College Rank Optimizer
Get Accepted To Your Dream School
Introduction
Deciding which colleges are the best fit is often one of the trickiest parts of the application process. Whether you have an established college list and a first choice university in mind or you have no idea where you wish to apply, the college optimizer will help you think thoroughly about what you want out of your college experience, and help you find the perfect fit.
First Steps
Take a few minutes to think about how each of the following factors will impact your college experience, and consider how important each one is to you on a scale of 1-10. Some of these factors might not matter to you at all, while others might play a large role in your decision making process. Either way, after ranking each factor, you are prepared for the next step.
- Overall Academics
- Major(s) / Program of Study
- Minors / Certificates
- Honors College / Programs
- Scholarships / Financial Aid
- Post-Graduation Success
- Prestige
- Location
- Weather
- Size
- Campus Culture
- Extracurriculars
- Sports
- Student Run Clubs
- Greek Life
- Study Abroad
- Housing and Dining Requirements / Options
- Anything important to you outside this list
Utilizing The Optimizer
- Enter student name in Row 3
- Enter up to 10 college names in Row 5
- Decide which variables in Column A are important to your decision and add any additional variables in the cell below
- Rate each variable you’ve selected from 1-100% in Column B. The higher the percentage, the more important the value. The variables you choose must add up to exactly 100%. For example, if Prestige, Weather, Size, Location, and Extracurriculars all have equal importance, then each variable should be given an importance factor of 20%. You can use as many or as few variables as you’d like as long as they add up to 100%.
- For each variable given an importance factor, give each school a score of 0-10 based on that specific factor. For example, you may give the University of Florida a weather score of 8 and Cornell a 3. You will need to rate each school for each variable with you’ve assigned an importance factor from 1-10.
- Once completed, your school choices will be ranked by weighted average at the bottom of the page.
