What are some colleges that would be right for me?

[Crystal Gayle]

As a professor, I'm going to give you some advice that I wish someone had given me.

1. The school you go to matters less than what you do when you get there.
Take advantage of opportunities to network, develop social skills, complete internships etc. Your future employers care less about what school you went to than what kind of job skills you have. I realize this doesn't seem important to you now, but it sure as heck will once you are a staring down the barrel of graduation.

2. Not going into thousands of dollars of debt is far more important than going to a prestigious school. It is not always the people who went to Wharton or Princeton that make six figure salaries.
Do not take out more student loans than you plan to make in your first year of work. So if you are going to be a teacher, don't take out more than 20,000. If you are going to be an engineer, maybe you have a bit more wiggle room. But for God's sake, don't be like me and take out 120,000 in loans to get a graduate degree and then make slave wages.

3. If possible pick a college that is particularly strong in the subject you are interested in. Notice that this is near the bottom of my list, as your major will likely change while you are in school. In order to find this school go to the counselor at school and ask them to review with you which schools are strong in which educational fields. They should have lists and rankings provided by various news and educational groups.

4. From there, utilize a few of these resources:

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/08/7506102/ho...ht-for-you

http://www.usnews.com/education/articles...our-wallet

5. Do not pick a college because it is "well-known", because your best friend is going there, because your parents push you to go there, or because someone you know "went there once upon a time"