The bestselling novel Divergent is set in a dystopian society divided into five factions, each based on a different personality trait. Citizens are forced to choose their faction as teenagers, a decision that defines their entire lives. That choice determines their career options, social groups, clothing styles, and behavior from that point forward. It’s easy to see why teenagers relate to this book: for people like my sister, a high school rising junior who has literally no idea what she wants to do with her life, the process of deciding which colleges to apply to can seem like something out of a dystopian nightmare.

Narrowing down the schools to which I planned to apply was the hardest part of the college decision process for me. (I applied to thirteen schools. Please don’t do this). However, I still learned a lot of valuable things from the process. Here are five things everyone looking at colleges should know.

1. Visit any campus you have the opportunity to visit. At this point in the process, you probably have no idea where you're going, but visiting nearby campuses can be a great way to start looking. Even if you're not interested in the school in question, campus tours can help you get a feel for what the environment is generally like at small liberal arts schools, large state universities, campuses in the city, college towns, and so on. And if you happen to be traveling to a different part of the country, try to make some time to look at schools in that area! City campuses as a whole tend to have some common characteristics, but a campus in, say, Madison, Wisconsin is going to be different from a campus in Chicago. Tours are also a nice way to familiarize yourself with how college tours and information sessions work, and can provide a basis for comparison once you start looking seriously at schools.

2. Establish definitive criteria. Start your search by deciding three things: whether you want to leave your home state, how big you want your school to be, and whether you want to be in an urban or rural area. Your answers to these questions can change over time (I was dead set on living near a city but ended up committing to a school located in Literally The Middle Of Nowhere, Ohio), but having an idea in mind is a helpful guideline for narrowing down your search. Then, pick a starting point (mine was schools that had strong programs in my major, but yours could be one of many things: a campus with a supportive community for people of your racial or ethnic group, religion, or political ideology; a sport or extracurricular you enjoy; or high-quality financial aid) and look for schools that fit that category and have a desirable size or location. You'll find some schools you knew about already, but others might surprise you! I was lucky enough to have excellent college counselors who helped me with this process, but there are lots of great resources both in print and on the Internet to help you. Which leads me to my next point:

3. Research! Once you've got a list of schools that meets your criteria, do some more in-depth research on the schools! School websites and mailings are a great source of information, but remember that this information is geared towards making the school look as attractive as possible. Looking at websites such as Niche and College Confidential can be helpful, but remember that this might give you an overly negative image of the school (these are anonymous reviews on the Internet, after all). Many of my friends and I have found the most helpful resource to be College search books. My personal favorite was the Fiske Guide To Colleges, which includes a helpful, bolded summary at the beginning of each school’s entry and a list of “Best Buys”, or schools with great academics and low tuition. I also highly recommend Loren Pope’s Colleges That Change Lives, which lists relatively obscure but incredible schools that are less selective and more affordable than a lot of more well-known schools. A friend of mine actually turned down an offer of admission at the University of Chicago to attend the University of Puget Sound, which she discovered by reading this book.

4. Don’t be afraid to cross a school off your list. If you’re applying to a school solely because your parents went there, because you feel like you should apply to an Ivy League school, because you already took the time to visit and you feel like you might as well, or any other reason than “I want to go to school there”: take it off. Don’t look back. Seriously. If you don’t want to go there, don’t spend time and money applying. That being said:

5. Have safeties you like. Once you’ve looked at the colleges that meet your criteria, it’s very likely that you’ll discover The School Of Your Dreams: perfect location, perfect size, great academics, socially comfortable. That’s awesome! Go you! But make sure you apply to a few less-selective schools that you’d be almost as happy attending. If I hadn’t gotten into my top choice school, I wouldn’t have been happy, but I wouldn’t have been crushed, either, because I had lots of great options to choose from. I promise you, there are plenty of schools where you’ll be just as happy as you would be at your top choice. You just have to find them.

Deciding where to apply looks impossibly daunting from a distance, but if you keep a cool head and do your research, you’ll find the right school for you.