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Holding multiple college acceptance letters in your hand, you take a moment to marvel at these glorious tokens of survival. You have not only officially made it through the agonizing gauntlet known as the admissions process but you have emerged triumphant. For students with an acceptance letter from their clear-cut number one school, this moment is one of 100% ecstasy, yet for those with two or more offers from schools that they are equally excited about, another challenge still lies ahead鈥攜ou need to select a college by May 1st. Cue the anxiety flooding right back into your veins as you wonder which reasons for attending hold the most weight. In this blog, we’ll review how to choose a college after being accepted as well as what reasons to prioritize during the decision-making process.

How should I choose a college after being accepted?

In an ideal world, your family would have the time and means to visit or revisit every single college to which you’ve been accepted and are seriously considering. However, reality鈥攚hether delivered in the form of logistics, budgetary constraints, or an event like the coronavirus pandemic鈥�usually prevents students from executing such a plan. This is no reason to fear. If you’re wondering how to choose a college after being accepted, the most important steps can be done from the comfort of your kitchen table. Our recommended steps include:

• Consult college guidebooks
• Calculate and analyze college costs
• Research the quality of your major
• Assess graduate outcomes
• Explore life outside of the classroom
• Rethink the overlooked obvious 鈥� school size and location
• Evaluate career services and alumni networks

Let鈥檚 start with the only item on the list that may require a minimal financial investment (roughly $20)鈥�

1. Read (or reread) college guidebooks.

At any phase of the search and admissions process, we are firm believers in consulting the best college guidebooks in order to gather more information, including our own (sixth edition forthcoming in May 2025), which looks at many of the critical factors that we are about to discuss: college costs and financial aid, academic strengths, career services offerings, graduate outcomes (both with employment and graduate/professional school placements), and so much more.

2. Discuss cost and financial aid.

Cost may be one of the most important factors to consider when choosing a college. Therefore, we suggest sitting down as a family, putting all of your financial cards on the table, and explaining how this impending bill of up to $400,000 (over four years) is going to be paid. What can you, as parents, afford to contribute? What is the average student loan debt at the college(s) in question? How much will a monthly student loan payment be, and how might it tangibly alter your child’s life?

The following facts, sourced from the Education Data Initiative’s , should further convince you to sit down and have this conversation today:

• College grads carry an average debt load of over $40,000. This number triples for those who pursue graduate degrees.
• After mortgages, student loan debt is the highest consumer debt category.
• Over one-third of adults under 30 owe some amount of student loan debt.
• Recent graduates (under the age of 23) have a , meaning that their average total debt is 39% of their salary (a “healthy” DTI is 35% or below).

We also urge teens to consider the following:

• If you are considering a field like medicine, psychology, law, academia, scientific research, or physical therapy, you will certainly need multiple years of additional training down the road. Given the future careers you are presently considering, which undergraduate school will put you in the best position to be able to afford graduate/professional school?
• What will life in your 20s look like if you choose School A versus School B? For example, if you choose the more expensive school, your monthly loan repayments will be $600 more expensive. How will that impact your ability to rent an apartment, afford car repairs, etc.?

3. Evaluate academic program strength.

Another way to choose between two or more colleges is to evaluate the quality of the academic offerings in your intended area of major. Collectively, the following data points enable you to decide which school is going to give you the best education, no matter whether you are interested in business, biology, psychology, engineering, film, mathematics, education, or economics:

• Degrees Conferred

What percentage of degrees are conferred in your intended area of study? If a high percentage of students at a particular college are studying a major, it is likely that the major attracts a relatively large portion of the institution鈥檚 resources. This means that you will reap the benefits of this increased investment.

• Student-to-Faculty Ratio and Class Size

Research consistently shows that class size as well as student鈥揻aculty interaction and collaboration leads to better learning and career-related outcomes. Whether your introductory lectures will be held in 200-student lecture halls or in a seminar-style classroom of a dozen students heavily influences the quality of the educational experience.

• Graduate Outcomes by Major

Your prospective salary and job prospects can be an important reason to choose a college. To learn more, jump to the outcomes section of this blog. Remember that comparisons across schools are only relevant when comparing equivalent majors.

