Expert: Todd Johnson - 5/26/2009

Question
I am a 17 year old junior and i am trying to figure out what type of college i want to go to. I don't want to go to an all black school because i will be like everyone else and i don't want to go to an all white school cause i would stand out to much. I want to find a college that would have a mixture of students but i don't know where to start. i also have an issue about the size of the college because i don't want it small or big and i don't know if i want to go to a city school or a suburd school

Answer
Monica,

Thank you for writing. Finding the right college involves a lot of decisions about what you are looking for in a college. It sounds as if you have already given this some thought. Because you have already made some important decisions about what you want from a college I would suggest that you go to the College Board website and use their college matchmaker tool.

This tool allows you to search for colleges based on specific criteria including the percent of minority students at a college. While this will include all minorities you will generally find that there is a good mix of the different minorities. Also, when you look at a specific college at the college board website it will breakdown the percentages of each minority.

As to size this is another option that you can choose with college matchmaker. You will probably want the medium size which is 2,000 to 15,000 students.

Finally, if you are from a large city or live near one, I don't think it will make much difference whether you are actually in the city or in the suburbs. Many campuses that are not in a large city will have so many things going on on campus that you will not miss much not being right in the city. And if there is public transportation available from the suburbs it shouldn't make any difference itself.

Good luck in the search for the right college for you.