Admissions

Applying is the most important step in getting to colleges. You must select your schools carefully, taking into account your abilities, interests, and needs. The whole college admissions process is really just a means of finding a good match: you do your research by investigating colleges and universities your friends, parents, guidance counselors, and teachers have suggested; you distill the list to the ones that seem to be right for your personality, intellectual ability, and academic goals; and then you apply to them.

As you learn about the college admission process, you will see that there is nothing sacrosanct about admissions policies. Who gets into selective colleges depends largely on who applies in a given year. Admission criteria, particularly at private schools, are rarely set in concrete, and often change from year to year to reflect the quality of the applicant pool and the nature of the school's needs...

Finally, despite fantasies to the contrary, admissions officers are human. They have biases, preferences, bad days, weak moments, flashes of insight, and more than occasional feelings of compassion. They recognize-and you should as well- that the admissions process is imperfect. People make mistakes. Still, in general, the admissions process works. And you can make it work for you.

— The book Getting In! by Steven Cohen and Paulo de Riveria

There are approximately 3,500 colleges and universities in the United States - and, like the students who attend them, they're all different and offer different amenities. They are private and public, large and small, located in cities and small towns. Some are church-related, others are not. Some offer the liberal arts and sciences,while others are specialized or technical.