Thanks. Yeah, I think the "Safety", "Good chance", and "Reach/Dream School" approach works well. You cover enough ground and don't risk potentially underselling yourself.

Realistically, you won't maintain close friendships with your high school friends even if they are attending your same college. They will likely be very interested in branching out and meeting NEW people.

If you plan on living on campus, you should be fine in striking up new friendships quickly. During your freshman year, everyone is very eager to extend a hand and offer a greeting. You can and should take advantage of this moment. Become very involved and very social early on to secure friendships. Involvement in clubs will also help.

Being far from home, though, is a different issue. I'm from California and was considering either Johns Hopkins (Maryland) or Vanderbilt (Tennessee). I picked Vanderbilt because I have an older sibling who lives nearby and I felt that I needed a bit of a support system. Living in Maryland was a bit too much of a risk at the time. You may feel the same way. You can make new friends, but it's different not having your family nearby.

Edit: BUT definitely apply to some local schools if you believe you may want to stay closer to home and if you really would like to be near your high school friends.

Visiting the school is the most important aspect in searching for a potential university to attend. You might as well since you'll be living there for 4 years. Also ignore negative reviews of schools.

A support system is great, but don't limit yourself because of it. You'll make new friends. Do you have college counsellors at your school? I know I was in asking questions to mine like everyday to make sure I was picking the right university. I applied to TONS of schools so I would have choices; the extra work was definitely worth it!

University works differently here in Australia. I'm in my last year of high-school at the moment. I start the HSC exams in October and finish in early November. They use your school assessment in combination with the HSC to determine your ATAR score. Each course has it's own ATAR-requirement that you need to meet in order to apply to do that specific course. The more demand for the course, the higher the score. So basically, I can't apply to any university until I've done all the exams, assessments and have got the results. I think the system is so different to America, where they take into account everything from Freshman to Senior year right? Here in Australia, it all comes down to how well you perform in your final year. There are pros and cons with that. I did really well from grade 9 to 11. So it kind of sucks that it's only grade 12 that matters, considering the workload is much greater and more difficult. Anyway, I have two universities in mind that I want to apply for.

Y'all. There's a senior going to the college by the beach that someone told me I'd fit into perfectly, andd she got basically a full ride. The good thing is that my grades & SAT scores are both a good biit higher than hers, so that's exciting

I know exactly which school you are talking about when you say "college by the beach".The parentals want me to go to the ratchet HBCU in my hometown but I dislike that school.If I was to transfer,I would go to their rival school instead.

UNCW
I don't know if I wanna go there though. Like, it's beautiful, and I LIVE for Wilmington (our beach house is like 30 minutes away) but I wanna aim for better schools.

Knew it,and yes Wilmington is a beautiful place.

Also,Location should also be a factor in choosing schools.9ie places that surround the campus.

Gurl, your post reminded me of this, so let me ask the wise ATRL gurlz.
Is it dumb that I kinda plan to choose a college and then choose my major from what they have to offer? Like, I mean I don't have anything specific in mind. The only thing I know is that I'm interested, at this point, in Psychology, Business, Finance, Engineering, etc, etc. I'm good at math, and I kinda like it too, so I feel it'd be a waste to not go into something that's at least somewhat math-reliant.

I used to go to a small college. It was fine the first few months, but it was all downhill from there. Glad I transfered.

Not really,BUT you gotta watch how many times you change your major when you're there.Different majors have different requirements and if you keep changing majors,you're gonna end up prolonging your stay at College.

Another tip: check to see if your major is offered at at the school.

This really only applies if it's something extremely specialized or something that wouldn't be commonly found at most schools. For example, If you want to work in the fashion industry, some schools may not have anything relevant at all. Cornell, though, has a major in Textiles.

My school doesn't have a Marketing major. Instead, it has a Communication Studies major with 2 marketing courses.