What do Lewisburg, PA, Brunswick, ME, Clinton, NY, Gambier, OH, Northfield, MN and Middletown, CT all have in common?

They are home to some of the finest examples of post-secondary education in the United States. Bucknell, Bowdoin, Hamilton, Kenyon, Carleton and Wesleyan along with about two to three hundred others are what makes this country so rich, so envied in the global educational hierarchy.

Why with all of the obstacles presented by endless application exigencies, restrictive immigration procedures, out-of-sight costs of attendance and all-too-often embarrassing cultural insensitivities, do foreign students to the tune of half a million a year continue to flock to these shores to be schooled? Simply put, because our schools are the best in the world! Sure there's Oxford and Cambridge, Polytechnique and HEC, Monash, Keio and McGill but for sheer numbers and overall quality, no country can rival ours. For this reason alone, there is no excuse for any candidate to be despondent about his or her chances in the college admissions sweepstakes.

The onus for constructing your list of possibilities, investigating them thoroughly, identifying those that best meet our needs and choosing a final version which represents the best choices available is squarely on you. With proper attention, focus and realistic expectations, this is not a terribly difficult exercise. There are however a few rules to be followed as we embark on this exciting quest. First, we will not play the "name game." What is Dartmouth anyhow? Or Stanford, Rice and Smith? Or Davidson, Bates and Oberlin? For one, they are wonderful examples of education at its finest. For another, they are about as different as they can be with very diverse communities, philosophies and pedagogies. Oh, and you may have heard about them, or not. My point is that if you think you know a place because you recognize the name; well, you don't. And as for rankings which purport to classify schools on some specious scale by compiling worthless data and employing idiotic methodologies, don't even bother.

Your mission, remember, is to figure out what works for you and find those institutions which value your unique characteristics, not the other way around. In so doing, you will cast your net widely, research all of those unusual names and places which you've never before thought about and come away with a working list with which to go forward.

Now, the real fun begins; the sense of discovery when your list of names takes on shape and size as you delve more deeply into their cultural identities. Read the guides, spend time exploring the web sites, take the virtual tours, scan the school newspapers, email a professor in a field you find interesting, join the chats, correspond with a student and, eventually, arrange for an actual campus visit. Once there, you'll do it all. Take the campus tour, ask questions regardless of how shy you may be, listen to the answers, arrange for an interview where they are offered, remember the name of the person with whom you spoke (it's a good idea to get their card and write a simple thank you note, plus you may want to continue the conversation), then go out on your own and really look around. Visit a dorm, a lecture hall or classroom, the lounge or student center, screw up your courage and ask a student what they like about being there.

Now that list of yours has some flesh and, when you get around to refining it, you'll know why certain schools will remain and others can just as easily be discarded. But, it will be your list for your reasons and to your specifications. You know what's good for you.