By Patosha Jeffery

During the spring, I held a recruiting seminar for my team. During the seminar and throughout the rest of our season, I preached to create your list of schools. As I continued to think about the task of creating a list of colleges that you are interested in attending, it really is not as easy as it sounds. Most kids, players, parents, coaches are only familiar with their local schools or teams that they hear about on TV, like ESPN.

I know there are a lot of schools and opportunities available. So, I was thinking. How can I make this process easy for people? I did some research and found a nice article and tools on the College Board website.

Here are the College Board’s 5 Tips to Creating a College List:

STEP 1: Ask yourself some questions
Answering questions like these will help focus your college search:

• What am I interested in?
• How do I spend my free time?
• What do I feel passionate about?
• How do I learn best?
• What do I think I want to do in the future?

Step 2: Get to know the options

Visit College Search Step-by-Step, where you can learn about basic college categories and answer questions about your preferences. You’ll also find in-depth information about searching for colleges, along with advice from college students and educators.

Step 3: Decide what matters most to you

For some students, sports and activities are very important. Other students want a challenging academic environment. Look at your answers to the questions in Step 1. What do they say about you and what you may like in a college?

Step 4: Search for colleges

Use College Search to find colleges that match your preferences. Search for colleges by location, majors, size and more. There’s guidance to help along the way.

Step 5: Add colleges to your list

Check out individual profiles of the colleges that come up in your College Search results. When you see a college you like, click “Add to List” to save it to a favorites list. You can return to it later and refine your list as you go along.