The college search: a phrase that once drove pangs of guilt into the hearts of procrastinating seniors and apathy from underclassmen who believe they still have “loads of time." The truth is, it’s never too soon to begin looking at colleges. You don’t want to be that senior who, come January, has yet to fill out a single application. Start Now Even if you don’t know what you want to major in, don’t put off thinking about college. There are a lot of factors that come with selecting a school. Things like location, cost, and size will all be important to you. If it comes to be late in your search and you still don’t know what you want to do, you can always decide on a college that offers a broad range of majors. When looking at a school, I like to see what kind of reputation they have and what my chances of being admitted are. I have found that US News and World Report is a great resource for this. Once you pay a $20 fee, you have access to all of their school rankings and detailed college information. Also, cappex.com is a great free website. It offers statistics about colleges and lets you create a profile that helps you to search for scholarships and calculate your chances of being admitted to a certain college. College Visits Go the summer after your junior year, or even your sophomore year. You don’t want to save all of your college visits for your senior year, especially if you want to apply early. Try to go on a day where there is a planned admissions event. If you are interested in engineering, go on the college’s engineering day. There will be more specific information for you and more students and teachers available to answer questions. Before you go, think about what questions you want to ask. When I went on one of my first visits I prepared zero questions, and whenever someone asked me what questions I had, I froze. Then, as soon as I got in the car, a million questions came to me. I suggest getting a general list of questions off the internet (there is one on the guidance counselor page of the school website) and adding some specific ones of your own. You can take it with you on visits and cross questions off as you go, or you could just read over them during the car ride there. Piles of College Mail After taking the PSAT in 10 th grade, many students will begin to receive mail from colleges. When I first began to get this seemingly endless string of college mail, I made the mistake of letting it pile up unopened for months. To me it was all the same information, regurgitated by dozens of colleges. Now when I get mail from a college, I first look at its state location, then I look at the majors available. If both of those factors look promising I will look at the college in more detail online. Any college that is too far away – like Alaska – or doesn’t have the type of major I want, gets trashed right away. Don’t let the college search stress you out. Start looking into it early enough so that you aren’t waiting until your senior year. I try to make the entire process exciting, like it’s a hunt to find that one, perfect school.