Process the Visits: College Search Part 6

Now that you've visited a bunch of colleges, it's time to process all of the information. I know even visiting one college can put you on overload--at least it did for me!

We used a blackboard and made 3 columns: college name, date of visit, current rank. I intentionally my daughter to be able to change her mind about which college was in first place--or last place. Here's another confession: this list is out of date. Oops.

Anyway, using the college visit score cards created at each visit (see the previous post), kids can rank the colleges currently on their lists. It will probably fluctuate, depending on their moods and what they've just seen. That's not only okay, it's also expected. Don't rush the process; kids need time to process all of these possibilities.

One other side note that I should have put earlier in this series is that the junior year of high school is the perfect time to start going college shopping. Don't wait until your senior year!

Q4U: What are your best college-shopping tricks?