Breezers…now comes the time where I must share with you my method for narrowing down schools I’m interested in. Get ready folks, I have a system!

For me, my college list looks to be about 16 (edit- 12) schools. Which is…definitely not terrifying to me at all. Regardless of how hard applications are going to hit me, here’s my criteria that helped me pick these specific schools out of the thousands out there:

1. Major

• The most important thing to me, and many applicants, when looking for schools is the prescience of a specific program or major. For me, it happens to be biomedical engineering. With the aspect of “majors” it was important for me to initially see if a university had my prospective major, then to dive deeper and learn as much as possible about their program; like the rigor of the program, unique opportunities to that program, the kinds of courses within that program, the professors that taught courses for that major, etc. 

1. Internships/Research

• Next on my handy-dandy checklist: internships and research. My interest in engineering comes from a place of curiosity…which I’ve discovered research can fulfill. To narrow down my list of good biomedical engineering programs, I began to look at available undergraduate research opportunities and stipends available for said research. Finding a school that promotes curiosity and research definitely helped me come closer to my application decisions. The internship option here is for you, Breezer. Perhaps you’re a finance person and are looking to get in with a reputable firm with a solid job offer by your senior year of college- a school with many available internship opportunities can do that for you. So look into it!

1. Campus Culture

• Here we go…the no-brainer. I get it, you think this is redundant. Well, here I go. Campus culture is extremely important in deciding the outcome of your college experience. Do you want to go to a school aligned with your values? Do you want a school that promotes collaboration? Or innovation? Or even a school that likes to party? Researching campus culture on websites like niche and getting real feedback from students at that university can be extremely helpful in narrowing down which of your schools you actually can see yourself attending.

1. Location

• Would you rather be in the tundra or sweltering heat? This is a question you might be asking yourself when picking a university. Location can be extremely important to those that can’t take the heat (Aka me) or those that enjoy rain. Seriously, location can change your college experience. Consider researching the locations of your potential universities and the usual weather patterns of those locations before applying. (It’ll save you later.)