How to Pick the Right College and Win the Ivy League Admissions Game

While the focus of Hopeless To Harvard is elite college admissions, a broader consulation of college choice criteria is important for every high school student.

Not only are the Ivy League schools separate from each other (say, Brown vs. Yale), but beyond the Ivies there's a whole world of separate options.

Games

Here are the biggest factors that you should think when choosing the right college:

1) Size of the student body. Issue number one, as this will affect variables such as student culture, faculty-student ratio, and so on. In addition, big schools are like big cities - filled with energy, but easy to get lost in. Small schools are like small towns - everybody knows your name, and you have a safety net, but it can lack in opportunities and diversity

2) School prestige. I put this because going to a top school will make a Big disagreement in work options after graduation. Harvard, Stanford, and Upenn offer work choices that are more respected, more diverse, and great paid than lower-tier schools. It's just a fact

3) City versus rural/suburban schools. Colleges placed in or near big cities (like Nyu, Columbia, Ucla) have wholly separate lifestyles and campus cultures than cities placed in the middle of nowhere (like Cornell, Williams). Think about where you'd be most comfortable or happy based on your personality and background

4) Room for growth. This is a catch-all bucket, but what I mean here is that you want to challenge yourself in college. It's an foreseen, 4 years of growth, so you want to go somewhere where you can take risks, learn to live independently, and have a broad and diverse set of new experiences. If you've spent your entire life in Austin, it may not be the wisest choice to attend Ut-Austin even though it's a good school. By intriguing yourself to new experiences now, your opening for growth will expand

Campus visits are a great tool for helping your decisions. You may also think taking a gap year after high school to pursue separate options before re-entering the rat race.

How to Pick the Right College and Win the Ivy League Admissions Game