CHERYL HIMMELSTEIN FOR TIME GETTING THE LOWDOWN A college fair in Anheim, Calif.

The time has come to take a hard look at colleges. But with so much information out there — not to mention papers due and a school dance just around the corner — the urge to procrastinate is understandable. Resist! The earlier you start, the easier the task will be. After all, making a decision about four years of your life should take a lot of time and thought. Here's a step-by-step approach to making a good decision.

Who Am I?
The first step in your college search is to figure out who you are and what you want out of college. This doesn't mean you need to go into therapy, but you do need to assess your academic and extracurricular abilities and interests. They will help you decide what you want out of your college experience.

Ask yourself questions: Am I really the M.I.T. engineer my parents want and expect me to be? Do I want my teachers and classmates knowing me by name, or would I rather hide myself in a sea of faces? Do I want to be able to go home on weekends, or do I want to get as far away from my parents as possible? Do I want to play a sport and if so, which one?

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"Begin with what you're looking for and don't give it a particular college name," suggests Steven Pemberton, director of educational programs at CollegeLink.com. "Come up with four things that are important to you in a school. They could be the size, location, what the students wear or how competitive it is."

A good way to figure out whether you want a big or small campus, rural or urban setting, is to visit the different kinds of colleges in your area. Check out the big state U., the small, private liberal-arts college and the regional or state school near you to get a feel for what might fit.

A Guiding Hand
Instead of plopping yourself down with a 5-in.-thick college guidebook and painfully leafing through every single page, start talking to your school guidance counselor, family and friends. Your guidance counselor, especially, should be able to help you come up with some names of colleges that fit your criteria.

Get to know your counselor so he can get a sense of what college might suit your personality. "Students can type their interests into a college-selection software package," says Brian Lynch, director of undergraduate admissions at DePaul University in Chicago, "but they really need to determine with their counselors what their interests actually are and how those would manifest themselves into a college and subsequent career."

The Write Stuff
With hundreds of books and thousands of brochures on every college in the nation, it's hard to know what to read and where to start. All the information out there can be valuable, but you must always be aware of who's writing it and when it was published. A brochure from the University of Brigadoon will never show pictures of a tiny dorm room or what looks like dog food being served in the dining hall. The average SAT scores at Downside State may be 100 points higher now than they were when your particular guide was published.

The viewbooks you receive from colleges will have current information on a school's size, academic programs, campus life and admissions. Remember, though, that they are essentially marketing tools. "It is not wise for students to decide that a college is appropriate or inappropriate solely on a viewbook, website or video presentation," says Frank Burtnett, president of Education Now, an educational research and training firm. "Most viewbooks contain at least one photo of a small group of students interacting with a professor under a tree, near a body of water. This looks great in a viewbook but is sometimes more difficult to find when visiting." Fill out the inquiry card in the viewbooks to request more detailed information if you're interested.

As for college guidebooks from independent publishers, always refer to at least two or three because they are often written with a certain point of view. The subjective guidebooks where students rate their food, parties and professors are good for getting the inside scoop, but understand that they are certain students' opinions, not everyone's. Remember also that students' opinions of a school can vary from year to year.

Guidebooks are useful for getting facts and figures on a school. A school's size, average test scores and class size, number of students who live on campus, percentage of nonwhite students, percentage of out-of-state students and percentage of students who graduate in four years can tell you a lot about what a campus will be like.

College Meet Market
College fairs can be crowded and a little overwhelming. However, they can provide a good introduction to a college and a way to establish contact with a school. Before going to a fair, make a list of schools that fit your criteria and that you'd like to learn more about. Otherwise, every college's table will look exactly the same, and you won't come out with anything more meaningful than those high-pitched whistles they hand out for free.

Stop and talk to the representatives, and try to get past the "What major are you interested in?" questions. Kevin Kropf, associate director of admissions at Albion College in Michigan, suggests, "Walk around in a small group, and remember that the best college for you may be of no interest to your friends. Avoid the 'I'll take something from every table and read it later' syndrome, and, if possible, talk to the representatives about upcoming open houses and ask for their e-mail addresses."

