There are a number of points that you will want to consider when you start your college search. More than anything, this will at least help cut down the number of options that you have after performing a college search. It doesn't matter if you are doing your college search online or if you are working through the hundreds of prospectuses that your high school has, the points to consider are the same.

Before you start your college search you should identify your priorities. Now these are not going to be the same for everyone, obviously. It is important that you list your priorities in the order that they matter to you and not what you think is expected. Here are some of the most common points to consider to help you in your college search, they are in alphabetical order so as not to place them in any apparent order of priority:

* Areas of Study

* Athletics

* City Size

* Disabilities

* Ethnicity

* Location

* Student Body Size

The first point to consider in your college search is which major you want to take. It may sound an obvious point but a lot of people begin their college search without having any idea what they want to study. Try taking inspiration from subjects that you enjoy or jobs that you would like to do.

If you are a member of your high school sports team, whatever the sport, you may want to target your college search to include colleges that have a good reputation for your sport. On the other hand, you may not like sport at all so you could actually use that as a way to remove excess colleges from your college search results.

Many people want to include the size of the city that the college is located in as part of their college search. If you prefer the bright lights then you don't want to include colleges that are miles from the nearest major city in your shortlist.

Colleges that cater for students with certain disabilities may be high on your list of requirements for your college search. If you have a disability it is important to discover which of the colleges have adequate facilities for your needs.

Ethnicity is a controversial point to include in your college search but there are specialist black, Asian and Hispanic colleges and you may want to include or exclude these, as appropriate, from your college search.

The location of your chosen college can be extremely important and should be included as a factor in your college search. Basically, do you want to be close to home or do you want to travel to a completely new area?

The student body size can have a number of different impacts on your college search. The higher the number of students at a particular college is, the more likely that the college is to have a wide range of activities. However, the down side of large student numbers is that there is likely to be less opportunity for personal attention in classes.