How to pick the right college?

What are primary reasons to select the right college for you and once you do what is the next step? There are so many factors involved with selecting the right college that seem to get overlooked during the decision making process. The default takes on many forms resulting it’s where mom and dad went to school, it’s the best engineering school in the country, it’s not too far away from home and so on. Think about it for the next 4 -5 years you are going to be engaged in the best and worst years of your young adult life is that really enough to base so an important decision on? What about things like a feeling of safety, financial assistance, study programs, graduation statistics,  tuition and related cost compared to colleges of equal or similar rankings for your educational goals, size of student body and acceptance criteria. This is not to complicate matter’s, it’s more of an overall assessment of your targeted college to determine how many of these factors would get a thumbs up. Selecting the right college is a substantial commitment of time and money.  Making the right choice should at a minimum meet with objectives required to view the experience as a successful one.