• Rankings

Wondering whether rankings are helpful considerations when choosing a college? Taken at face value, a school鈥檚 rank in a given publication can be unhelpful or even misleading to your unique college search. However, when considered in proper context, and when factoring in several different rankings systems that utilize different algorithms, one can get a general idea of a school鈥檚 reputation in the eyes of graduate schools and top employers. This is also true of rankings by major.

4. Evaluate professional and graduate school outcomes.

When parents think about 鈥渙utcomes鈥� related to higher education, they often think only in terms of pure ROI. While graduate starting salaries can be informative, particularly if broken down by major, there are a number of other metrics that can help you decide between School A and School B in this final phase of the selection process. We recommend looking at:

• What percentage of graduates are employed or in graduate school six months after receiving their diplomas?
• What companies employ large numbers of graduates from each school?
• Where do students end up going to graduate, law, and medical school? What do the acceptance rates for the latter two look like?

5. Consider life outside of the classroom.

Let’s break down another important reason to choose a college鈥攖he social aspect. Research has consistently demonstrated that college students who feel connected to their schools experience far greater academic success than those who do not. While you are likely to find a few kindred spirits at almost any 4-year college, it can make a huge difference when a student feels like they fit into the larger fabric of the university. Some factors worth exploring about each college include:

• What percentage of students participate in Greek life?
• What percentage of students play intramural sports?
• What are the demographics by ethnicity, gender, and LGBTQ status?
• How many and what types of clubs and activities are active on campus?
• Does the student body tend to lean liberal or conservative?

6. Think carefully about school size and location.

In an abstract assessment, a teen may think there is little difference between being 100 miles and 1,000 miles away from home. Their thinking may sound something like, 鈥淭he plane ride will be just as quick as the car ride!鈥� Then, a month into college, when they are desperate for some home cooking, a free load of laundry, or the comfort of a Saturday family game night, the reality of that long distance truly sets in.

Be upfront with your child about how often you can pay for them to fly home and how long a day of flying actually takes (ride to airport, security, baggage, etc.). There’s a reason why say that location is their number one consideration when choosing a college鈥攁 level of sacrifice is involved for faraway locations.

In addition to location, families should also talk about the size of the colleges under consideration. Sometimes, the name of a prospective school is so exciting that your child isn鈥檛 even aware of how many students are presently enrolled. Yet, the difference between attending a school like Ohio State or Penn State with 40,000+ undergrads versus a school like Kenyon College or Dickinson College with 1/20th as many students can be quite stark. Is your child someone who can navigate a massive, sprawling campus without much hand-holding? Or, do they crave one-on-one attention from professors and advisors? An honest assessment of your son or daughter鈥檚 personality and strengths/weaknesses can help you evaluate which academic setting is the one in which they are more likely to thrive.

7. Research career services.

In our opinion, one of the most important reasons to choose a college鈥攁nd one of the most underrated resources on any college campus鈥攊s the career services office. These professionals are responsible for arranging job fairs, networking events, corporate recruiting on campus, internships, and delivering one-on-one career guidance. We recommend researching:

• What is the student-to-counselor ratio?
• What percentage of students engage with career services? How easy is it to access a career counselor?
• Does counseling happen in freshman year, or typically only get utilized by seniors?
• Are career fairs and/or special programming offered? How frequently?
• How many companies interact with students each year through virtual and in-person recruiting?
• Do they have strong connections with certain employers?
• How many students obtain internships?

We answer all these questions for each school featured in the aforementioned guidebook 鈥� .

8. Check out alumni networks.

In conjunction with the career services office, a college鈥檚 alumni network can play a critical role in whether a student has access to job-shadowing opportunities, internship placement, adult mentorship in a field of interest, or even their first job opportunity post-graduation.

When choosing a college, consider the size and level of involvement of the alumni network (the percentage of dues-paying members is a good indicator) at each institution. In addition, examine which cities/regions the majority of alumni relocate to after earning their degrees. Do these locations match up with the geographic area(s) where you might settle after graduation (if known)?

Final Thoughts

There are many possible reasons to choose a college, so we hope the factors outlined in this blog have given you and your teen a starting point for a comprehensive and productive conversation about how to make their final college selection prior to the May 1st deadline. Many of these areas can be explored in-depth right in our free blog and Dataverse, which makes it very easy to compare institutions by a wide variety of metrics, offerings, and outcomes.