The National Association for College Admission Counseling is launching an online college fair this fall, where you can log on and have a live chat with an admissions officer. The site, www.onlinecollegefair.com, will always feature profiles of different colleges, but the live aspects will be available only on 10 different dates throughout the coming school year.

Virtual Reality
Speaking of the Net, you should eventually wend your way to the Web. Most every college has a site now, and more detailed information, such as course offerings, are often posted there. Take advantage of this opportunity. Many even put their application online, providing a preview of what will be required of you should you decide to apply.

The main advantage of the Internet is that it can be a channel to communicate with a school immediately and directly. If you can't find what you want at the school's website, there are always e-mail addresses posted for people who can help you out. Like the viewbooks, though, websites, and especially virtual tours, won't show a college's flaws. Look at the personal websites of students and faculty to get a better feel for what kind of people go to the college.

If you haven't already started getting e-mail from colleges, be prepared. Last summer was the first time the College Board released to colleges e-mail addresses (along with the regular mailing addresses) of students who took the SATs and indicated they wanted colleges to send them information. This means that not only will you get the usual brochures from these schools, but they'll also send you e-mail. Ray Ulmer, a former admissions officer at La Salle University in Philadelphia, suggests that you use this e-mail as a means to communicate personally with a university. "Students are not going to be able to make any significant determination on whether a college is right for them based on an e-mail," says Ulmer, who is vice president of communications at TargetX.com. "What this may do is enable them to begin a dialogue with colleges they think they have potential with, and open up channels with admissions officers, students, alumni and professors."

If you don't get e-mail from a college you're interested in, contact an admissions officer there yourself, via e-mail or phone, and ask specific questions you can't find answers to elsewhere. The admissions officer can probably provide the answer or refer you to a professor or student.

Finally, there are many independent websites that will help you search for colleges. Although they may come up with good suggestions, they tend to be quite clinical. "Most of them focus on matching a particular major, a particular state or region, and other things that may have little relationship to a good fit," says Dan Crabtree, director of admissions at Wheaton College in Illinois. "Do most people who go to Yale choose it because it is in New Haven, or is it because of something about Yale itself? Most students change majors while they are in college, so is a major a good way to narrow down a search? Internet searches simply cannot capture the 'personality' of a college."

The Real Thing
The best way to learn about a college is to see it for yourself. You'd be surprised at the difference between reality and virtual reality.

"I was set on going to Vanderbilt University because it's in the South, a smaller school, and I thought it would be like my high school," says Meaghen Foley, a Texas native who is now at Northwestern University. "I went to visit, and by the end of the weekend I was so ready to get back on the plane. The physical layout of the campus was broken up, the student body was really homogeneous, and everything was really different from what I thought it would be." Turned out the Windy City was more to her liking.

When you go to a campus, try to immerse yourself in college life. This doesn't mean you have to guzzle beer with football fans, but do eat in the cafeteria, read the student newspaper, sit in on a class, talk to students at the student center, spend a night in a dorm, and, of course, go on the campus tour. Going into the library can tell you how competitive a school is, and watching the interaction between faculty and students can reveal how involved or removed professors are.

Burtnett says the biggest and most popular bulletin board on campus can often be a major storyteller, with hidden messages about the school. "Two zillion three-by-five cards searching for a Friday-afternoon ride to Philly suggest that the campus may be a ghost town on weekends," Burtnett cautions.

Talk to as many people as possible — both students and professors — and ask them what they like and don't like about the school. Don't let a snowstorm, an angry student who just failed his midterm or a cute tour guide unduly sway your opinion of the school. Keep an open mind for as long as possible.

Most of all, "take a notebook and write down your reactions immediately," says Maria Bittinger, an independent college counselor in Minnesota. "Otherwise campuses all blend together, and you won't remember a thing when you're making your final decision." Be sure to note particular features of the school that please you.

Finally, before you leave a campus, Lynch suggests, "do an 'out of body' activity and picture how you would see yourself in a year or two on that campus." That's where you want to be, right?

Source: TIME/The Princeton Review's The Best College For You 2001