Too many students wait until senior year to start thinking seriously about where they want to apply to college—only to find themselves overwhelmed and unprepared. In this guide, we’ll walk you through a step-by-step strategy for building a smart, balanced college list that sets you up for success: more acceptances, stronger scholarship offers, and a less stressful senior year.
Developing a working college list no later than junior year, and finalizing it before senior year begins, is what sets the most competitive applicants apart. If there's one thing about college admissions that high school students should learn upfront, it's that all roads in high school lead from where you intend to apply to college. The colleges on your list will determine:
- The minimum GPA you should aim for
- Which standardized tests to take and what scores you need
- How many essays you will need to write
- What kind of scholarship opportunities may be available
- Which other application deliverables you may need to prepare
- Application/testing/scholarship deadlines
- and much more!
Whether you're a sophomore or a senior, it's never too early to start thinking about where you aspire to attend college, and how you can start building your application assets to be a competitive candidate by the time you apply. In this post, we'll explain our five-step process to building your ideal college application list.
Table of Contents
- Step 1: Start Early
- Step 2: Consider Your Assets and Preferences
- Step 3: Research Colleges
- Step 4: Develop Your Preliminary College List
- Step 5: Finalize Your College List
Step 1: Start Early
It's never too early to begin exploring colleges during high school, but we recommend we recommend students begin researching colleges and building their college lists no later than the spring of junior year. The earlier you start to identify colleges you are interested in, the more time you'll have to make strategic changes to your coursework, academic performance, testing plans, and extracurricular participation. Finalizing your college list prior to senior year also unlocks time for you to work on applications during senior year. Let's explore a few examples.
Benefits to Identifying Your College List Early for Freshman, Sophomores, and Juniors
Changing Your Coursework
Identifying colleges early allows you to tailor your high school course curriculum. For example, the University of Washington requires freshman applicants to have taken certain courses throughout their high school career. Knowing prior to the end of your junior year that UW requires 2 credits of World Languages and 0.5 credits of Fine, Visual, or Performing Arts would enable you to plan your senior year coursework to meet those requirements.
Adjusting Your Academic Performance
Of all the things college admissions officers evaluate in your application, your high school grades by far carry the most weight. And the further you go in high school, the harder it becomes to improve your cumulative GPA. Knowing your target GPA earlier in high school makes it more likely you'll be able to achieve it, especially if your target GPA is higher than your current GPA. You can download our free GPA calculator to take a look at how your personal GPA may change throughout high school depending on your performance. Here's an illustrative example:
Note: Generally, admissions committees give your most recent grades more weight in their evaluation. Accordingly, even if you can't improve your cumulative GPA all the way to the median for the colleges you're interested in by the end of junior year, it's still worth demonstrating your strongest possible performance between now and when you submit an application.
👉 Need help keeping your grades up? Check out our academic tutoring programs!
Benefits of Identifying Your College List Early for Juniors and Rising Seniors
Finishing college research no later than the summer after junior year can also help to reduce stress and make time management easier during senior year, when students are already juggling senior year coursework, extracurricular activities, and college applications. For juniors and seniors, some additional advantages to starting early include:
Getting a Head Start on Application Materials
Identifying colleges early means you can also identify which applications they use and the specific application requirements you will be responsible for, such as letters of recommendation and SAT/ACT tests. For example, if any of your colleges of interest use the Common Application, you can start working on your main Common App essay during the summer before senior year. The Common Application usually publishes the following year’s essay prompts by August 1 (i.e. the prompts for students applying in 2024/25 were released in August 2024). Developing your personal statement is one of the most important aspects of the college application process, so knowing the essay prompts for your target schools in advance—and therefore having more time to brainstorm and plan your writing—will benefit you significantly during the application process.
👉 Interested in getting a head start on your college applications? Check out our 3-Day Application Express Workshop for rising seniors!
Scheduling College Visits
If you have a preliminary college list compiled by the end of junior year, you'll have the opportunity to use your spring or summer breaks to visit colleges of interest or attend special preview days. If a college visit trip is feasible for you, it can be a useful way to test your assumptions about what you value in a college, allowing you to refine and ultimately finalize your college list with confidence.
Step 2: Consider Your Assets and Preferences
The two primary factors you need to consider when beginning your college research are:
- Your preexisting academic (GPA and coursework), testing (baseline or target scores on the SAT/ACT), and extracurricular assets
- Your personal preferences and "must-have" criteria in a college
Factor 1: Your Academic, Testing, and Extracurricular Assets
Your Academic Track Record and Coursework
Be realistic in terms of how your academic profile compares to the norms for your colleges of interest. To start, if you're not already a senior, consider your current cumulative GPA and how it could potentially change by the end of the spring semester of your junior year. How does that projected GPA compare to the averages for admitted students at the types of colleges you are interested in? For example, if your projected cumulative GPA at the end of junior year is a 3.5, then you’ll want to avoid building a college list that consists only of schools where the average GPA for admitted students is significantly higher—like 3.75 or above—without also including match or likely options. (See Step 4: Developing Your List for a discussion about including a mix of "reach," "match," and "likely" colleges on your list.)
