College Counselors: Share this blog and tool with your students to help them identify what factors are most important to them in choosing a college and to evaluate how each one they visit measures up.
Visiting and exploring colleges is a whirlwind experience. After all of the excitement, new people, and new places you’ll encounter during your college visits, it can be difficult to remember the details when it’s time to consider your options. 
Using the College Rating Tool, you can record and compare your ratings on a variety of topics for all of the schools that you visit. Make your choice with confidence, based on the factors that are most important to you. With the College Rating Tool in hand, you are sure to choose the right college.
Here’s How the College Rating Tool Works
The process is simple, and very effective. After you visit a school, you’ll rate it in 8 key categories spanning the whole college experience. You choose the weight of each category, so that your most important categories factor more heavily into your final calculation. In the end, you’ll have a quantifiable answer to the question, “Is this the right college right for me?”
- The eight categories you’ll be rating are Environment, Security, Academic Programs, Housing & Facilities, Prestige/Legacy/Ranking, Cost, Location, and Gut Feeling.
- You will assign each category a score from 1 to 5, with 5 being most desirable.
- In the beginning, each category has the same weight. Adding weight to a category is basically like adding a multiplier, and you can choose to weight each category from 1 to 5.
- If you weight a category at 5 and also rate it a 5 for a given school, then it essentially counts for 25 points. A category that’s weighted 1 and rated 5, on the other hand, would count for 5 points in your final tally.
- If the weighting system has your head spinning, don’t worry. It will be much easier when you look at it in the context of the College Rating Tool.
- The end result is a rating that reflects your score for each category, along with the level of importance of the category personally. From there, comparing your options is quick and easy.
Are you big on academic opportunities, but not so worried about where your college is located? Weight academic programs at 5 and location at 1 so that your rankings align with your priorities. The same process works no matter where you choose to place your focus.
One of the biggest challenges with comparing colleges is that all of the online rankings you find reflect the opinions of other people. Those rankings might help you narrow down the list of schools you’ll visit, but ultimately they don’t say much about how you would rank each school. The College Rating Tool puts the focus on you.
Kathie Boozer is the founder and president of Explore Colleges, a premier college group tour operator. Explore Colleges’ customized tours help students experience the unique cultures, environments, and opportunities on each campus and inspire them to follow their dreams. Contact Kathie at kboozer@explorecolleges.org
