(See the list for 2022 at the end of the post.) What are the hardest colleges to get into? Anyone going through the college admissions process can’t help but ask the question at least once. It’s a lot like visiting a Parade of Homes that you know you’ll never afford or maybe like rubbernecking while driving past a car wreck on the freeway-which ever analogy works for you. Of course, you can just look at US News College Rankings and get a pretty good idea. And that’s the point, everything in the media seems to reinforce the perception that exclusivity equals quality. Even if when we know better, we can’t help but feel insecure when we choose a lesser-known college.
126 Hardest Colleges to Get Into
A college comparison spreadsheet is really the most effective way to narrow your list of colleges you want to actually apply to. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s pretty useful when trying to make the final decision on which to attend as well. It’s just that I think that by putting in a little spreadsheet grease at the beginning of the process will provide you with much more affordable choices at the end of the process. The key is to make sure that your college comparison spreadsheet contains these 5 often overlooked pieces of information that will give you some idea of how much you’ll pay for college.
(The Cheapest Out-of-State Colleges List has been updated for the latest data available in September of 2022.) Back when I was a freshman attending a rather large state university in Austin, Texas, I ran into quite a few students (relatively speaking) from the state of New York. They told me that they were attending college in Texas because our out-of-state tuition was cheaper than their in-state tuition. I only saw them that one year because the following year, the legislature raised out-of-state tuition and Texas was no longer as appealing to New Yorkers as it once was.
The best bets for college merit scholarships aren’t necessarily schools you have heard of. But if you’re serious about looking for an affordable education at a good college, does it matter? Don’t think you’ll qualify for any significant need-based financial aid? Then it’s time to begin looking beyond the rankings and paying attention to the data that tells you how much money schools are giving students.
With all the pressure on high school students to create a perfect college list, they really aren’t given the opportunity to develop the skills to do so. It’s the sort of situation that most students will do only once. How often can you “practice” deciding which colleges to apply to? It’s not the same as practicing taking the ACT or SAT. How do you learn to create a list of colleges to apply to?
