When my students are trying to decide between schools, I often ask them to consider what the total cost will be at each option, and evaluate whether that difference is worth anything to them. Will it get them more income later? A better quality of life as a student? Any of their other priorities?

After all, they applied to these schools ONLY because they liked them. (Why bother applying to a “safety” school that you kinda hate, when there are so many great schools that admit at all GPAs or at all different price points?”).

But, it’s been a weird year for financial aid. FAFSAs weren’t accessible until the end of December, then there were glitches, delays, and errors that have brought us here to almost May 1, and many students still don’t know what their financial aid offers will be. But, they still have to make decisions. And some schools are sticking to the May 1 deposit deadline. And some schools are pressuring you to deposit now or you might not be guaranteed on campus housing. And… And…

And, because someone wrote to me yesterday asking my advice on other ways to choose between schools, here’s some things to compare that aren’t financial:

1. Courses they are REQUIRED to take for their likely major(s).
   • A major Computer Science, for example, sometimes requires 4+ advanced math courses, a compiler course, and a couple of seriously mathy electives. But, at other schools, the CS major is focused more on problem solving challenges and using CS to do interesting things. Comparing the core required courses will show you what kind of program you’re headed for.
2. The courses they will take as part of their “general education” requirements.
   • Aka the Core courses outside the major that are intended to make you a well rounded graduate. Are they all huge lectures like “Introduction to American History,” or do you get more freedom to pick the kind of course you’d like to take (discussion, lab, etc.) and the focus area that will be covered (“The Evolution of Military Technology from 1000-1900”)?
3. The placement and retention rates for people in your field.
   • Is this a top school FOR the things you want to study? Are there a lot of people taking it here? (Check the Common Data Set for each school to find out how many students graduate in each major each year)
   • CollegeFactual ranks schools in relation to major at https://www.collegefactual.com/majors/. Identify the major in the search bar, then scroll down a little bit to “Bachelor’s Degrees.” (Did you know that the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities may be the only school in the USA where you can major in “Native American Languages”?)
4. The walk time between the most common freshman residence halls and the most common classroom buildings they’ll have in the first year. Use Google Maps to see the estimations. Sometimes this walk time is almost 40 minutes!
   • While you’re on Google Maps, take the street view walk through the student off-campus district. Are there places you’d like to hang out? Or is it scary and dead?
5. The average weather in January.
6. TCK and International Student support.
   • Will they let you come to school during the International Student Orientation days instead of the regular domestic student orientations during the early summer?
   • Will that orientation time include rides to shopping and banking to help you get set up for the year, or is it just about filling out visa forms?
7. “A Day in the Life” videos on CampusReel.org or Youtube
   • Does the campus feel the way you thought it did? Do the people walking in the background feel like the kind of people you’d like to meet?

What are some other things you’d want to compare if you were deciding between two or three schools.