How to Build a College List with Fit, Strategy, and Realistic Options
If you’re currently a high school junior, I don’t need to tell you to start thinking about college. The stress can sometimes be overwhelming… and even paralyzing. Many students treat their college list like a late-stage admin task without realizing how much work goes into this core part of the process. Your list affects campus visits, your early application strategy, essay quality, and how confident you’ll feel heading into the fall of your senior year. A strong list comes from reflection, comparison, and enough lead time to make thoughtful choices.
If you’ve been pushing off establishing a concrete list of schools to which you plan to apply, we’re hoping this post can both kick you into gear and offer some concrete steps to putting together a thoughtful college list.
Start Earlier Than You Think
College applications take time. While some students plan to “shotgun” schools—applying to as many as possible to maximize their chances—we believe this makes the application process a far more strenuous experience than it needs to be. Rather than spend time writing supplemental essays for colleges that a student wouldn’t even enjoy attending, students should give themselves time to learn what they actually want from a school.
Along with doing some boots-on-the-ground research through campus visits, starting early gives you time to read up on different colleges to learn more about what they offer. By putting in the effort to look deeply into schools, you’ll begin to understand what you don’t like about some colleges.
Initial Visits
We’ve covered some preliminary tour guides on our blog before in our guides for Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the DMV, and California. A key point of these tour guides is that your initial tours should be less focused on touring schools you want to attend and more about figuring out what you like from various campuses. Students often discover their preferences only after seeing several schools side by side, and it can take some time to figure out that you would feel more at home in a small liberal arts college, or that you prefer the resources of a massive research university.
That’s why we recommend that your first few tours focus on understanding what different types of schools feel like. Start by visiting a large state school and a small private college near home, even if you don’t plan to apply. Save your travel budget on your target and reach schools, where you are seriously considering the fit or trying to determine which will be your Early Decision, Restricted Early Action, or Single Choice Early Action. For many students, it makes more sense to visit safeties or far-away reaches during Admitted Students Days, after they are accepted.
Casual tours are best used for removing schools from your list. Seeing students on campus and getting a feel for the community will help you know if it’s a good fit. If you realize you don’t like a school’s rural setting or find a school in a city a bit too overwhelming, you’ve saved yourself time and money on potentially several applications.
Explore Broadly
You’ll never know if a school is right for you if you write it off before even giving it a chance. When starting your list, we recommend exploring widely. Your initial list should include a healthy assortment of safe (or likely) schools, match (or target) schools, reach schools, and even a few wild cards.
Likely Schools: These are the schools you’re fairly certain you will be admitted to. Generally, these are schools where a student’s GPA and SAT/ACT scores are higher than the average range of admitted students from the previous application cycle.
To figure out which likely schools to explore, consider the broad qualities you want in a college, regardless of prestige and rankings. If you visited a few big state schools and realized you want a more intimate environment, look for liberal arts colleges that are less well-known but have strong programs in your field of interest. If you know you want a large university with school spirit, you might begin by searching for public universities in your state or neighboring states with strong programs in your intended major. If you feel you would only attend a safety school that’s close to home, it’s a good idea to visit these colleges early, as many less selective schools track demonstrated interest. Plus, it can help you decide which schools you’d genuinely be excited to attend. If you’re itching for a new experience, do some research into likely schools out of state—you may find that there are colleges you’ve never heard of with excellent programs in your field of interest.
Target Schools: Target schools are colleges where you have roughly a 50/50 chance of admission. In some cases, your GPA and SAT/ACT scores may place you near or above the 75th percentile of recently admitted students. That said, this does not automatically make a college a target school. At colleges with acceptance rates below roughly 20–25%, even applicants with very strong academics may still be applying to a reach school, as a student’s activities and extracurriculars play an increasingly significant role at more selective colleges.
