How to Start Looking at Colleges... Junior Year

I'm a junior in high school and lately all anyone has asked me is "Where are you going to college?" "Do you know what you are going to major in yet?" and to be honest I know now less than I did when I was in middle school.

See the thing is in elementary school I was set on being a lawyer and going to Harvard--you guessed it, I watch Legally Blonde a lot--and then in middle school for some random reason I had my heart set on attending the University of New Mexico. But now that I'm in high school, going to a medical school, I sorta know what I want to do but I'm more lost than ever. 

So since it's so important (according to my family and most of my teachers) that I know what college(s) I want to attend I figured I would do something about it. 

1. The first thing I did was look up colleges/universities in the area that I want to live in. Although most financial aid people that come and talk to us at school advise against this I know that in order for my mental health to be in check that I can not be somewhere hot.
2. From there I went onto all of those colleges websites and looked to see if they offered the program that I want to get my bachelors in. For anyone wondering I want to major in Secondary Education and teach English.
3. I then looked up the weather and the town/city in which the college is located. 
4. After that I started looking at actual cost of attendance (COA) and in my document I highlighted the cheapest ones green (15-29 thousand), the middle ones light purple (30-35 thousand), and the most expensive red (36 thousand and up). 
5. The next step that I took was to get a map and pin point the location of all the colleges
6. Then I made a list in what order I would visit the colleges. 

So that is as far as I have gotten but the next step I will take is to figure out when in the summer I want to visit the colleges and then contact them to set up a time and date. Hope this helps some other teens out there that are struggling with what to do about college. Keep in mind that I am a planner and researcher so this type of this is exciting to me. Another thing to note is that if you don't know what you want to study then start with step one and then at step two just see what the college offers for majors and minors. If they offer things that seem intriguing and are interesting to you add it to your list. Another thing that you could add to your list would be what to do in the town/city in which the college is located. For example, since I want to continue doing Irish dance, I looked up if there were any dance schools in the area where I would be living. Hope this helps even if it just gets you thinking about what the future may hold.

- Kat