Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

I think mine went something like this (for undergrad):

1) Is the school at least four hours from home?
2) Can I afford it? Because of a strange set of circumstances (mostly having to do with the cost of living), in-state universities were not necessarily more affordable, but all schools that met this criteria were public universities--though certainly not all public universities fit the criteria.
3) Might it accept me? 
4) Does it have programs that interest me (this was not especially limiting--but extracurricular stuff mattered)?
5) Does it have a good academic reputation?
6) Of the schools on the list, which seemed like the best fit for me?
7) Did that school accept me? (Yes! Hooray--and on Wisconsin!!)

I just wanted to go to the best in-state school. Leaving the mitten at that point wasn't interesting to me. And U-M had this shiny allure, in part because nobody from my high school had gotten in across the previous 3 or 4 years, and I wanted to prove I could. The specific ways that Ann Arbor sounded so different from our fishing village - all kinds of people, happy - piqued me too.
My parents would not let me restrict my application pool to one school, however. So I also applied to Oakland University (easy application) and to Wayne State because I thought it was the second best school in the state. I'm not sure which school is 2nd best but I am now surprised I was so confident it was WSU.
When I received president scholarships or whatever to fully fund tuition, R&B and other stuff to WSU and OU, initially, they were not happy because I picked Michigan anyway. But within a year or two, they came around. As soon as I matriculated, I knew I did it right.

Overall rankings were not a factor.  I knew I was doing Broadcast Journalism (which is my undergrad degree), so I targeted Mizzou and Nebraska.   I also seriously considered playing football, which of course meant, not going to Mizzou or Nebraska.    Though I did get a letter encouraging me to walk-on with no promises.

I visited and applied to a few of the schools in the (DIII) Iowa Conference, also Dayton.  Amazing the monies that are thrown at you when you want to play football AND have strong grades/ACT/SAT.

Ultimately the finalists were Mizzou/Nebraska and Dayton.  My younger brother and I drove out to Columbia from Milwaukee (is that considered crazy?  Parents allow a 17 and 15 year old, on their own) . We watched Mizzou slaughter Illinois.   Anyways, it never did click for me.  I still applied/got accepted.  I kept an open mind.   Dayton kept misspelling my name, losing transcripts, administratively the place was a mess.   I spent a night with some students at their dorm, went out.  For the record, we had beer, no hookers.  Dayton was not my kind of town.

Nebraska had a quirk where it was (not anymore) easy to establish residency, which I did mere days after I graduated High School, as you weren't a 'resident' for tuition purposes until you were a state resident for six continuous months.  I paid one semester out of state tuition.  It was like $1,400 'in-state' a semester.  That was a huge value consideration.

I didn't consider a single school in my home state of WI. No grudge or anything, as I targeted both in the end for law school years later.

I chose the best engineering school that offered me a full scholarship.  I didn't grow up poor exactly, but there's no way I could have afforded Stanford or MIT even with the substantial financial assistance those schools are capable of providing.

academic rankings didn't matter a bit, football rankings made me chose UNL over the U of Iowa in 1981.

Didn't want to go to college at all.  Parents forced me.  Wanted a large University because I came from a small high school.  53 kids in my class.

How I picked my college:

1) Finances - started looking at Ohio Public Universities. Applied to Ohio State, and Ohio University, with a fall back application to Columbus State.
2) Engineering School - Dad and I toured OSU, and it was explained to me that engineers didn't have to take foreign languages. I hated my Spanish classes so much in High school, I made a major life decision on avoiding something I didn't like compared to doing something I wanted.
3) Escaping from under my parents - Now that I was accepted to OSU and their Computer Science Engineering department, I tried to see if I could a similar cost effective packages from another school that I got from OSU. I applied to Purdue, Illinois, Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech. I got accepted to 3, and GT pursued me with academic scholarships. So down to Atlanta we went. Man did I like their campus, and everything felt great about going there. Academics would have been cheaper, but boarding was "astronomical" compared to my father suddenly offering that I could stay in my bedroom rent free. (Senor year in High school step mom mandated I had to pay $400 a month for rent...)

So I was born a Buckeye, loved the Bucks and cemented a lifelong passion because I was lazy (avoid foreign language) and cheap (free boarding.)

I had wanted to be an engineer, so I would be the first in my family to go to Tech.  

Got a small scholarship to UGA and changed my mind.