To find a few target schools for your preliminary list, start by identifying colleges that match what you want academically and socially. If you already know a few schools you like, search for phrases such as “colleges similar to [school name],” “best undergraduate business schools medium size,” or “research universities with strong pre-med advising.” Then, compare your academic profile to their recently admitted class. If you know you want a strong undergraduate business program, a collaborative pre-med environment, or a school with active research opportunities, begin there rather than searching by selectivity alone. At this stage, the goal is not to decide whether each college is definitively a target, but to build a group of schools that seem promising enough to research more closely later. Pay attention to the school’s culture and priorities. Once you have a few names, check whether your grades and scores seem competitive enough to make them reasonable schools to explore further.
Reach Schools: We often recommend more for students with very competitive profiles. Because no student is guaranteed admission at colleges with sub-15% acceptance rates—colleges are very protective of their yield rates—some students may apply to more reach schools to cast a wider net.
There’s a good chance you already have a few reach schools in mind. To track your reach schools and find more, start by searching for colleges that are especially well known for what you want to study or do. A student interested in political science might search for universities with strong public policy programs, while a future engineer might look into colleges known for undergraduate engineering research. You can also search more broadly using phrases like “top colleges for neuroscience,” “best colleges for economics with undergraduate research,” or “strong pre-med schools on the East Coast.” From there, you can identify colleges that seem especially exciting and add them to the big list, even if you suspect they may be more selective. The point at this stage is not to limit yourself too quickly, but to identify schools that are worth learning more about.
Wild Cards: These are your Ivys and other T20s, or colleges with sub-5% acceptance rates. Even for students with exceptional test scores, grades, course rigor, and resumes, these schools are statistically unpredictable. However, unpredictable does not mean impossible. We encourage students with strong academic records to include at least one of these schools if it excites them.
You likely already know of these schools, but you may not know about them. Even for a preliminary list, it usually makes sense to include only the highly selective schools that genuinely excite you and seem to fit the kind of college experience you want. Searches like “best colleges for interdisciplinary students,” “top universities for undergraduate research in chemistry,” or “colleges with strong humanities and pre-med” can be great starting points.
Start Digging
Once you have a big preliminary list, you’ll want to start cutting it down, and that requires some deeper insight into each college.
Start by combing through the websites of several schools to understand the values each one is looking for. Click past the About Us page. If you’re having trouble navigating the college’s website to find the specific information you’re looking for, feel free to use a search engine like Google and just look up terms like “research opportunities at [insert college name].” We recommend starting with the school’s official website because it’s the information the college is directly providing to the public, which means it matters to them.
To get a deeper feel of the school, you can also attend campus tours, virtual tours, or webinars on the schools you are interested in attending. We also encourage students to seek information outside of the university’s official brochure at this point in the process. Online forums like the subreddits of a college or even social media posts from current students are great sources for understanding a school’s environment, campus life, and culture.
Stay Organized
We recommend making a spreadsheet to keep all the intel you gather organized. Here are some categories to include:
Acceptance Rate, GPA Range, and SAT/ACT Range: Note these statistics for the previous admissions cycle. This will help you determine if a college is a likely, target, or reach school. Because colleges compare students to the context of their environment, it can also help to check scattergrams on your high school Naviance or Scoir account to see where your chances fall compared to peers from your own high school who applied the previous year.
Location: There’s nothing wrong with a location being a deal breaker! You will spend four years of your life in this environment; it should be somewhere that feels like home. If you hate the cold, consider what it would take for a college’s frigid winter to entice you enough to remain on your list. Plus, a lot of success in building your resume throughout college may depend on a school’s location. If you’re looking for a school in or near a city, that’s important to note. Similarly, if you want to study, say, agriculture, proximity to a rural setting might be useful for research and internship opportunities.
Notes Regarding Your Intended Major: This could include requirements to graduate, size of the department, notable professors, and anything else you find unique about the department. What classes can you take here that sound exciting?