Likewise, be aware of how your high school coursework relates to the curriculum requirements or expectations for the colleges you're targeting. For example, if you are interested in applying to highly competitive STEM schools such as CalTech, but you aren’t on track to take advanced math classes (like AP Calculus) by the end of high school, you may need to adjust your plans to accelerate your math coursework. Some colleges, like University of Washington and the University of California system, also require entering freshmen to have completed a specific number of credits in various academic categories—which may differ from your high school's graduation requirements—in order to even apply.
Your Standardized Testing Results and Plans
Developing your college list early will also enable you to develop your junior and senior year testing strategy. Knowing which colleges you are interested in (or, at the very least, what type of colleges—e.g., Ivy League, competitive liberal arts, or WUE schools), will help you to set your target SAT/ACT score, determine what level of preparation will be required to achieve the improvement you need, and decide when and how many times you should take those tests. The earlier you develop your target SAT/ACT score, the more time you will have to prepare, take the SAT/ACT, and, if necessary, further prepare and retake the SAT/ACT.
👉 Wondering whether you even need to test? Take a look at our blog post Do the SAT and ACT Still Matter in 2025?
Your Extracurricular Portfolio
Your portfolio of extracurricular activities is one of the application assets that is the particularly difficult to improve or expand once you are already a senior. Students interested in applying to highly selective colleges (which tend to scrutinize extracurricular participation more closely than less competitive schools) should be progressively building their extracurricular resume starting as early as freshman or sophomore year of high school.
Earlier in high school, students should focus on breadth of extracurriculars as a mechanism to explore potential major/career interests. Later in high school, students should focus on depth, becoming more closely involved in a handful of activities, including taking leadership positions and developing recommendations with activity sponsors, such as teachers or coaches, who may serve as effective recommendation writers.
Some colleges look for applicants to demonstrate certain values through their extracurricular participation. For example, the mission of Claremont McKenna College (a competitive private liberal arts college) is to “prepare students for thoughtful and responsible leadership,” so competitive applicants would want to plan ahead to ensure their extracurricular activities demonstrate leadership experiences, as well as target their application essays accordingly.
Factor 2: Your Personal Preferences and "Must-Have" Criteria in a College
Intended Major
While many students ultimately enter college as “undecided” in terms of their intended major, having at least a general of an idea about what you want to major in (e.g., STEM vs. humanities vs. business) will help you to narrow your scope of college research.
Some majors are likely to be offered at most 4-year universities (e.g., English, biology, and psychology), but more niche majors (e.g., biomedical engineering, nursing, and international relations) may be available at a narrower band of colleges. There’s little point in applying to a college that lacks academic programs that interest you. Thus, narrowing down your major interests is also an important factor in identifying your colleges of interest.
Other Criteria
- Location: Geographic region, weather, urban/suburban/rural
- Size: Big state school? Small private college? Somewhere in between? Preferences on class sizes (faculty/student ratio) and whether general education classes are taught by professors or teaching assistants?
- Campus Environment: Big party school? Popular athletics? Greek life? Intellectual/research atmosphere? Religious affiliation? Faculty credentials?
- Academic Programs: Reputation for specific academic programs you’re interested in? Undergraduate research? Internship and study abroad opportunities?
- Extracurricular Activities: Athletics, clubs, volunteering, worship
- Cost: Don't rule out a school with a high "sticker price" until you have weighed how much financial aid (in the form of grants, scholarships, and loans) you can receive.
- Retention/Graduation Rates: What percentage of freshmen return to their school for their sophomore year (retention rate)? What percentage successfully go on to graduate?
- Diversity: Ethnic, racial, geographic, gender, religious, and other make-up of student and staff
- Ranking/Selectivity: We don't recommend focusing your college list around perceived prestige or (often uninformative) rankings. Your future success will, in large part, be determined not by where you go to college, but by what you do while you’re there. However, if ranking is important to you, then acknowledge this, and still plan to ultimately compile a list with an appropriate mix of "reach," "match," and "likely" schools (see more below)
Step 3: Research Colleges
Once you have a general sense of your academic, testing, and extracurricular assets (from Step 1) and your selection criteria (from Step 2), it's time to research colleges to determine which ones fit the bill. College research can simultaneously be one of the most exciting and frustrating parts of the list-building process. With so many resources available, it can be easy to get overwhelmed with all of the options. Here are the main preliminary resources we recommend to students embarking on the college search process.
Expert Guidance
Your high school counselor may be able share resources with you such as websites, books, and marketing materials directly from colleges, or let you know when admissions representatives are coming to visit your school—but particularly at public schools, they may not have much time to engage with you in detailed, one-on-one conversations, or have up-to-date knowledge about a wide range of colleges.
