List of Colleges

For the next few weeks, we'll be posting advice from current college juniors and seniors, as well as recent graduates, about creating a list of schools where you will apply. We've had some terrific responses from those who know best about this step in applying, including the choices -- and mistakes -- they made, the things they wish they had thought about, and their recommendations for today's high school juniors. Take advantage of the 20/20 hindsight of these students and recent grads about what they learned after they arrived on campus.

Valerie Kuznik from Cleveland, Ohio, now attending Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, looks at the characteristic that many students often start with -- the size of a college -- and provides some insight into what that meant for her: