The Insider: College Admissions Advice from the Experts

How to make Picking a College Less Stressful for High School Juniors

As the calendar turned from 2013 to 2014, a new wave of juniors around the country began to feel the college application process accelerate. In addition to looming deadlines, many high school juniors are stressing about how to pick a college that suits their needs. This year, your junior will write all of his essays and all the drafts that go with it. He’ll sit for an SAT or two, or three. He will build his college list from scratch, narrow down his choices, add a handful of new schools at the last minute, eliminate some old favorites, and finally settle on his ideal list. You’ll find yourself on school campuses here and there, taking notes on tour guides, critiquing their grace as they introduce you to their school while gesturing wildly at campus monuments and walking backwards. In one year, the majority of the application process will be over, whether it’s handled flawlessly or imperfectly. But there are a few things you can do to help save some stress around your household.

In part one of our two-part series, we discussed three significant factors on which schools are graded by the US News and World Report in their annual college rankings. Today, we pick up where we left off, covering each of the three categories that have the least impact on USNWR rankings before tackling the biggest and most problematic factor in their methodology.

The annual college rankings from US News and World Report (USNWR) were released this week in the wake of an announcement about subtle new changes to the magazine’s methodology. For better or worse, these rankings inspire a great deal of conversation about the quality of American higher education, and influence big choices made by students and their families. We’re here to break down that methodology in order to help students and families determine what to tune out, and what to turn up.