When I was a lad, choosing a college or university to study at entailed a trip to a library and endless hours researching glossy prospectuses. Nowadays, we have college search engines to the rescue.

Budding academics, aka young people delaying their entry into the hopeless workplace, can sort through thousands of educational establishments and courses in the comfort of their own home. Computer access means they can ogle photos of good-looking students and yelp with joy at the prospect of endless partying, without regard to glares from snooty librarians.

And you know what, these niche college search engines actually deliver accurate results. You would hope so, when you consider the fairly restricted amount of info they have to handle. When compared to the universal knowledge of man that Google and co have to index and search, college board has an easy job matching naive young people to money hungry colleges.

The college selection process

First, what type of school? Decide what letters you want after your name. 2 years of study gets you the equivalent of a big tick, 4 gets you the chance to call yourself a BA, or BS with a little c.

Second, are you a public or private kind of student? Either way your folks will be bankrupted, and the republicans will still accuse the deans and lecturers at your college of being subversive lefties.

Third, size matters. Are you a small town kind of student, enjoying one-on-ones and a candlelit evening meal in the refectory, or do you like the rough and tumble of 15000 testosterone filled colleagues, bumping and grinding you in every class.

And then, setting. I can't sum it up any better than the original text.

Are you drawn to the big city, to wilderness, or to a little of each?

Ooh, a little wilderness please.

The College Board provides yet more angles to help oyu to sort through 3800 establishments. Like, which part of the country do you want to study? I would go as far from home as possible, so that any embarrassing incidents only go noticed by people who don't know me.

Having input New York as a potential locale, you get down to a mere 271 options.

So, two pages in to the selection process, at long last you have to decide what you want to major in. (This process is very telling. Rather than starting you off with a selection of courses relevant to your abilities and disciplines of choice, they want you to be socially comfortable before all else. Huh!)

So to keep it real, I plumped for French Studies as a major. There were still 271 possible colleges to choose from.

And the cost of tuition. Ouch. Based on what it actually cost me to study in the UK a few years ago, I put it at $25000 and asked for colleges offering financial aid to International Students.

How competitive do you want your college to be?
Wow, how times have changed. You used to have to have brains to go to university, now you just need to have gone to school, which as I understand it, is a legal requirement for all children? Just to be elitist, I asked for selective. Wouldn't want to share a class with a bunch of dunderheads for 4 years. How many colleges want a picky git like me? 12!

What sports do you like? I like cycling but there is no option for that. I guess after what Lance Armstrong achieved, there is no point trying to be the best cyclist in history any more. I chose film as a pastime. So out of 12 colleges in New York, how many will take me when I click the Next button?

Unfortunately there are no New York colleges willing to offer me a place. Either they charge more than $25,000 for tuition, or they charge more than $25,000 for tuition!!

So I don't get a chance to select housing or academic programs, or whether I want to be the only white guy at an all black female college.

To be fair, this college board search procedure is very comprehensive and I could really get some great pointers to what it was I wanted to study and where. Do you think it is something that help you or your family members make an educated decision? I know I preferred the glossy brochures, but look where I ended up studying!

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