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How to Create a Balanced College List

Creating a college list can be a daunting process. The U.S. alone is home to over 5,000 undergraduate programs, and many students are unsure of how to wade through the options to find the right institution for them. If you’re just starting the college process, you might be tempted to apply to the top 25 ranked colleges or to the most popular universities that peers from your school tend to apply to. But the college decision is about far more than just prestige—it’s about finding the right fit for your distinct interests, goals and personality.

Mentorship for the College Admissions Journey

Building a balanced college list is an individualized process, and your support should be equally individualized. Command Education offers one-on-one mentorship, tailored to each student’s unique needs and ambitions, ensuring that everything from the college list to the application essays, activities list, and interviews showcases the student’s authentic voice. Learn more about our transformative mentorship and take the first step toward your college dreams today.

Brag sheets are forms students complete and give to their recommenders. These sheets provide relevant details and insights into who students are in and outside of school, offering recommenders context about a student beyond the numbers. They help teachers to recall students’ work, tailor their recommendations to the particular strengths that students wish to highlight in their applications, and enable counselors and teachers to craft the very best letters of recommendation possible.

What is a balanced college list?

One person’s match could be another person’s reach. It is important to be honest with yourself when putting schools into each of these categories!

High Reach

A ‘high reach’ school is one where impressive students with perfect scores and impressive accomplishments are routinely rejected. Ivy League institutions and other top schools like Stanford, MIT, Duke, and UChicago are “high reaches” for any applicant, even Nobel Prize winners and Olympians.

Reach

A reach school is one where your academic credentials are near or below the standard profile of accepted students and/or the school has incredibly low acceptance rates (20-25% or less).

Match

A match school is one where your scores fall around the average (or above average) of the school’s accepted students, so you will hopefully be admitted to at least a couple of your match schools.

Safety

A safety school is one where your grades and test scores are well above the school’s 75th percentile for accepted students, so it is “safe” to assume that you would be admitted.

One person’s match could be another person’s reach. It is important to be honest with yourself when putting schools into each of these categories!

How many schools should I apply to?

Students should apply to roughly 10 to 15 schools, but no more than 20. Within that range, you should apply to approximately:

4-6 Reach Schools

4-6 Match Schools

2-3 Safety Schools

Applying to too many reaches could leave you with few choices come spring, and applying to too many matches and safeties could prevent you from maximizing your potential. A well-balanced college list provides a safety net but affords you the opportunity to take some risks.

Creating a College List

Choosing the Factors That are Most Important to You

Now that you know how to structure your list, your next step is to start filling it out thoughtfully. This requires you to familiarize yourself with the key factors that differentiate colleges—and reflect on which of those factors matter most to you. In other words, the college research process begins with answering questions about your personal preferences and values.

Ask yourself: What academic subjects have you enjoyed the most in high school? With what kinds of individuals do you seek friendships? In what kinds of social environments do you feel most comfortable? What is your definition of success? What activities make you lose track of time? Do you want to live in a city, a suburb, or a rural area? Do you want to attend a women’s college? Would you prefer to attend a small school or a big school? Would you prefer to be on the East or West Coast? How about the South or the Midwest?

While these questions may seem broad, answering them honestly will help you narrow down what to look for. Below, we’ve compiled a list of essential factors to consider when choosing which colleges to include in your list.

"Need to Have" versus "Nice to Have" Factors

You should begin by listing schools that satisfy the one or two factors from the worksheet you deem to be the most important. We call these factors the “need to have” factors, or those qualities or resources that are non-negotiable for you. On the other hand, your “nice to have” factors are those which would definitely increase your interest in a school; however, their presence or absence will not necessarily prevent you from attending a particular school.

For some students, “need to have” factors include the school’s geographic location or top ranking in a particular academic field. Other students may choose to prioritize research, pre-professional opportunities, or the presence of a particular sports team on campus. Say you know you want to be in the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions of the US — you may create a preliminary (and admittedly quite lengthy) list of schools located in those states. Then, you might narrow your college list by removing some of the schools that do not satisfy ‘nice to have’ preferences.

Need to Have

East Coast or Mid-Atlantic region
Competitive campus climate

Nice to Have

Urban campus setting
Strong research opportunities
Big sports program
Lots of campus traditions

How to Research Colleges and Universities

Once you have an initial list of schools, you can start researching them in more depth to narrow your options and discover new factors that may lead you to add other schools.

Research using college and university websites

You can start your research by visiting colleges’ websites to learn about their specific application process and to get a feel for what a school might offer. College websites are a treasure trove of information — you should start by reading a college’s mission statement, as this will allow you to learn about the school’s foundational values and determine whether they seem to match your own.

If you have an area of academic focus or specific major in mind, research class descriptions, professors’ bios, or the major and minor requirements on department websites. Here, you may also find information about specific study abroad and research programs, as well as other opportunities you could take advantage of as a student.