On the other hand, an independent college consultant, someone with certification in college counseling who is a member of a professional organization like IECA or NACAC, is more likely to have the time, resources, and targeted expertise to help you navigate the college research process.
👉 Need help building your list or planning your testing strategy? Explore our college admissions counseling programs.
Family and Friends
Recommendations from family, friends, and acquaintances are often the first step in thinking about what colleges a student might be interested in. First-hand knowledge is a great resource, but you also want to consider the source. For example, the experience of a parent, who attended a particular university 20+ years ago, may not be representative of what that university is like today. Likewise, the perfect school for your best friend is unlikely to be the perfect school for you.
Internet
The wealth of information available online can be both a benefit and risk. We’ve linked a few helpful online resources and databases below that can assist you in the college search process.
- College Board - Big Future
- Alaska Career Information System (AKCIS)
- U.S. News & World Report lists (education)
Additional Resources
Books written by college admissions experts can be a useful resource, as they may provide a narrative for the college research/application process or aggregate and organize vast amounts information about colleges. Be careful to pay attention to the publication date, as the college admissions landscape changes from year to year.
Annual college fairs or information sessions at your high school can be useful opportunities to not only learn about colleges, but also to demonstrate your interest in a college you're already targeting by speaking with an admissions representative.
Step 4: Develop Your Preliminary College List
While your research may continue throughout the application process, at some point (ideally during junior year or early in the summer before senior year), you will need to start adding schools to a preliminary list of 10-20 colleges where you are interested in applying. While there’s no perfect way to develop your preliminary college list, there are two important factors to consider when deciding whether to add a school to your preliminary list: admission competitiveness and application timing.
Admission Competitiveness - "Reach", "Match", and "Likely"
As a starting point, you need to make sure your preliminary and final college lists include a mix of reach, match, and likely schools. Whether a school is a reach, match, or likely for you depends on how your “numbers”—your GPA, the rigor of your coursework, and your SAT/ACT Test scores—stack up relative to the norms for that school. In other words, what kind of grades and test scores do admitted applicants at that school demonstrate?
- A college is a likely for you if your “numbers” fall above the norms for that school – in other words, you are likely to be admitted
- A college is a match for you if your “numbers” are similar to the norms for that school – your chances might be approximately 50/50 at that college
- A college is a reach for you if your “numbers” fall below the norms for that school. You should consider all highly competitive colleges (those admitting fewer than 20% of their applicants, including all Ivy League institutions) as reach schools
If your list is comprised only of Ivy League or highly competitive colleges—no matter your academic and extracurricular credentials—you are likely receive a higher number of rejections, fewer options to choose from, and fewer or less generous scholarship offers. On the flip side, if you apply to a well-balanced and thoughtful selection of colleges, you should be positioned to decide among ample admission and financial aid offers—and potentially be able to leverage different schools' aid offers against each other as part of your negotiations.
Application Timing
You should also be considering the application deadlines (and supplemental materials required) at the colleges where you are interested in applying. Are you intending to applying during the Early Decision/Early Action periods (deadlines typically in November) for any colleges? If so, you will need to begin the application process much sooner, ensuring your testing plans have concluded, you’ve secured your letters of recommendation, and you have developed, revised, and finalized your supplemental essays prior to the application deadlines.
Note: You can apply to only one college under Early Decision or Restrictive Early Action—but many students apply to multiple colleges under non-restrictive Early Action, where allowed.
Step 5: Finalize Your College List
For most students, we recommend applying to 6-8 colleges, with a mix of reach, match, and likely schools. However, for students interested primarily in Ivy League/highly selective colleges, we often advise applying to 10-12 colleges in order to maximize a student’s potential acceptances and financial aid offers. On the flip side, if you're interested primarily in state universities with high admit rates, and your GPA and test scores exceed the applicant standard at those schools, you may be safe applying to only 4-5 colleges. As you narrow down your list of 10-20 colleges from Step 4, some final factors that may affect which—and how many—colleges should appear on your final list include:
Time and Energy
How much time do you have to devote to the application process? While the Common Application has made applying to numerous schools much easier, depending on how many colleges appear on your final list, you may still have to write dozens of unique essays as part of the individual college applications.
Additionally, if you need to further improve your SAT/ACT scores for a particular college, consider the time and energy required to do so when evaluating whether to include that college on your final list.
Senior year is already a busy time for students, so adding significant burdens for applications can add significant stress. This is another reason why we advise students to finalize their college lists and begin working on applications and any remaining testing requirements during the spring or junior year or summer before senior year.
Application Costs
Most colleges charge a fee to submit applications, in the range of $50 - $100 each. Even if you are using the Common Application to apply to multiple colleges, or are applying to multiple campuses using the same application (ex: University of California), you will have to pay a fee for each application submitted to individual colleges.
👉 Want help finalizing your college list and strategy? Check out our College List Package to begin the process with the help of a certified college admissions counselor!
