Determining "Best Fit"

[DidacticPrinter]

I know that idealistically both the school and the student should be looking at best fit. You will be accepted if you fit their criteria for a student; you should go to their school if it best fits the criteria that you have for a school. But I have a problem: I'm living internationally. I don't really have the time, money, or opportunity to go visit schools before I pick one. I'm going off of websites, e-mails, this forum, and Skype interviews alone to try and figure out which one will be the best fit for me. So I guess the question I have for you all here is this:

 

Without being able to go to the campuses, what are criteria are you looking at to decide which school will be the best fit for you? How heavily are finances weighing your decision? Well-known profs? What you're able to study? What categories should I put on my giant pro/con list for all of my schools to know which one is the best for me?

[the_sheath]

Location: Can I stand living there for 4-6 years?

What do I want to research? Does that University have professors there who research that?

POI's: ask them about their research, try to contact them at all.

prestige/rank, I guess?

Do they accept international students? How readily? Do they have funding?

And personally, if they ain't payin', I ain't goin'. I need funding to afford grad school

[Brisingamen]

I am struggling with similar questions. I found it really, really helps to talk to students who might also be international and preferably from a similar background/country. You may not have the same likes/dislikes, but they can give you a picture that's (relatively) closer to the impressions you would form by visiting a place yourself. 

 

For the rest, relying on Skype and email interaction alarms me too. So am looking forward to seeing what people have to say in response to your query. 

 

My decisions have been based on what people are researching, what kind of funding is available, which professors I might want to work with, the kind of interaction encouraged amongst students, general warmth and interest in my application, and attitudes towards/training for the job market. I also had to consider location to be near or with a significant other. I have brought my choices down to two; one program I've been accepted at and one that I'm waitlisted at. They both have blind spots. The one with the better location and a more realistic attitude to the job market (not entirely teaching focused) has less funding for international students. The one with superior funding and which jumped right on my application and accepted me into the program is the one which focuses only on teaching and which has the less convenient location. So it's a tough toss up. 

[LittleDarlings]

For me I didn't visit any of the schools, in all honesty I picked the schools I applied to for probably really dumb reasons (at least 2 of them) but for my top pick (OSU) I had lived in CBus for a short time so I know the area a little but not the campus, I just had good memories of being in the town. For Case it is a good school with a great program (for me) and it isn't super far from home. So I think location was a big thing to me, also cost. Without scholarships Case would be impossible, OSU is more reasonable. I didn't really look at professors much to be honest.

[iphi]

Here are my suggestions for picking a school while being too far away to visit:

 

1. Wikipedia the school, read about it. Check the student populations. How many undergrads? How many grad students? This is a big one for me because I like smaller schools, and I really don't like dealing with lots of undergrads (I'm talking 30-40k). You can also use it to read about the city in general to get a sense of where you'll be living.
2. Google image search! That should give you a pretty good idea of what the campus looks like. You can also try to find the building you'll be working in. This is good for the city you'll be living in too.
3. The school website (obvious). They often have webcams set up around campus as well as virtual tours
4. Use the City Guide in this forum to see what people have to say about the town where the school is located. They often tell you a lot about the demographics of the city, where is good to live, what there is to do, safety, etc.
5. Check weather averages on the Weather Channel or wherever to see what the weather will be like in all seasons and to get a sense of the climate. Cold/rainy, etc.
6. You can also check local crime reports through the city's police department if you want. Just be aware that not everything is reported -- I grew up in a very popular college town that tried to drastically cover up the number of sexual assaults that happened on campus.

[DGChaos]

Yeah. I'm trying to find out about universities without actually visiting them.

Google street view is invaluable to get a feel for the place. I'm going to contact a few students too to get to know the university better. There are also student clubs that can help you, so I'll be looking into those as well.