Every kid is different.

For one of ours, location was very important, and they applied ED (and got in) to a great college in that location, and had an ED 2 in mindnfornthat same city if they hadn't gotten I'm (both colleges had their major).

For the other, D1 sports was the most important thing (I know, I know, insert eye-roll here even by their parents), and they went to the best D1 school they got into

So much overthinking here.

Anonymous wrote:We made a similar spreadsheet. DC broke down some of the categories. For example, there was campus size, aesthetic, ability to get around without a car, college town or lack there of, etc. DC focused on the things that would affect their day-to-day over 4 years.

Distance for them was about travel logistics. There may be tons of flights to the closest airport, but then the drive to college is 60-90 more minutes. It takes less time to get to a school in one mid-western city than it does to drive to one in our state, as another example.

We did include tuition, but had a low weighting.

Once DC filled if out, it helped support their gut feeling about which school was right for them. It also made it easier to release schools they liked without second guessing.

Distance is definately something important. Make sure your kid knows how long and what it will cost to get to/from the school. My one kid is at a place 3K miles away and it involves 2 flights. It's an 8 hour day from takeoff to landing on a good day. So in reality a 10-12 hour day. So you are not coming home unless it's at least a 4 day weekend. And it means either a redeye or 6am flight going back to school or leaving at 11am and landing at 11pm.

But the airport at school is 5-7 min drive from the campus. Versus friends who are similar distance who have 2 flights, but it's a 90 min to 2 hour drive to get to/from the airport. It gets very expensive, especially if the "shuttles for $50-75" are not working when you need them (flight delays and it's too late, so you're in a 2 hour uber back to campus for $250