Further, these school’s department pages may offer insights into the specific pedagogy employed by that university. While colleges often offer similar majors, your experience studying at each school is likely to differ depending on the specific department’s focus. For instance, UC Berkeley offers a more progressive and contemporary take on literature than Columbia, whose English department is more grounded in a classical canon. Additionally, Harvard’s computer science department takes more of a theoretical approach compared to Stanford’s core requirements, which require more applied learning. The University of Chicago’s economics department hosts more intellectual leaders who follow conservative theories of the market than Yale’s.

Watch videos on Youtube or CampusReel

Now that you’ve learned about a college’s academic offerings, you should spend some time learning about its extracurricular opportunities and campus life! A great way to do this is to watch videos published by current or former students on YouTube or CampusReel. Some students will take you on tours of their dorm rooms or talk about what the typical day in the life of a student looks like at their college, offering you the ability to learn from a peer about what it’s like to attend their school!

Visit campus

The best way to get a feel for a college is to visit in person. Walking around campus can give you a clearer sense of student life and help you determine whether you see it as a future home. While you’re there, explore dorms, dining halls, libraries, fitness centers, and other facilities. Don’t hesitate to approach current students and ask about life outside of the classroom, as they will likely have the most authentic, first-hand perspective on campus life. Be sure to sign up for an official campus tour and attend an information session to learn more about the school and connect with admissions officers.

While you may not have the time or resources to visit every school on your list, try your best to visit the schools to which you plan to apply early, especially if you are applying under a binding Early Decision program. Beyond that, any additional visits you can manage to your favorite reaches and matches will help inform your understanding of your potential postsecondary options. The best time to visit is while school is in session, typically the spring of your junior year.

Visits are important, not only for gaining insight into the schools you are considering but also for demonstrating interest, which (depending on whether your schools track demonstrated interest) can matter to the admissions counselors considering your application.

Tip from a Senior Mentor:

“You will likely not have the time or capacity to visit every school on your college list. However, you should aim to visit a mix of institutions to get a feel for different campus sizes, locations, and styles. While you might not have the chance to visit Emory and Duke, visiting one or the other would provide a sense of a semi-urban campus in a Southern city.

I also recommend that students start by visiting match schools before touring one of their reaches—often, when students start by visiting their dream school, they evaluate other schools on their list more harshly or check out of the visit altogether because they have their heart set on a reach institution.

Starting with schools that align with their test scores and academic skill set will allow students to set reasonable expectations, identify what they like without getting too attached to a highly competitive school, and critically evaluate the range of options available to them.”

Engage in colleges’ virtual tour or information sessions

If you’re unable to visit a college in person, you can take advantage of virtual tours to experience campus remotely. Most colleges will supplement virtual tours with virtual information sessions, so definitely sign up for both, as that can allow you to demonstrate your interest even from afar! If the live virtual information sessions don’t work with your schedule, some schools offer pre-recorded information sessions on their admissions website or YouTube channel.

Key Tip

During the sessions, take note of your likes and dislikes for each school. It can be difficult to remember small details six months after your visit when you sit down to write your college applications, many of which will ask you to describe the specific aspects of the school that have caught your interest. Taking specific notes throughout the research process will prepare you to nail those types of supplemental essays!

Whether virtual or in-person, we highly recommend attending these sessions as a way to learn more about each school. These sessions also offer a great opportunity for you to have your questions answered, as most end with a question-and-answer period.

Have a coffee chat with an alumnus

Another great way to learn about a college is to chat with an alum to learn more about their experiences! You can check out your high school’s alumni network to see if any former students from your high school have attended the schools you’re considering, or you can email current students to ask if they’d be willing to chat about the college. You might also gain a valuable mentor along the way!

Discuss your list with college counselors

Finally, the college counselors at your school can serve as another great resource for gaining an additional perspective on which schools are reach, match, or safety options for you. For example, you could ask, “How have past students with my profile fared in the application process to (insert school name)?” Using aggregated historical data, your guidance counselor can answer these questions anonymously, giving you a better sense of how your school and its alumni have performed in the college application process.

Find Your Best-Fit School with Expert Support

The criteria above will help orient the process of building the college list, but knowing what to look for is not the same as understanding how to evaluate schools in the context of a specific student’s profile, goals, and academic record.

Building a college list that truly serves a student requires rigorous research and honest self-reflection. These are heavy tasks for students to embark on alone—and they don’t have to. Command Education Senior Mentors have guided hundreds of students through the college list process through dedicated, personalized mentorship. They strive to understand who the student is, what they genuinely want from their college experience, and where they are most likely to be admitted, supported, and challenged.

Whether your student is beginning this process or anticipating it in the years to come, now is the time to equip them with expert support to navigate the process. Schedule a complimentary consultation to learn how mentorship can set your student up for success in the admissions process.

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