Reassess Your Preliminary List & Classifications
If you've kept up-to-date with our other suggestions, you've already classified your 15 or so schools as Reach, Match, or Safety. If you haven't done this yet, please do so now.

Read over the list of schools and see if you're still as keen on them as you were a few weeks ago. Have you heard anything about a school that makes that school more or less desirable? For example, did a friend report back that social life at a school on your list revolves around fraternities and sororities? That's great if it interests you, and not so great if it doesn't. While you don't want to let informal information like this guide your final decision, it should spark additional research on your part.

Write a List of What's Important
By now, you should have a pretty good sense what your priorities are. But, how well do the schools on your list match up with them? It's time to get specific and ruthless. Write down your priority list. What must you have on campus, in the classroom, or close-by your future school?

Once you have your priorities documented, evaluate each school to see how it measures up to your list. Serious research may be needed. Take advantage of the Internet and all that material you've been collecting on each school over the last few months. It might be helpful to create a chart that helps you compare your schools. Or, you might want to do a Pro/Con list for each school (if you have a folder for each school, write it right on the cover). Remember, it might be impossible to find the perfect match, but you want to know what you're giving up.

Here's a sample partial evaluation list of a fictional HS senior (we used fake schools so we didn't offend any schools).

MY PRIORITIES	University of the World (Match)	Coleburn College (Match)	Grange University (Reach)
Major in Architecture or related subject	Has Art and Architectural History, but no Architecture major	Has Architecture major	Doesn't have Architecture major!!
Women's Crew Team	Yes, nice and laid back	Yes, extremely competitive (yikes!)	No
Near (but not in) major metropolitan area	Downtown of small-city	Suburbs of large city, campus shuttle service/train available	Over an hour from metropolitan area
Strong National Reputation	Good	Very Good	Excellent
Diversity (not everyone should look like me)	Pretty limited	Pretty good diversity	So-so

Cross off Some, Keep Others, and Reevaluate the Balance
With this analysis in hand, (not a small job, by the way), you should be able to make some cuts and whittle your list down to eight to ten schools. Check to make sure the Reach, Match, Safety balance is still good. Discuss with your parents how many schools you'd like to apply to - while many applicants apply to eight or more colleges, it's expensive and time-consuming. If eight schools is your desired goal, consider 2-3 safety schools, 3-4 match schools, and 1-2 reach schools. If you only want to apply to six schools, a 2-3-1 mix might be appropriate. If you're not satisfied with how the schools on your list stack up, or if the balance is skewed - go back to the drawing board, or in this case, your guidebooks or Counselor-O-Matic.