Like many of the folks above, my list is continually changing - I hope to visit a few of the Chicago, New England schools in the next few weeks to help narrow the list. I tried doing a lot of what folks in this thread and others suggested, looking at criteria like:
- fit at school
- desire to live where school x is located for 2 years
- region where school is located and how it ties with jobs possible post-graduation
- identification of relative strengths/weaknesses of various schools and how they tie in with personal short/long term goals
- etc!
I've discovered the following:
- I can pretty much live anywhere - I actually like winter, don't mind the midwest (have been here for 3 years), love either coast - so geographic location is of minimal importance.
- I'd ideally like to attend a school that falls more into the "community" bucket than "commuter"; this is not a reason to remove schools from the list for me - I know that even for most "commuter" schools, there's the possibility of living on campus, near campus, etc.
- I'd like the schools on my list to definitely be strong in: MC and/or healthcare mgmt
- As of now, I have no particular direction on where I'd like to live post-graduation - so really, the considerations of choosing a midwestern school for the midwest or southern for the south are also out.
So I'm still at the drawing board it seems - the next criteria to translate is fit
I wish there was some kind of algorithm that could help with this - it would ask probing multiple-choice questions about some of the key considerations that go into making the list and then based on your choices, it would spit out a list of schools for you to consider!
Will keep y'all posted as the list develops,
Cheerio,
AC.