Campus Culture: You may gather this from a visit, from the school’s website, or even from scouring forums like Reddit for current student testimonies. How do their students describe the campus culture? Figure out what the community of the college is like, and decide if you see yourself fitting into that culture. Ask yourself: What are my values, and what are the values of the school? Do these values align?
Research, Internship, and Extracurricular Opportunities: It’s a good idea to think about the future. Will graduating from this college help you build a resume that will enrich your future career prospects? Are the opportunities hyper competitive? Does the research currently being done at the school excite you? What clubs or organizations can you join on campus? Is it hard to get into these clubs, or can anyone sign up? Consider what your goals are, and note how the resources at the school could help you achieve them.
Honors Options: These are especially important for your likely schools. Many less selective colleges offer honors programs that grant high-achieving students access to advanced coursework, special internship opportunities, unique living communities, and more. In many cases, these programs include merit scholarships for admitted honors students.
Scholarship Opportunities: In some cases, colleges have specific scholarships that students must apply for to be considered for any merit aid. It’s a good idea to know when the deadlines for these scholarships are so that you can plan ahead.
Application Information: Note the dates for different application deadlines (including for early options like Early Decision or Early Action), how many supplemental essays the application requires, how many letters of recommendation they accept, and whether or not they require official SAT/ACT scores to be sent before you are admitted. Most colleges will allow students to self-report their test scores, but a few require students to submit an official score for their application to be considered.
Trim Ruthlessly
Students should aim to narrow and finalize their list before essay season begins.
Since the summer is the best time to start writing those college application essays, this means you should aim to have your list finalized in June. The research process required for this will come in handy later—all of the notes you gather on different colleges will help you write stronger, more tailored supplemental essays. It will also help you make better early-round decisions and avoid carrying too many weak-fit schools into application season.
As you trim your list, don’t hold back. It can be tempting to keep colleges on your list whose names come with enticing prestige, but if they do not fit your goals, there’s a good chance they are not worth the time and money it will require to complete the application. Colleges, just like students, care about fit. They don’t want to admit students whom they feel are not a strong fit for the campus culture, academic structure, or campus values.
For example, let’s say you are applying as an engineering major and have clearly gone out of your way to only pursue STEM activities, bulked your class schedule with solely courses relevant to your intended major, and generally seem to avoid humanities subjects, even if you still do well in those classes. An admissions officer at a college like Columbia University might question if you are a strong fit for their Core Curriculum, which they identify as the defining element of a Columbia College education. Even for Columbia Engineering students, those Core classes still account for roughly one-fourth of their total coursework. Not only will an admissions officer be skeptical of an applicant whose profile implies they wouldn’t enjoy this requirement, but you also need to ask yourself: Will you be excited to attend, knowing this is a vital part of the experience and culture of their undergraduate college?
If the answer is no, save yourself the time. More college applications can dilute the amount of research you can do into the colleges you are most excited about, and you want to give yourself bandwidth to write strong, tailored essays for each college on your list. The more you know about a school, the easier it will be to avoid applying to schools for which you’re not a good fit, or to frame yourself as a good fit on your application to the colleges you do apply for.
Your ED, SCEA, and REA Strategy
In our Post-Ivy Day Debrief, we discussed the importance of applying early to colleges. Here, we’re going to discuss what that means in the context of selecting your Early Decision, Single-Choice Early Action, or Restrictive Early Action College.
First, let’s cover what each of these means:
Early Decision (ED): ED is binding; a student admitted under ED must attend. As a result, ED rounds often appear more favorable on paper than other early options, though the size of that advantage varies by college and by applicant pool. ED usually does not, by itself, block you from filing ordinary non-binding EA applications elsewhere. UPenn, for example, explicitly says ED applicants may still apply to non-binding or EA programs at other institutions, but students still need to check the other colleges’ policies. Georgetown is a good example of why: Georgetown’s EA policy does not allow a student to apply simultaneously to another school’s ED program.
