It's that time of year again where many high school seniors are getting college acceptance letters. Not to toot my own horn, but I remember getting all of mine and thinking, "Great! Now if only I could just pick one..." Luckily I wasn't the only indecisive student to ever be tasked with such an important decision. My high school counseling office swooped in to save the day with a whole page of aspects to consider when choosing a college, such as cost, financial aid use, location, available major programs, environmental volume (read: whether or not the school was known as a party school), etc. Overall, I have to say it definitely made the whole selection process less overwhelming.

But now as a college junior trying to help other high school seniors with their choices, I'm finally realizing that while a lot of the things on the list my advisor gave me were very helpful, there were a few less-traditional points that were not mentioned that I only learned by being a college student and learning from my friends' and my own experiences. This list will provide in-depth coverage of five less spoken-about, maybe even slightly outlandish criteria that people rarely consider, but I realized may save some time later down the road for other future students paying for that four-year investment that costs most of us a pretty penny.

So listen closely, seniors...

1. Internal and external campus geographics.

Before I get to the more analytical points in this list, I have to bring up this oft-forgotten, but nonetheless important, criterion in choosing a school. When I was choosing schools, the list the counselors gave the students included "location," as in distance from home and climate differences. As helpful as that was, there were certain things that didn't exactly come to mind when I finally moved to my school.

First, my school is known for having a notoriously large campus. Quite literally on top of that are all the hills the campus itself is built on. As it was the only college campus I'd become familiar with, I didn't realize until later that other campuses could ever be smaller or less of an obstacle course. On the bright side, my friends and I like to think that we're staying in good health just by trekking to class every day.

Aside from the campus itself, I like to think of a metaphorical "external geographics": the distribution of attractions surrounding the campus. In my case, the area around my campus is known for great food and a beach easily accessible by both bus and car in 20 minutes or less. This availability of places to go to to relax off campus has saved my friends and me numerous times from developing a sense of cabin fever.

I cannot stress how equally important this more comprehensive definition of "location" is in choosing a college as the traditional meaning, so I suggest you make a list of all the colleges you're choosing between and take some time narrowing down your choices based on this first point alone. Information on local areas around colleges can easily be found with websites such as Yelp and Reddit, so if you're ever stuck, I suggest seeking some raw honesty from the users of those sites.

Done? Good. Now let's get to the real nitty-gritty of college comparisons...

2. Ease of switching between majors.

I'm an indecisive person. Knowing this, I planned as much as possible for myself, including finding my passion to decide on a job extremely early on and creating my own four-year plan during my first quarter of freshman year. Even then, my indecisive side prevailed and I ended up switching my major twice. Luckily for me, I just had to go into my student portal and select a new major from a drop-down menu. A few days later it was updated in my record and my classes rearranged themselves like technological magic. With that done, I could just switch a few things out in my four-year plan and get back to studying.

I told my friend going to a different school about this and received a look of shock. She told me about how she only considered changing her major once because at her school, switching a major required suffering through a lot of red tape, including many trips from building to building and office to office to get physical forms signed and submitted before anything was considered.

While this bureaucratic horror story is not true at every institution out there, neither is my case with the Drop-Down Menu of Indifference. Some schools require having a major's prerequisites done before being allowed to switch. For me, personally, this wouldn't have worked for my plans, as all of my basic prerequisites are very general, and I would've ended up with time wasted on classes I didn't need because I realized that the classes I actually didn't like were the ones with no prereqs but were open to declared majors only.

My ultimate solution to indecisiveness? Some self-discovery. Which brings us to our next topic...

3. Knowing your passion/interests.

Needless to say, this is one of the most cliché and well-known pieces of knowledge in all aspects of life and basic self-awareness. However, for many people, it's extremely difficult to discover their true interests; thus, I considered it something many people never really think about deep enough and it made it on this list.

