The next factor to take into consideration is the size of the school you want to attend. Whether it be a small college in a big city or a big college in a small city, I will do my best to help you make your decision a little bit easier.

Now, if you are looking at a small college located in a big city you will notice that the student body is a very tight knit community. The less people the more chance to create lasting friendships. Another benefit you will notice is that everything is close together and public transportation can take you there, so you most likely won’t need a car. Being in a big city also means that it’s populated with many diverse shops, foods, and people. On the flip side, it may cost more than other colleges because smaller colleges typically are private and more expensive.

If you want a big school in a big city, like the University of Washington in Seattle, it’ll be easy for you to travel around the city. You will also experience a large and diverse student body with students of all ages from all over the world. The bad part is that you will have to work harder in your first few years of school to acquaint yourself with your professors because class sizes in core undergraduate courses are quite large.  Once you’ve established yourself, though, the larger school will provide you the small group experience in your upper class years and into graduate school, because as you progress, the courses will become more specialized and the class sizes will be smaller.

A small school in a more rural environment such as Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine or John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas can provide you with a peaceful place for you to study and focus on your major in a tight knit community.

A large school in a more rural environment such as University of Massachusetts, Amherst can provide you with big school activities such as Division I level sports in a historic scenic community.  Like the large school in a large city it will have large class sizes in the core courses of the early undergraduate years but more opportunity to progress into a wide range of smaller class size specialized courses as you progress.

As you consider school size, it is important to take into account whether you perform better in small or large classes, whether you want to compete in Division I level sports or smaller school teams, whether you want a city or rural environment and how much diversity you want in subjects to study and in student and faculty populations.

The better you know your needs and preferences related to school size, the easier it will be to identify your top choice schools.