I’ve made pretty clear that my approach to college applications is to treat the search like you’re beginning a relationship, and to watch out for the “am I worthy?’ mindset. There’s another common approach—one that I think stills falls into that mindset—that is both common and rational. Let’s think about it as the Transactional Approach to college admissions.

The Transactional Approach treats college admissions like a large purchase. (Of course, college really is a large purchase, costing thousands of dollars and putting most students into debt. But what I’m talking about here is choosing and applying to colleges as a purchase as well.) It treats the facts of your application—grades, test scores, activity list, and essays—as currency, and asks what’s the best school I can get into with this application? It usually bases “best school” on selectivity and rankings.