This point essentially requires some basic soul-searching. Are you introverted or extroverted? What do you like to do when you're bored? Is there anything you could say you "nerd out" about? Does any subject continuously pick and prod at you until you fully understand it? These are the questions people ask themselves to find their true passions. For me, this was as simple as knowing that I had a knack for foreign languages and I wanted to know more how language works. That ultimately led me to my first linguistics major. Even as I changed my major twice, I knew that the linguistics part had to stay or I could never really be fully invested.

Notice how I didn't ask if there was anything that was particularly easy for you. It can be easy to fall into a trap of choosing a path because "I'm good at it and the field pays well," rather than "I have a genuine interest in it." Being good at something doesn't always equal a genuine interest or passion. As I got further into studying languages, things naturally started to become more difficult. It was my underlying curiosity about language that drove me to push through those difficult times and it's still a driving force for me today.

After getting a basic understanding of what you care about rather than what you're good at, you can really start to analyze and narrow down your choice of schools based on their dedication in or their history of that specific program of your interest. The more dedicated they are or longer they've had the program, the more likely they have more plentiful resources for you to take advantage of in your time there than at other schools.

Have too many interests? Why not pursue them all with our next topic...

4. Possibility of a double major

This hadn't even crossed my mind when I was choosing between colleges. If anything it seemed near impossible to me. Fast-forwarding three years, I'm going down that exact path. I was just so intrigued by all my classes that I suddenly wanted to study everything. I ended up double-minoring before eventually settling for my current plan of a double major with a single minor.

I'm taking the route that most people take with adding a minor to their studies: majoring in a topic with a high demand in the job market while minoring in a topic of personal interest. However, I thought about two very critical points in upgrading my minor to my second major: 1. I really wanted to study the topic I was passionate about without having to demote it to a minor, and 2. I desperately wanted to stand out to future employers. The ending solution was simple: apply for a double major.

Going through the application process, I continued to find even more benefits double majoring had in store. For example, getting two degrees in the four years it would take to complete my education was practically a steal considering that I'm essentially doubling my return on investment since I had gone to school expecting to leave with only one degree. It would even save money if I happened to take a fifth year to finish both programs. Meanwhile, no minor would ever show up anywhere besides my transcript. In the end, double majoring ended up being a very economically sound choice.

If you think you can handle it, anything goes here as long as you're organized enough. For example, one of my friends is doing biochemistry and violin performance, and another is doing international economics and psychology. Restrictions on double majoring can also vary among institutions, but I do recommend considering a double major even briefly and trying to plan for it if you happen to really like multiple programs at one of the schools on your list.

Of course not everyone is willing to potentially be a super senior, let alone be willing enough to go to school for four years for many reasons. This brings up our final point...

5. Possibility of early graduation

Some people have this thought out very early on. Granted it takes a bit more calculating, but in the end it can be a very economically rewarding decision as well.

More often for students who know they want to do one field of study or work in particular, this aspect of college can be well worth the time and effort put into planning everything out. Such planning can consist of your preferred major being particularly easier to finish at one college compared to the others. Another extremely helpful factor is the ability to take extra classes at a community college during the summers to finish some basic requirements. (That particular part can be started as soon as senior year ends and summer vacation begins, if you're that set on it!)

I love this tip especially because it can start helping even before senior year of high school. For my friends and me, community college classes were free as long as we were high school students. As a result, one of my friends my year came to school with the majority of her general education requirements done along with two associate degrees. Another of my friends took some community college classes throughout high school and didn't have to go through the stress of passing corresponding AP exams for the college credit (a topic for another day). I only took one trigonometry class, but I regret not taking more considering they would have been free as a student co-enrolling from the local high school. Even if I had taken some during my earlier summers after getting to college, the community college fees were notably cheaper than fees for summer sessions at my own school.

While considering the price of college overall can be very important, the time spent in college is also a big factor on that price tag, and getting out with that degree as fast as possible can save you from a couple extra loans you don't want to have, making for a more seamless transition into life after graduation.

To all the seniors out there planning for another four years of school, best of luck to all of you, and I hope this list can shave off even a fraction of the stress you're feeling. Just keep it up, and you'll be graduating from college in no time, with all the stress on picking a college now just a distant memory as it is for me.