right. It's ideal to have this final list ready by June of your junior year. The fewer colleges on your final list, the less work you're signing yourself up for!