Single-Choice Early Action (SCEA) and Restrictive Early Action (REA): REA/SCEA are not binding. If admitted, you still have until May 1 to decide whether to attend. However, these plans often come with more restrictions on where else you can apply early. Yale says SCEA applicants may not also apply through EA or ED to other colleges except for a few specific exceptions, such as certain public-university or rolling-admission programs. Harvard similarly states that REA applicants may not apply to any other private institution under ED, EA, or REA.
Why Your Early First-Choice School Matters
ED is more restrictive in commitment, while REA/SCEA can be more restrictive in early-round flexibility. If you apply to a college under Early Decision, you can still apply Early Action to most colleges, so long as those EA colleges do not have any restrictions surrounding their EA plans. In other words, the ED agreement itself usually is not what blocks ordinary EA applications. The possible conflict often comes from the other school’s policy.
Your entire application essay-writing schedule might revolve around this decision. While your Early Decision 2 (ED2) choice typically does not impact the remaining colleges on your list, as the rest will be Regular Decision applications, your ED, REA, or SCEA plan can change what needs to be ready by November 1. Knowing those restrictions ahead of time helps you decide which essays to prioritize and which colleges to keep in your early round.
All of the research you did can help you choose your ED/REA/SCEA strategy sooner, as well as allow you to plan out your application essay-writing calendar.
Goals for Your Final List
How many colleges should be on your final list? Well, that depends. There is no magic number that works for every student, because the right list will look different for each student depending on their academic profile, their goals, their risk tolerance, and how they want to approach the admissions process.
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
How ambitious or bullish do you want to be?
If a student is set on applying to highly selective colleges—especially if they are aiming for T20 schools—their final list will often be longer. That is simply because the admissions process at those colleges is so unpredictable, even for very strong applicants. For these students, casting a wider net among reach schools is worth it, so long as they understand what that strategy entails: more supplements, more research, more time, and often more rejection.
What is your risk tolerance?
Some students are comfortable taking bigger swings, even if it means they may have very few attractive options by the spring. Others want to build a list that gives them more predictability and peace of mind. For example, if a student is applying Early Decision to a school that feels like a realistic stretch rather than an impossible long shot—say, a school where they have a meaningful chance of admission—the rest of the list can often be somewhat shorter. That is especially true if the student has also been thoughtful in choosing targets and likely schools they would be happy to attend.
What are your goals?
A T20-or-Bust student’s final list may look very different from that of a student who is seeking to maximize fit and opportunity. Some students may choose to build a list with a very high number of reaches, a small number of targets, and only one likely school. That is a valid choice, but it should be made consciously. Students taking that approach need to be comfortable with the possibility that, by the spring, their only options may be one target school, if that, and their likely school or schools.
Standard Recommendation
In general, we recommend two to three likely schools, four or five targets, and four or five reach schools.
The number of target schools may be higher for students who want more options to choose from come spring, but a list of around thirteen schools is often a strong place to land.
Wild cards are a separate conversation, though, as they are not a category every student needs in the same way. For some students—especially those with very strong academic profiles, distinctive extracurriculars, and a genuine interest in the most selective colleges—it may make sense to include a few. For others, wild cards may not be worth the additional essay-writing burden they can require; applications for T20s tend to be some of the longest and most time-consuming. Because these schools are so unpredictable, students should add them only if they would be truly excited to attend and are prepared for the possibility of rejection.
In other words, a final list should reflect the range of outcomes you are genuinely prepared to accept rather than where a student hopes to get in. If you’re a student who wants more certainty, you may build a list with stronger target and likely options. If you’re comfortable with uncertainty, you may devote more space to reaches and wild cards. Neither approach is automatically right or wrong, but each comes with tradeoffs.
A strong final list leaves room for ambition without sacrificing realistic options. Most importantly, it should include colleges you would actually be happy to attend, not just colleges you feel you should apply to.
