Grew up in western PA and went to college in NYC in the early 90s . . . so, not so recent, but I have familiarity with the regional schools through friends & family . . .

One thing that helped me, and I imagine would still be true for a lot of kids, is visiting the campus and talking to current students can be very helpul. I did a summer road trip with my mother the summer after junior year to look at a bunch of colleges. And when I was accepted to my first choice school, which I had not yet visited, I was able to go to a prospective students weekend. I think it's really important to get a sense of campus life and whether you feel that it's a place where you would want to spend four years.

We had a few transfer students join our class during sophomore and junior years, so that can also be a possibility if someone doesn't get it right on the first try, but I often hear that tranfers have a different experience, i.e., they don't always feel they identify with a class since they went through a different orientation process. That may or may not be a factor to some people.

I'm not sure if I agree with going to a community college first . . . my experience with cc's in my area was that they had moved mostly into the area of vocational/technical/re-training education and don't necessarily prepare you for transition to a four-year college, as is a common practice on the west coast. Some four-year colleges might not accept transfer credits from a community college . . . you have to carefully research the policy at the college that you are interested in.

Another factor to look at is college (undergraduate only) vs. college within a university. Some people prefer a college with a focus on undergraduate education. I personally enjoyed the opportunity to interact with graduate students and to learn from them. Their advice was very valuable to me as I considered my options (work vs. more study) in my last year of college.